Any ideas on sense of time??

Some people need very deliberate support with these things. I am very able to ‘drift off’ while riding in a car and only come out of my reverie when my husband’s car door shuts as he gets out. And we all do have a different sense of time. In any moment of time, some people can see years of time while others don’t even see the moment.

Perhaps instead of hoping that the ‘car conversation’ will trigger her awareness, turn directly to her and say “Dad is parking the car now. That’s the signal to get your things together.’ or “We’re almost there. Do you have your things in your bag? Let’s get your things in the bag now”.

Or “We’re leaving in 5 minutes. Brush your hair now and put your coat on and wait by the door please”.

Good luck.

All my children as well as husband are like this!! (My husband is always telling me five more minutes when it really is 30 minutes). I agree with Sara—you have to be very deliberate and manage such people. We tell our kids to get their shoes on ect when we are going to stop. None of them would do it on their own (and only one is LD).

Beth

I have always had a very very poor sense of time myself. My daughter is a little better but not much. Yes, all my family has been very direct: “OK, we’re here, everybody out!” (Much better than the hints, which are just plain irritating.)

I have this problem with my son as well. I think it is related to a general lack of planning and attention.

He got better with some of this after IM. It was really bad before that.

I have had some success with some things by letting him experience natural consequences. Unfortunately the natural consequence to me not reminding him to be on time for his bus is that I have to drive him to school. This is more a consequence that affects me rather than him.

The other day I didn’t specifically tell him to bring his coat and he got in the car without it. It was freezing out so I gave him mine.

Sometimes I think I just do too much but it hard to stop.

My sister is severely organizationally challenged. Her son reminds her of things. He gets himself up and out to school without her help at all. It never seemed quite fair to me. Here I am doing everything “right” and she gets the kid who can organize.

I think I have to consider backing off a bit.

You can also try a stop watch. My son has fun timing things. We predict how long it will take to get through the check out counter and then he sets his stop watch to see who is correct. It is also nice because he controls it and it becomes a game.

It still doesn’t make him organized but he is slightly more aware of what day it is etc…

Gee, I still count on my fingers to check what day it is. And although it’s rare and I haven’t done it for a year previously, under stress and fatigue this month I have simply forgotten two appointments. And this is after fifty years of hard work.
Two things: first, patience is a virtue; it;s going to take him a long, long time to pound this into his head.
second, yes he does have to; he wants to live a normal life among people who do use calendars and clocks, weird as those inventions may be.

You can help him best by tying habit to the learning. Every single *&^%%$ morning ask him what day it is and what activities/appointments/responsibilities he has today. After several months of you guiding him, he should get in the habit of mentally reviewing his day plans. Have him make a small stack every single &^% night - his backpack, his shoes or boots, any special objects he needs to take with him, and a note with any special reminders for the day. Then when he leaves the house he’s all together and has reminded himself of the things to do. This list can be placed on top of the stuff in has pack or in a pocket with his pens, or at worst copied on his loeft hand, so he sees it throughout the day and doesn’t forget.
I don’t remember what climate you’re in — are you the Florida folks? Here, yes, we do have to train kids to wear coats, but after the first time you walk out at -20 without coat, boots, hat, and gloves all together, the natural consequences are memorable enough for almost anyone. You can take several approaches - you can have *him* check the weather report the night before every single night, and hang the appropriate jacket on a hook with his backpack, shoes, and daily notes; you can stand at the door and refuse to leave until he has figured out for himself what is missing; and if the temperature is above 45 F or so and he’s healthy, you can let him shiver. (I have a daughter with respiratory disease and no, you can’t do the natural consequences on these ones unless you want to nurse pneumonia.)
The point is that he shouldn’t have to use a whole bunch of conscious thought and energy doing these things; they should be developed in the habit system so he can use the thought and energy for things that are more important. So find *simple* and direct ways to jog his memory (not multicoloured folders and tabs and agendas, which add more to the memory load!), and then work on day in and day out habit development. If you’ve succeeded in getting him to brush his teeth morning and night, treat daily operations the same way.

My 12 yr old NLD girl has same issue — for her it’s part time and timing, but also has always been related to transitions, and the “shifting gears” that is required to move from one thing to the next. Very difficult because of executive function disorder (which comes with ADD/ADHD for some kids). The direct approach has always worked best, combined with “in a few minutes ” etc. etc.

when she was little it was almost as if she didn’t know what to do next when we got home from somewhere in the car. It took me a long time to realize that I had to tell her, every time, to undo her seatbelt and get out of the car (age 5 or so, post-car seat). It did become more automatic after a while.

I have also found with both my kids (one NT, but tired by the time I get her from school) I need to let them know what I need: girls, when we get home (this said as going around the last corner), I really need us to get up to the house right away (we have oodles of steps to our front door). I don’t want to have to wait for you (car is parked down on street).

Problem is, when I try to stress to the 12 year old the importance of being on time somewhere, she still really doesn’t get it. Consequences aren’t the issue, it just needs a huge amount of drilling in. And while she may not get the consequence for her (late to school), I continually have to stress the impact of her actions on others (like me, late to work!).

