Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Your sense of time
For younger children, make the reward small, concrete and soon. Stickers, points, a smiley face, five minutes of something good, handed over the same hour rather than at the end of the week.
Points that build towards something bigger work well, as long as the point itself arrives immediately. Hourly is not too often for a young child, and a whole school day is usually too long. Keep the earning criteria plain enough that the child can say why they got it, since a reward they cannot explain teaches nothing.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Keep up the prayer at both ends of the day (Quran 11:114). Good things placed at regular points through the day are an old pattern, not a modern invention.
وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَيِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلَّيۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱلۡحَسَنَٰتِ يُذۡهِبۡنَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِۚ ذَٰلِكَ ذِكۡرَىٰ لِلذَّٰكِرِينَ
[Prophet], keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night, for good things drive bad away- this is a reminder for those who are aware
Qur’an 11:114read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A case control study of preschoolers who had a close relative with ADHD, without the diagnosis themselves, found they already disliked waiting more and had weaker inhibitory control than their peers. So difficulty with waiting can be there very early, before anything has been diagnosed or gone wrong. It is a small early childhood study, which supports shortening the wait rather than prescribing any particular chart.
Pauli-Pott U, Roller A, Heinzel-Gutenbrunner M, Mingebach T, Dalir S, Becker K. (2014). Inhibitory control and delay aversion in unaffected preschoolers with a positive family history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A token given at once bridges the gap to the bigger reward that is still days away.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Rushing out of the door is the most reliable way to leave something behind. The hurry uses up the very attention that would have checked for the keys.
Write the morning out in small steps with times against them and stick it where you will pass it. Bathroom finished by quarter past, clothes on by half past, at the table by twenty to.
A child who is blind to time is not ignoring the deadline. They are living in whatever is happening right now, with no sense that the bell is close or that Friday's test has anything to do with today.