What is time? Not an easy question to answer. Try it for yourself: what is it – precisely? Well, it’s something physicists have been wrestling with for, well, quite some time. So is it really a big surprise that pleas like “we need to leave the house in five minutes” rarely have the desired effect on a four-year-old?

But there is a trick to make these transitions a little easier. Rather than saying “we’re leaving soon”, try telling your child that they can do the thing they’re doing five more times. Five more goes on the swing. Five more strokes of the cat. Five more kicks of the soccer ball.

We can’t guarantee they’ll be overjoyed about the prospect of stopping doing something they’re really enjoying doing. But it should make the transition much smoother.

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