Do clocks help time blindness?

[Anonymous]

Ok, my actual adhd son is actually fine/good with time generally. My teen girl who I think has well-camoflauged inattentive adhd (got it from her mom, me) is terrible. I’m considering getting a couple of small but with large numbers digital clocks to stick on her make up area, bathroom mirror and maybe one other place (closet???). Do you think a clock would be effective or would a timer help more?
She has big exams coming up, so I would like to make a good effort now and will do additional work over the summer.
And then I’m like is this all teen girls? I definitely took forever to get dressed and shower etc but was never (honestly) tardy for school. With DD we joke that we were worried about the front desk staff on days we don’t receive a tardy notice….

[Anonymous]

You might try timers instead of clocks. Try the kind that show how much time is elapsing in red when you look at it. And try making lists of what needs to be done to get ready for school or wherever ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

My severely inattentive son has time blindness. I surrounded him with countdown style visual timers when he was in elementary school, so he could visualize the amount of time he had left at any given task, since the numbers meant nothing to him. The brand is Time Timer.

In secondary school, he had an analog watch with the hour and minute hands. Now in college he has his phone with him at all times. His time blindness has diminished over the years, but it's still there.

The issue now is doing stuff like taxes, planning ahead to apply for internships, working as a team for major projects in class, etc. He can't seem to understand that none of these things should be last minute efforts, otherwise he'll live in a constant state of panic, and that if other people need to wait for his part of the work to do theirs, they will get super resentful, and rightly so, if he doesn't given them enough lead time.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, PPs. I will look into some timers!

[Anonymous]

+1 to trying a Time Timer. They have ones for 5 min, 20 min, an hour, etc. https://www.timetimer.com/collections/all-1

[Anonymous]

Timers help me

[Anonymous]

Timers 1000%

[Anonymous]

digital clocks only. apple watch or similar that "wakes up" with a quick flip of the wrist. face setting with HUGE numbers.

if older kid, any calendar appointment should be set for the time to leave, not the time of the actual appointment.

[Anonymous]

A clock in th bathroom really helped my time blindness. This sounds ocd but it can also even help to break down the time. Like if you’re normally in the bathroom 8-8:30 getting ready:
8-815 shower
815-20 dry off, comb hair
8:20-822 toothbrush
8:22-825 makeup
825-830 blow dry hair
Or whatever. Even if you get off schedule, you have a sense of where you need to hurry up a little.

Timers are okay but need to be set so that’s just one more thing to do. I use timers for other purposes.

[Anonymous]

Yes, clocks everywhere, with a some keys like others have said!

[Anonymous]

I put another vote in for the "time timer" we got a nice green one so it's kinda relaxing and not a big stressful red wedge!

[Anonymous]

No, you need alarms

[Anonymous]

Clocks and timers don't help with time blindness with my college aged kid because he perceives things will take far less time then they do.

If I tell him we need to leave at 2pm and to set an alarm to get ready, he will set it for 1:30 thinking it is enough time for him to shower/dress/get groomed, finish up laundry, have a snack, and text with his GF.

*spoiler - he takes 20m showers so even just getting ready isn't feasible.*

I can't tell you the number of times we have left without him.

[Anonymous]

Digital clocks that show numbers are not as good as digital clocks that show the traditional circle and hands because you cannot see the passage of time in the same way. Time timers (digital or online) are better for this, but they only show the passage of time for discrete tasks. I would be really great if kids wore watches all day that had the circular face but which also had a digital number below -- that would allow kids to connect the numerical time with the passage of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:digital clocks only. apple watch or similar that "wakes up" with a quick flip of the wrist. face setting with HUGE numbers.

if older kid, any calendar appointment should be set for the time to leave, not the time of the actual appointment.

I use a shared google calendar. Appointment time is preceded by drive time, and if coming from the house, both are preceded by prep time. All three types of events have 5, 10 15 and 30 minute alarms.

This is the ONLY thing that allowed my 16yo ward with anxiety and severe ADHD to eventually transition into being a somewhat functioning 18yo who manages to get herself to most appointments within the first 5 minutes.