Time – it’s a big topic and a challenging concept to explain. Yet introducing the idea of time and teaching your child about time passing is really important to help them understand their day-to-day routine and the world around them.
Don’t panic! There’s absolutely no need to be teaching your child how to tell the time on a clock right now. Yet there are some small steps you can take and fun activities that you can do to help your child get to grips with the general concept of time and what it entails.
Teaching your child about time will help them understand the need to speed up their actions at certain points of the day (such as getting ready to leave the house) and that they can also enjoy slowing down at other points.
The Concept of Time
When introducing the concept of time to children, it’s important to make sure any explanations you give are age appropriate.
Time is an extremely abstract concept so it’s really important to give children the chance to experience and understand time in ways that make sense to them.
One of the first things you can do is to introduce the idea of time passing. This can often develop naturally when they start to learn about days of the week, times of the day and months of the year. Visual aids are brilliant here and there are lots of great resources you can use online.
Top Tips to Help Your Toddler or Preschooler
1. Help your child experience what certain lengths of time feel like.
For preschoolers, you may want to let them help you set an alarm on your phone or clock for 5 minutes or 1 hour. They’ll love seeing the difference between lengths of time and eagerly awaiting the alarm going off.
For a great visual tool, why not buy a sand timer so your child can watch the sand moving and connect it to the idea of time? Some parents have used this type of timer for everyday chores such as teeth brushing with their children to help them start to manage their own time.
2. Create and keep to a daily routine
Daily routines naturally develop in most families with children – from getting up at the same time and eating breakfast, to following a sequence of events throughout the day that is largely similar to the day before.
Talk to your child about the idea of morning, lunchtime, afternoon and evening. Talk about the things that you do at each stage of the day and how time passes to take you through to the evening and when they go to bed.
You could always make some sequence cards with your child that you can jumble up and challenge them to put into an order to show how a normal day flows.
3. Talk to your child about time throughout the day
As adults, we check the time over 100 times a day. Think about the moments when you do and consider how you can involve your child.
If you’re at an airport, you could show them the arrivals board and talk about the times that aeroplanes arrive and depart. If you’re at home, you can talk to them about how long you’re going to cook something in the oven. If you’re in the car, ask them if they can guess how long the journey will take.
Once your child has a better grasp on time throughout the day you could start to talk about time more generally – introducing the days of the week, the months of the year and events that happened in their past (such as when they were babies or before they were born).
The Benefits of Children Understanding More About Time
Consider all the times that we tell children to hurry up, or to slow down during the day. It can be incredibly frustrating for them to have so little control of their own time and no real understanding of what it entails.
Helping your child to understand more about time and talking about it with them openly can really help to ease tantrums and frustration when they resist moving on from a task.
Even before children can tell the time on a clock, you can start to give them 5-minute warnings or show them a timer that will count down to when they need to get ready.
Teaching your child about time also helps to build the foundation for key life skills such as time management. Children will be better equipped to understand how long tasks take to finish, or when they have time to play or engage in fun activities. If children learn to control their time they can also check in with themselves and notice when they might need to rest or slow down.
In summary, introducing the concept of time to children is an important step in helping them understand their daily routine and the world around them. While teaching them to tell time on a clock may not be necessary at this stage, there are small steps and fun activities that can be taken to familiarize children with the general concept of time. By experiencing and understanding time in ways that make sense to them, children can learn to manage their own time and develop essential life skills such as time management.
Moreover, understanding time can help alleviate tantrums and frustration by giving children a sense of control and awareness of their tasks and activities. By engaging in conversations about time throughout the day and incorporating visual aids and routines, parents can empower their children to navigate their day-to-day lives with greater ease and efficiency.