Tonight with your 5 to 8 year old
The prompt
“When was waiting your turn really, really hard for you recently?”
What to listen for
If they can name the moment and how they felt, they're showing real honesty about a genuinely hard skill, waiting is tough at this age, and admitting it takes some trust in you.
If they say it's always hard or that they usually just interrupt, that's useful to know without judgment; it just means this is a skill still very much in progress, worth practicing gently together.
If they say "I don't know," ask about a specific recent moment, like waiting for a turn on a game or waiting for you to finish talking.
What this tells you
How honestly they talk about struggling to wait shows how much patience is still developing and how safe they feel admitting it's hard.