the waiting is the hardest part

waiting. delayed gratification. patience. it's easier to try to teach this concept to someone than to practice it yourself. and it's one of those virtues that you just don't appreciate until you get older. waiting might not ever be easy or a lot of fun, but the more life experiences or screw ups you make, the more you realize the value of it.
last thursday was 'book buy back" day for wil at school. left to his own plans for the day, this would not have been high on the priority list of things to do. especially since he had to take his books to sell at 7:00 a.m. on the last day of school. so we dangled the carrot and told him that if he got everything together and took the books, he could keep the money. our plans for his "earnings" were to save the money and use it this summer when he goes downtown and needs cash for whatever he and his friends might end up doing. this way, he always has some mad money. he is mowing his granddad's lawn this summer as well, so the opportunity to earn some money for other things that he really wants to buy...like video games or bass guitars... is there too.
welllll...he really wants the video game now. he has devised and presented us with a plan to use his "mad money" for it so he can go ahead and purchase said game tomorrow. he will use his lawn mowing earnings to pay back the "mad money" fund as he makes it weekly. truthfully, this plan is not a problem. but the point we are trying to make about money management and delayed gratification will be missed if we buy into wil's plan. i want him to earn the money and save up to buy the game. how do you teach the value of waiting, delayed gratification and patience when it is still so hard to appreciate as an adult? and on a greater level and in the future, how do you sit back and let your child have some independence, make some decisions, knowing it will be a mistake? how do you let go and trust that at some point he or she will get it and learn from the mistakes? i guess you have to look at your own life and know that somehow you survived the mistakes...big or small...and learned a lesson or acquired a virtue.