Photo courtsey of Randak 

Angie Cumin, owner of Randak Dyslexia Center, admits that she and time are constantly at odds. She says, “Time management is like the Big Bad Wolf breathing down my neck. I’m always trying to outrun it.” Like her clients, Angie has dyslexia, and a symptom of dyslexia is time blindness, a condition inhibiting a person's ability to perceive and manage time. Not only are people with dyslexia affected by time blindness, but also those with ADHD, dyscalculia, and/or autism as well.  

People with time blindness try hard to be on time but often fail. While it’s frustrating to live and work with such individuals, Angie says it’s also frustrating to those with it. “Running late spikes my adrenaline and makes me utter silent curses aimed squarely at myself.”  

When a person has this condition, the time they’re supposed to be somewhere is often “louder” in their head than when they need to leave their current location. For example, if they need to be at dinner at a restaurant by 6:00, this time flashes over and over in their head, not the 5:45 time when they should be leaving. Thus, they’re often late because they didn’t leave enough travel time in their planning. 

Angie explains that when a child is still in his PJ's, and it’s time to go to school, he may have time blindness. He thought he had time to build with his Legos and get ready for school. (He may also have some distractibility going on, but that’s a topic for another blog…) The same goes when he announces he has a huge project due the next day that he hasn’t started, and it’s already 8:00 pm. All parents love this one. Not! Or when he gets a speeding ticket while driving to school because he was running late. The latter may just be a teenager and their desire to test the limits of everything, including their car’s speedometer. 

Parents can do several things to help their child with their time blindness, such as: 

• Fill the home with analog clocks. Make sure the quiet ones are purchased, though, because ticking secondhand can annoy ADHD and/or autistic people. Analog clocks help people with time blindness literally see the passage of time. Digital clocks give no sense of this. 
• Use timers to help children complete tasks. For example, instead of telling a child to put his clean laundry away, set a timer and tell him to spend 10 minutes folding clothes and dropping them into the dresser. Chances are he’ll finish the task within the time allotted. However, had he been instructed to put away his laundry, he might’ve gotten overwhelmed, whining, “It’s gonna take forever!” A parent may need to monitor him the first few—or thirty—times. However,  he and his timer will eventually be able to do it without needing the parental watchdog.  

 Angie says the Time Timer is her favorite timer and is the one they use in their tutoring rooms. It’s kid-proof, gives a clear visual way to see the passage of time, and can be purchased in many places.  

• Don’t tell a child the time he needs to be somewhere. Tell them when he should walk out the door. “We will be leaving the house at 7:30,” or even better, “Be downstairs at 7:25.” The latter will give them 5 minutes to put on their shoes, grab their lunch, and get to the car.  
• Parents who suspect their children have time blindness should have a syllabus for each of their child’s classes. This way, they can help their child not leave big projects until the last minute and remind them when to study for tests. Angie recommends parents do this through at least 9th grade. The brain’s frontal lobe is responsible for planning, and it doesn’t fully mature until around age 25. So when a teacher suggests you let your child manage his own schedule “to teach them responsibility,” inform them of this fact. Your child is being expected to accomplish a task his brain is not yet mature enough to do. 
• Teach older kids with phones how to set reminders on them. For example, if they need to remember to bring home their history book to study for a test, have them put a reminder in their phone going off two minutes after the last bell rings. By that time, they’ll be at their locker, and everyone knows the first thing they’ll do is check their phone. 

Time blindness is not something people outgrow, but with tools like those above, it can be managed successfully, taming the Big Bad Wolf of time management. 

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