Time is not felt the same way at six and at thirty‑six.
Children’s brains are wired for “now.” The present moment—this game, this story, this puddle—fills their whole attention. Adults constantly juggle past memories, present tasks, and future plans.
That gap shows up every school morning.
To a parent, getting out the door is a sequence: wake, dress, eat, pack, leave.
To a child, it is a series of emotional states: warm bed, cold floor, interesting cereal, annoying shoes, scary rush.
What adults call “transition,” a child’s nervous system experiences as “I’m being yanked out of my world.”
Research on attention and working memory shows that children need more support to shift states: visual timers, countdowns, predictable routines, and warnings before change.
You don’t remove frustration by doing this—but you do reduce the invisible cognitive load that makes every transition feel like a shock.
