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Comment by lazyant | Hacker News Reader

A pattern that I see a lot in parks etc is parents wanting to leave and telling the little kids "5 more minutes!" then after 5 minutes "just one more minute!" or whatever. Pro-tip: kids are not aware of what 5 minutes looks like, make it a specific number of activities: "going down the slide 10 times more", you can count together and it looks initially like a large number. Not a magic wand but works way better than the time warnings.

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Also in general the trick "I will count to three, and when I say 'three' you will have put that down and stand here. One..." is a far more successful method than it has any right to. I count to 10 for getting them dressed.

The trick is to always let them be successful at reaching the goal, slow down as much as needed, say "two and half, two and three quarters......", they should never find out that I have absolutely nothing planned for the case when it finally fails.

I just started doing this last week, it has saved us from so many breakdowns.

This works the other way too though. I've seen some parents use the 5 minutes warning and then pack the kids up after only 2 or 3 minutes. The kids don't know the difference and it allows the "warning" to be consistent even when the timing can't be for whatever reason.

And yes, 10 more times down the slide can easily turn into 9 times in a row and holding on to that 10th time for as long as possible.

Better to use accurate language like "5 more moments" or "time to wrap up" or "one last ride", to avoid messing up your child's budding sense of chronology and numeracy.

We generally use the 5/1 minute warnings, then when it's time to go use the (Daniel Tiger) "pick one more thing to do" approach.

This actually works. The kid does not how much actually is 5 mins, but the kid knows that we are leaving soon and adjust expectations. When I am announcing leave time, there is significantly less opposition and tamptrums. When I say "we go now" suddenly then there is trouble.

Counting slides is something I don't intend to do, because I am not actually interested in micromanaging those 5 minutes.

Lol, I would drag out going down the slide 10 more times to like, 40 minutes.

"We have to go soon, we have enough time for you to go down the slide about 10 more times."

Both you and the OP are right. Phrasing like this example though should help. This way it's not you restricting the kid, and there's no hard requirement.

If they try to drag it out, you tell the kid that they had the time; it was their choice to take longer than usual to go down the slide those last few times.

That explaination also helps them realize that they can choose to either make the best of a situation or the worst of a situation, but the situation will happen regardless (the time limit).

Slide 9 times, then head over to the jungle gym. Never leave the park!

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