My 12 hour clock becomes a timer

On: lundi juin 20 2022 Hit: 7466

The classic 12h clock can easily be transformed into a timer, here's how.

A timer a perfect tool.

This tool makes it easy to visualize the time that passes, the minutes that pass in a well-defined period of time. These periods can be a full hour, half an hour, a quarter of an hour, etc..

We use these time slots on a daily basis to say to the child, for example:
- you have 15min to play before leaving for school,
- you have 30min to finish your book before going to sleep, or also
- you have to wait another 10 minutes before dinner is ready.

Using a timer thus makes it possible not to speak in a vacuum, because telling a child, in 15 minutes we are going to bed, is not necessarily easy for him to integrate, to understand, to gauge, to conceive.

Using a timer allows the child to clearly visualize his time slot, to finish something, but also to wait. Thanks to this tool, the child has an explicit framework of freedom whose limits (the beginning, the end) are defined by time..

In our lives there are imperatives and the child must understand that we cannot allow him to play until late hours because our life is punctuated by necessities, because afterwards there are imperatives.

"Using a timer allows the child to visualize his free time space."

The timer is thus a tool that reassures the child, he knows when his space of free time begins and he can during this period know how much time he has left, he can anticipate the end of his activity. It is thus a way for him to manage and prevent possible frustrations, because by visualizing it he is aware of the time that passes.

So how do you turn a 12 hour clock into a timer ?

It is very simple. To turn your 12h clock into a timer, simply remove the hour hand and keep only the minute hand. By positioning the minute hand at the very top, you have the starting point of your duration. If for example the child can read a book before going to bed, you can tell him,

You have 30 minutes to read your book, that is to say that when the big hand reaches the bottom, you will have to stop reading because it will be time for you to sleep, because tomorrow there is school and that we get up early.

As he reads, the child will be able to look at his clock and he will know in real time how much time has passed, how much time he has left. He will be able to apprehend this notion of duration, in complete autonomy, and realize that time has its own rhythm and that it is neither mom nor dad who control the time that passes, but that it is time that passes alone at his own pace. Arrived towards the end of this allotted time, the child can apprehend in consciousness the imminent end of his reading time and he knows that afterwards, because the time is up, he will have to stop reading and fall asleep.