Time and the Many Many Questions of My Child!

What time is it, is easily my sons favourite question. When he first started asking it he was around 3 years old and I’m not even sure if he knew what it meant, nor what the answer meant. And I’m not sure he even wanted to know the answer. What I do know is that asking that question became a big habit either because it reassured him or regulated him, or it just reminded him that I was there. There was obviously something about this question that he needed to know. We are now around two years into this question and I’m sure he is much more aware of what each time means. 5pm means teatime, 7pm means bedtime, 7am means get up, 10am means snack time etc etc. He got a clock for his bedroom for Christmas and he loves it and he knows the hour time so he knows when its 7 o’clock and he knows 12 o’clock etc which I feel is pretty good for a 5 year old. And although he does still ask what time is it it’s not as often. That question has been replaced though for much more complex time questions….well complex for a 5 year old. Some examples are below:

“How long is a day?

“How many minutes until dinner?”

“Is half an hour 30 minutes?”

“How long until morning?”

“How short is the shortest day?”

He now wants to know how long everything lasts and how long it is to the next activity. But only ever in minutes. If I talk about it in hours he will then ask for the minutes. So for example….

Him: “How long is it till dinner?”

Me: “It’s two hours.”

Him: “Is that 120 minutes?”

Thankfully I am of the VHS generation so I know that a 120 minute video tape was 2 hours and a 180 minute video tape was three hours. I know this because one time I taped The Green Mile off the telly, this film was 3 hours 10 minutes long and the video tape I used was 180 minutes. I missed the last 10 minutes. I will never forget it and so I am a dab hand at knowing how many minutes is in how many hours (I know I could just work it out but this story of the VHS tape sticks in mind!).

Time is so important to my son, his routine takes precedence over everything in his head. And if something goes wrong then it’s awful for him and he can’t get back on track. He goes to bed at 7pm and so we start his bedtime routine at 6.45pm. A wee, brush teeth, go upstairs and say night to his sister (we live in a house where we sleep downstairs and the older girls sleep upstairs), we pick two books, I read those books and then give or take a few seconds it’s usually 7pm and he goes to sleep. There has been on occasion recently where our bedtimes haven’t gone quite according to plan. Mainly when it comes to picking the two books he likes to read. He can really struggle with this. Like really struggle. And I sit and wait patiently but I know time is ticking. If he does pick the books in a timely manner I try to catch up and read a bit quicker but he always asks:

“Why are you reading so quickly?”

Sometimes we go over the 7pm bedtime and I know this is disastrous. He looks at his clock when I finish the books and if it is past 7pm he starts crying and sobs that its past 7pm.

The simple answer to this would be just to forget about it and get to sleep but he cant. It plagues him. As do other timings we seem to have inadvertently started. Our school mornings as I am sure you are aware don’t go well but this is complicated by the fact that my son knows exactly what time we should be doing things. We always park in the same spot and park up at 8:24am or before. If we miss that deadline he gets upset so of course I do my utmost best to make that deadline. On a bad morning if you see me speeding through the streets to try and make 8:24am you can see why. It sounds ridiculous when I write it all down, it really does. And I am unsure whether its best to be late a few times so he can see that it is ok or to keep going with his routine. Is it cruel to try to change his routine that he loves so much. I really don’t know.

We have been stood on the playground waiting to go into school and he will ask me:

“How many  minutes until dinnertime?”

“How many minutes until hometime?”

When the other kids are just running around having fun. I guess knowing this information is fun to my son. Its not just minutes and hours though days are important too. One Tuesday teatime he helped my husband build a log store. He had the best time ever and helped to put all the logs in it once built. He was over the moon with himself. We needed to build another one and my husband said so and that we would do it another day. My son never mentioned it again until the following Tuesday so exactly the same day as the week before. He came in from school and raced round the house looking for my husband I asked why and he said:

“Remember we were going to build one of them things for the logs.”

It puzzled me that he had not mentioned it any other time and I firmly believe that because the first one was built on a Tuesday this was why he waited until the next Tuesday to ask the question.

Quite clearly time is a big thing for my son and I wonder now if that is why he asked what time is it so young. He knew somehow that he needed to know the time. This simple question, “What time is it?” has carried profound significance for him. From the early days when he might not have fully understood the concept, to the present, where time has become an intricate part of his routine and understanding, it’s clear that time plays a crucial role in his life, it highlights the importance of routines and predictability in his world, when everything else might be unpredictable. While his focus on time might seem meticulous to some, it’s definitely linked to his sense of security and well-being. As a parent, I’ve learned to embrace and accommodate his unique relationship with time, recognizing its role in shaping his experiences and ensuring his comfort and that’s why I do my best to stick to his routine.

Sometimes the smallest questions carry the weight of a whole world waiting to be understood.