A question about Timers ...

[domestic_engineer]

When your goal is to get X minutes of a subject done each day, what do you do when the kid wastes time during that period (messes around, dwaddles, or acts silly) when the timer is running? I'm thinking specifically about a 5-7 year old.

[edeemarie]

I don't specifically set a timer, but if the children are not working hard, they do get punished. Depending on the child, that could mean loss of free time, going to bed early, losing something they wanted to play with or do after school work was done. I insist that when it is school time the kids need to work hard and get their work done.

[In the Rain]

I would let the child know that I was adding time to the timer because they weren't focusing on the task at hand.

[jetted4]

It's a bit more challenging when the goal is X minutes of work than if you have X pages of work (for obvious reasons).

 

At the 5-7 age, with someone who is easily distracted, I would lean toward finding ways to make the task completion not be time based (e.g., a certain number of pages of reading rather than X minutes of reading).

 

If you are stuck with it being time-based: If you are within ear shot and able to assess the quality of the time spent, I guess one approach would be to comment that he/she hasn't completed X minutes worth of the task so needs to add Y more minutes (which will delay the availability of play time).

 

The main problem is when it is using your time as well as theirs...then I am a bit more strict (I have better things to do than sit there and constantly remind him to pay attention)...when my son was 7, after reminding him to get back on task day after day for some time, I switched (after warning him that this would happen) to sitting quietly when he got himself distracted and waiting until around the count of 10 or so to give him a chance to get himself back on task. If he didn't and I had to get him back on task, he would lose 10 minutes of his electronics (which was a strong motivator for him). Some days he would lose 10 minutes, some days 20, but he got gradually better at catching himself and getting back on task since he didn't like losing the electronics time.

[Jayne J]

We use a timer for math with ds. When he gets to daydreaming or time wasting, I pause the timer. It beeps when I pause it and that generally gets his attention. Then I ask him if he has a question or a problem. I may have to do it multiple times on a bad day, but he has figured out that dawdling doesn't work. I have also been known to add time if the situation is willfulness and not just distraction.

[2_girls_mommy]

We have a homework time later in the day. If the work wasn't finished in the time given then it gets finished later in the day during homework time. I do not do not sit with the child during homework time. They go in another room and finish work not done and can't watch T.V. or have playdates or anything if schoolwork is not done. So that motivates them.

[swiegers]

I also do homework time. If my dd dawdles and I know it's not because she's struggling with the work, I set a timer for a reasonable time and then just wait. Whatever work isn't finished is put aside and she has to do it after lunch. If she has an activity later that day or a playdate, she can't go unless all her work is completed. So far that has worked great for us. It also ensures that we have enough time to finish the other work without wasting too much time on one specific subject.

[ByGrace3]

It depends on how we are using the timer. Sometimes we use a timer BECAUSE dd has been messing around/daydreaming etc. If I see her doing this, I set a timer for the amount of time it SHOULD take (with a little wiggle room) when the timer goes off that subject (usually math) is over and she can continue it on her own time later. Now for AAS we also use a timer and bc it is dependent on me, if she messes around, the amount of time she waists is "paid back" to me later. If it took 10 extra minutes, she does 10 minutes of extra chores after school (a chore she would not normally do).

 

ETA: when is has to be done later in the day, it must be done before afternoon activities (for dd gymnastics). If it is not done, we don't go.

[Ariston]

When your goal is to get X minutes of a subject done each day, what do you do when the kid wastes time during that period (messes around, dwaddles, or acts silly) when the timer is running? I'm thinking specifically about a 5-7 year old.

 

I often combine a timer with a specific amount of work to be done. For instance if my son doesn't finish his one page of math in 30 minutes, then i add the rest of the work onto the end of the day. I still move on after 30 minutes because otherwise I find it just gets counter productive and he gets exhausted. But at the end of his school day when he would normally be able to go play with legos or watch TV, he has to sit and finish his math (or whatever else he didn't finish.) This rarely happens, but the threat of it seems to be helpful...

 

This seems to work for us because then I make sure I hit all the subjects I want to hit for the day instead of spending 3 hours finishing one subject. And i don't know why the timer motivates so much but it does. I think he gets competitive and what's to 'beat' it.

 

elena

[Tarreymere]

I don't set the timer for X minutes of the subject. I don't even tell the child how many minutes I have planned to do a subject. I use the timer to teach the child to sustain focus on a task.

 

I started with five minutes. For example, I would go over the math lesson with dd and explain anything she didn't understand (usually this would take two or three minutes). Then I would ask her to work on a set of problems and set the timer for five minutes. The goal was for her to work on the problems and NOT dawdle or squirm around or drop her pencil on the floor and crawl around under the whole table, or .....you get the idea. Five minutes was tough at first, and I probably should have started her with two or three minutes.

 

When the timer went off and she had done a good job holding her attention on her work she would get a break (for a couple untimed minutes determined by me) to twitch or squirm or run around the kitchen table a couple times. Then I would set the timer to five minutes again and she would go back to work on the problems. Gradually over the weeks I would increase the amount of time I wanted her to focus.

 

It took awhile in the beginning to get things done but over the course of the last few years her ability to sustain focus on a task has increased to nearly an hour (I use the timer for silent reading and that I ask her to do for an hour). She is eight years old now and we started this when she was five. She is also maybe a bit ADD but we never had a reason to have her diagnosed. She is definitely more 'squirmy' than her brother. I think that by the time she is an adolescent she will be able to focus on studying or reading for several hours at a time if she needs to if we keep this up.

 

Now that she has learned to focus better I can just set the timer for the amount of time I think the work I give her should take. I don't use it anymore, actually, unless she is having a bad day and is starting to goof around and waste time.The whole trick with the timer for us was to use it to teach her to focus in the first place, not to keep the lessons to a certain length of time.