Special time

#special time#time together#reward#clock#gift

What is longed for is also the hardest to leave, and special time carries its own ending from the first minute. The pictures below make both the moment and its close visible, so the final step is known before you start.

A boy holds up a gift in front of a large clock surrounded by stars.

♂

Boy holding a gift

A boy holds up a gift in front of a large clock surrounded by stars.

About this visual support

The lovelier the moment, the heavier its last minute weighs. Special time the child has looked forward to all day ends like everything else, but the ending lands harder precisely because the anticipation was large. Many children cry not because the time was too short, but because it ended at all.

Here visual support works differently than with ordinary routines. The pictures are not there to get something started, but to give the moment a shape: what you will do, how many things fit and what happens straight afterwards. When the last picture is in place from the beginning, the child knows where the boundary runs, and the boundary does not arrive as an announcement in the middle of something good.

Let the child choose the content but not the number. Two or three pictures to pick from give ownership without making the time boundless. Add a picture for what comes next as well, ideally something the child likes but in a calmer form, so the moment has a way out. In Routined special time can sit as its own small sequence with pictures, a timer and a clear final step.