–But I’m talking about the family is ready to go somewhere and she decides to go rebrush her hair.

How old is she? If she is eight or under, this is your problem, not hers. If she is nine, I’d just do the Sergeant Shultz from Hogan’s Heroes impersonation, “Everybody out, out, out; ROUST!”. If she is 12, I’d warn her once; “Be in the car when I’m ready to go, or I’ll leave you home”, and stick to it. If she’s not ready when you get to the mall, you skip the Bath and Body Works store or whatever else she had in mind. Works for me.mmm wrote:
>
> I’m not sure if its a sense of time or an awareness of
> situation. Perhaps a sense of timeliness would be a better
> description. She does have a digital watch (#3!) and that
> helped on the be home at …. stuff. But I’m talking about
> the family is ready to go somewhere and she decides to go
> rebrush her hair. The family arrives somewhere in the car
> and are ready to get out and enter the mall/restuarant/etc
> and she hasn’t begun to undo her seatbelt or gather her
> drawing stuff or put her walkman into the bag. This is after
> the car conversation goes “this is our turn; Great, nearly
> there; parking spot oover there, dad” and she doesn’t get
> that we have arrived or nearly so and its time to get ready
> to move. It is driving us nuts! Any ideas?

It could be sense of time AND motor planning problems. My daughter has both. It makes me worry if she will ever be able to hold a job. Sometimes I wonder if I should be putting money in a trust fund instead of tutoring! :-).

Mine is the one who when I say, Okay, let’s go, she picks up her lunchbox and backpack and says, “Mom, can you open the door, my hands are full”. I USED to get really aggravated with her until her OT pointed out this is executive function problems. Now, I explain, “Okay, Jami, put down your lunchbox, open the door, and pick up your lunchbox and get out”. Yet, she can make A’s in Science. Scary, sometimes.

One thing is I’m alot more patient now that I know she’s not just being demanding.

Leah, the ‘hands full thing’ struck home.
We do a special place for the bookbag, we do have the schedule of duties posted (get to breakfast table by 7:00 am counts as one of her jobs for allowance in our house!), all of her school supplies are in the dining room buffet drawer beside the table where she does homework, etc.

Of course, it takes time to set a routine and any disruption to the routine is noticeable. the problem is partly a sense of time, some strategic thinking, anticipatory set? I’m beginning to wnder if executive planning isn’t it. Physically, she does okay-started gymnastic lessons, played soccer last term.

thanks to all

This probably won’t help, but maybe you can ask her questions like (let’s say her name is Sarah), “Sarah, what do we do now?” or wait in the car and see what she does. If you slow down does she eventually get it? For myself, I need alot of structure and organization (my kids do too).

My son is similar, but a little more extreme. For example, there have been times when we dropped his sister off at school or a friend’s house and after driving for awhile he’s asked me where his sister is! The way I’ve handled this is I turn the question around and ask him, “Where do you think she is?” “Where did we just go?” He’ll think for a few moments and then say, “Oh yeah, we dropped her off at school.”

We JUST put the calendar on the wall b/c she said she’d tear if off previously (and I know she would have). It helps. We are also doing $.10 for every item done and $.20 OFF for every item not done.

Mine did gymnastics at 5-6 ish and had a REAL hard time though she was determined and ended up being able to do both a right and left handed cartwheel (I could never do either :-) ), Her OT said it was the cheapest “OT” she ever got. My g-kids are definitely going to gymnastics!

She also plays soccer, but her processing gets in the way (I notice it and her coach, but really not anyone else) She is an “average” player, but more than I could have ever dreamed of 5 years ago!

Her OT says the “hands full” is motor planning and anytime she is in a “novel” situation she should be given a “heads up” on what to do. Often when she was younger, she would look around and see what everyone else was doing and “mimic”. Compensatory strategies at work.

Sometimes I get discouraged and then I look at where we were and where we are and I trudge onward!

This BB helps keep me going! The mixture of encouragement, support and LOTS of HUMOR keeps it all in perspective.

Not with my kids, but with other things!

we have a daily joke calendar and rip off the joke and the date every morning at breakfast. We give the five minute warnings. we empty the book bag together every night.

Just frustration talking, I guess. We have come a long way with academics. She reads for pleasure and the 1st person theme she turned in this morning on Hera, queen of the Greek gods was very funny.

Just February, I guess.

That whole executive functioning thing was improved with IM.

I can remember my son would cry when I asked him to clean his room. He had absolutely no idea where to start unless I told him what to pick up and where to put it.

He can now do this. No miracles, he still needs to be told it’s time to clean your room.

Leah,

I have to admit, I did do something similar like this once and it was sooo embarassing!

It was a very busy day of running around. My daughter had a friend over and I had been taking them to stores to get “Back to School” clothing and supplies. I had dropped my son off at Chess Club and was at a clothing store with my daughter. For some reason I forgot I had dropped my son off at chess and began looking for him. I saw my daughter and said a little frantically (like I’ve done at least a thousand times before), “Where’s your brother!?” She gave me that “you’re losing it” look and said, “He’s at chess. Don’t you remember?” After that I went out and bought a bottle of Ginko Biloba! ;-o