Use the smartwatch

#smartwatch#watch#time#reminder#technology

The digits on the wrist say nothing about how long a stretch of time really is, and a buzz means different things depending on what is going on. The steps below connect the watch's signals to what the child is meant to do.

A finger presses the bright screen of a smartwatch worn on the wrist.

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Boy tapping his smartwatch

A finger presses the bright screen of a smartwatch worn on the wrist.

About this visual support

Time stays abstract far into childhood, and a smartwatch measures something a child can neither see nor touch. Reading that twelve minutes remain only helps if twelve minutes stand for something concrete, like two episodes or the walk to school. That is why the watch easily becomes jewellery that buzzes rather than a tool.

Visual support translates the signals. One picture for putting the watch on, one for starting the timer, one for what the vibration means and one for what happens when it runs out. After the child has seen the link a few times, the wrist starts carrying information instead of just alarms. Picture and number together make time far more concrete than the number alone.

A tip: let the timer stand for the same thing every day at first, screen time for instance, so the signal has room to gain a clear meaning. In Routined you can put a timer and picture steps in the same routine and try the app for 14 days at no cost.