EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
Early Years (2-6)
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Exploring the concept of time On our mid-afternoon car trips home from his half-days at what he calls school, and what we call daycare, I turn off the radio and talk with my son, reviewing the details of his day and sharing my own. I’m curious. What does he do? Who does he do it with? What is important to him? I expect that in the future there will be times when he will be likely less forthcoming about his activities, so I take advantage now. If I offer enough of this jovial parental interrogation, he generally picks up one of my questions and runs with it. What did you have for snack? Muffins. Who did you play with? Gabe and Little Grant and the Big Aiden. What story did the teacher read? One day his teacher read a story featuring a little duck that gets lost. “How long,” I asked him, “was the duck lost?” “Ten hours,” came the answer, his voice swelling with easy confidence. He’s got the vocabulary now and he’s heard people say the words before. It’s his turn now. “Oh. Ten hours?” I am a little skeptical. But it could be. “But how long,” I ask, “did the story last? “Two years.” Spoken like a true 4-year old, down the blissful path of memories, all of which are recent ones. He’s only 4, everything could have happened in two years. He changes the topic, taking us on a sharp conversational switchback: “Mommy, when we get home can I have some breakfast?” “You mean lunch,” mommy gently corrects. “Oh yeah,” he agrees hastily, a quick smile. Then he wants to know how long exactly it will take to get home to that lunch. “Not long,” I reassure him. “It’s already taken a million seconds,” he complains. The little boy brain is figuring it all out, trying on the world for size, seeing what fits where and, of course, missing wildly, if wonderfully. His parents stand by amused mostly, but wondering how to help him see how the world moves, and at what speed it rotates through past, present and future. This time thing frustrates him sometimes: How long will it take to get there? Answers, while accurate, don’t satisfy unless he understands what an hour or three or eight means. When will my birthday be here? When is Monday? Is today tomorrow? Was yesterday today? Children are supposed to master the concepts of calendar and clock in kindergarten but like my son, many try earlier. Why not? There time is, day after day. It arrives, it promises, it takes away. And then it’s lunchtime. Friends recently gifted him a pirate watch, a real, working big-boy gold wristwatch with a 12, 3, 6 and 9. He’s confused about the absence of the other numbers, the missing hours. He walks around the house, announcing that it’s 3 o’clock. Walls offer calendars with more numbers, bigger numbers and seasonal pictures. I turn the pages. “Here is your birthday,” I say, pointing to April and spring. “Here is summer. Here is Christmas.” As if they are really on the paper. We count the pages. I tell him about days, weeks, months, years. He looks at me like I’m crazy, like I made it all up. I talk about the sun. Night and day. How the earth orbits the sun and how that makes, unbelievably, a year. I actually get an orange and a lemon and do what you do to create the universe out of citrus fruit. He is still skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? I must admit, it’s a pretty unlikely story. Winter turns into spring, summer into fall. How to understand this information when all you can see ahead of you is a long afternoon or the thin binding of a picture book or the distance of a highway that mom and dad promise will end in darkness and you tucked in your comfortable bed back home? It’s all a promise. Parenting, the best parenting, takes time, lots of it. Time, you know what that is, don’t you? Lisa Alvarez is a regular contributor. For Letters: ocfamily.com and click on Feedback |
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