So much to do, and such little time!
Isn’t this a predicament that we all face? Time often becomes an untameable life companion. Rather than flow with time, we are constantly running against it. However, learning some clever and smart techniques and an early initiation into recognising how best to organise the finite time that you have can help your child learn to be more productive and who knows, by extension, you!
Children of the 21st century have much to accomplish. From doodling, to mastering alphabets and numbers, learning dance and music, focusing on play, and of course studying – there are a multitude of things that they have to focus on. Add to this the pull of hand-held devices with its attractive world of music, videos and games – and you’ll suddenly realise that the child is not sleeping on time, eating on time and rather than mindfully live through experiences, is hurrying through them all.
Time, as experienced by your child, hence, needs careful handling. Here are some basic and easy to follow tips and tricks to gift your child a happy and fulfilling 24-hour clock.
- TALK ABOUT TIME
While it sounds vague, it isn’t so. Talk to your children about what they did today. Talk to them about what they would like to do tomorrow. Go over how long they slept, how long they played, how long they ate. Gently, help them get familiar with the very abstract concept that time is. When broken down into finite periods experienced by your children, time becomes more comprehensible. Let your children develop their own vocabulary of time.
When children grow up, talk to them about more complex aspects of time. Stretch it to seasons, to phases of maturing, to ambition and all the time they need to spend in order to make their ambitions come true. Let them determine the order and prioritisation of time themselves.
- MAKE TIME VISUAL
By this, we mean, simply, give your children a brightly coloured schedule to follow. Adults are equipped with several technology driven prompts and apps which help them remember appointments, meetings, movie timings, birthdays etc. For kids, let this scheduling become a hands-on activity. Remember, when you do make a schedule for your child, co-create it. Let it become a cyclical chore you enjoy together. Time well spent together, after all, is one which transmutes into beautiful memories for tomorrow.
For olderkids, infuse into the time table a sense of estimation and a sense of determining and changing priorities. For example, the schedule you create at the start of the session is going to vary enormously from the schedule created for examinations. Maximum creativity will be used while creating a schedule when kids own all their time – vacations!
- NO COMPROMISE TIME
There are certain rituals of daily life, which should be practiced on precisely the same instance everyday to ensure a healthy and holistic mind and body. For example, your meal time and sleep time. Another important period within the no compromise time is the ‘No Technology Time’ or simply, a duration of time devoid of any access to phones, tabs, television etc. Even if your child appears bored, this period will be critical in helping them develop virtues of patience and perseverance. And who knows, even creativity! Think about it, what if your phone, television and tab was taken away from you for 2 hours starting now. What will you do? Let our children learn early on what they would like to do with their time where no electrical stimulus is greeting them at every moment.
These are some very basic tips for helping time feel like an accomplice and not a foe. Built on these foundations, a child can grow up valuing the limited hours and days on her hands and harness them into habits for successful and happy living.
