Hanukkah has passed, along with the long holiday — the first little sign that the end of the year is just around the corner. Not the calendar year, but the school year itself — because soon it’s report cards, and right after that Passover, then more report cards, and summer. Poof! The year is gone.

Not really, of course, but imagine if we could play with time like that — if we had a remote control that lets us move forward and backward, skip the tough or boring chapters, and replay the pleasant ones…

Until that technology develops (I’m ready to start a Kickstarter!), we’ll probably have to rely on patience—and help our kids develop it too. In this era where everything is instant and fast, a short video feels to today’s kids like watching a long, detailed historical series felt to us back then—something that requires a lot of patience to get through. Patience is a precious commodity, and remember, you can’t buy it in any store, even if you’re a shopping pro…

Getting upset is okay, but it’s not very effective in the long run. So today, I decided to write about using art to develop patience!

Why patience?

Patience helps us adapt and build a more flexible life—one full of success and fulfillment. Patient children accept boundaries in a way that benefits them and allows them to function better. They’re more attentive to the world and have a healthier connection with themselves that matches reality. Most likely, they’ll grow up to be adults who experience less frustration and stagnation, and who see the world as a place where it’s good to live and possible to succeed. I didn’t just make this up, honestly!

Have you heard of the “Marshmallow Test”?

The Marshmallow Test, first developed and conducted in the 1960s at Stanford University by psychologist Walter Mischel, is considered one of the most influential experiments in psychology. The study aimed to investigate the development of patience and the ability to delay gratification in young children, specifically those aged 2 to 4 years. In the experiment, children were given the choice to receive one marshmallow immediately or wait for a short period and receive two marshmallows later. Beyond simply measuring self-control, the experiment also examined how this early ability to delay gratification related to important emotional, social, academic, and career outcomes later in life. The findings suggest that children who showed greater patience and self-control tended to experience better life outcomes in multiple areas.

Each child entered an empty room with a single marshmallow placed on a plate. They were told that they could eat the marshmallow immediately or wait patiently alone in the room for a few minutes. If they succeeded in waiting, they would receive an additional marshmallow as a reward.

About two-thirds of the children tested couldn’t resist the temptation; some ate the marshmallow as soon as the experimenter left the room.

A decade after the experiment, Mischel followed up with the participants and examined various measures: SAT scores, attention difficulties, behavioral problems, stress coping abilities, and social skills. The findings clearly showed that those who had failed to delay gratification ten years earlier had lower abilities and more challenges compared to the children who had demonstrated patience. Based on this, it was concluded that the ability to delay gratification is acquired early in life and is highly relevant to healthy development across different areas of life.

Convinced? I hope so…

So what do art, working with materials—and patience—have in common?

Patience in the context of art nurtures creativity, frees creative blocks, and allows the work and materials to “rest” and change along the way. It gives the artist a chance to “sleep on it,” think more about what they’re working on, and return to it later. When working patiently with materials, you realize you don’t have to — and often shouldn’t — decide exactly how the final piece will look. A starting point, inspiration, or idea is great and can have its place at any stage, but just as importantly, you can also let go of them (without judgment, not because they “weren’t good enough,” but because they’ve served their role in the process and now they’re evolving, being replaced, or kept in your heart for another time and place. Or maybe a bit of all of these).

Some materials, by their nature and properties, demand a process-oriented approach. Their life cycle changes over time, and they require more time than other materials. Kind of like certain people. They don’t surrender immediately or adapt easily to drastic changes; they need time to settle. Their interaction with other materials (or with the people creating with them) affects them deeply, so they exist at a different, slower pace.

I’m talking about materials like plaster, concrete, clay, paper pulp, fabric paints, and oil paints—materials that require working in stages with specific waiting times in between. This quality doesn’t really match today’s fast-paced lifestyle, which is why many people avoid these materials. Besides needing to rely on patience, these materials often have a reputation for being “difficult to work with,” requiring complex skills and extensive prior knowledge.

Actually, not necessarily.

Of course, it’s always possible to become skilled in any material—learning is always good and enjoyable, and each of these materials is a world of its own. That said, there’s also room for an intuitive, more instinctive approach to working with them. To me, the main thing is how you position yourself in relation to the materials—the understanding that they aren’t necessarily here to become something, to serve a practical purpose, or to decorate a corner of your home. If any of those things happen and bring you joy, that’s wonderful! But it’s not a given, and it’s not what defines the quality or meaning of working with them.

Information, tools, and practical ideas for creating are abundant online and easily accessible. If we can learn how to cook, fix things, knit (and much more—how to give birth, build houses, or even make bombs!), why not get a basic understanding of how to work with materials we’re unfamiliar with, even if just as a first step? It’s worth trying and seeing how it feels. It’s also a positive message for kids—that it’s good and okay to try and explore. Nobody is born a master in any field, but if you don’t try, you don’t learn anything.

You can also try (carefully and safely) together with your kids and show them that even you “grown-ups” (when did that happen???) don’t know everything and aren’t “good” at everything. It’s obvious to us, but not always clear to children.

I want to add a caveat here: experimenting and being a good, creative role model for kids is great—but it’s also important to be comfortable and authentic. Don’t do things you can’t stand having around the house, because that usually leads to the opposite result—stress and frustration around working with materials. That’s less helpful to the goal. We also need to recognize our own pace, be patient with ourselves, avoid pushing where it doesn’t fit, and take the time we need.

There are materials that require patience because the effect they create takes a long time to emerge, usually due to their small size and the abundance of details and parts. These are materials where the work resembles assembling a complex puzzle—beads, mosaic tiles, handicrafts like knitting, sewing, embroidery, weaving, and painting or coloring mandalas, among others. Materials of this kind don’t really change over time and have plenty of patience themselves. You can go through very long processes with them and even work reversibly, meaning it’s easy to change your mind and go back. To me, that’s part of their charm—you can unravel, “undo” your work, and continue differently, and that’s completely fine. As a dedicated craft lover, I’ve already written quite a bit about many materials in this family—feel free to scroll back and read…

When working on a stable base, it’s easy to preserve it over time, allowing for a process-oriented, ongoing approach. At my home, in the space between the fridge and the kitchen cabinets, I keep several foam boards. My kids already know they’re welcome to grab those boards and work on them, and they do so with great enjoyment together. Despite their significant age differences, this is one of their favorite shared activities. They scribble and draw using pencils, oil pastels (Panda brand), and markers, stick on stickers and newspaper clippings, and those who already know how sometimes write (though honestly, even those who don’t “know” often mimic writing and feel proud and praised for their efforts).

Beyond the great joy of creating, they really enjoy closely examining the boards and remembering what they made during previous sessions. These boards are already several years old (!) and they absolutely refuse to part with them, even though the edges are starting to wear out.

This is one way to do it, and it has many advantages. Of course, it can be applied to any surface, even very small ones, and not just in a collaborative way. The idea is to create a base (literally) that you can return to at any moment—whether or not inspiration strikes in a clear and dazzling way, simply because it feels right to work with the material at that time. Even if there are long gaps between sessions, and without any pressure about finishing the project or reaching a specific goal. It’s there, waiting for us, with no expectations. It’s an open invitation with no expiration date.

So here we are—I hope your patience hasn’t run out after all this. I invite you to work slowly, without knowing exactly what you’re aiming for, to discover as you go, and to change your mind countless times. It’s all good.