Oleg A. (IEI) - Life in the Flow of Time

Time is completely understandable to me. I understand it not linearly but cyclically: time to rejoice, time to be sad, time to lose, time to gain. Everything is clear here — you feel, you understand when one stage ends and another begins.

I remember that I was a punctual child.

I myself understood when I needed to leave the house. Again, I was lucky with my mother. There is no point in disrupting the rhythm of such a child. If he does not end up being late once, he will not understand what being late is. He hears when he needs to hurry and when he does not. When he is drinking tea, he can think about today, about yesterday. About what he will do today when he arrives, about some person he likes in class — about anything.

He does not get lost in time. He senses, for example, that it is time to get dressed, and at the same time he can speed up his pace. He does all this unconsciously, and there is no need to rush him anywhere. He does everything as if on autopilot. It is better for a mother to observe the child for a while, to see in practice whether it is confirmed that he is actually late for something or not. If this is not confirmed, then it is normal; there is no need to pull at the child. Sometimes it is even useful to listen to him, if this function is weak in the mother. It seems to me that even if you tell such a child, “Hurry up,” he will not take it painfully. He will say, “I’ll make it, leave me alone.”

Or he will keep walking, but know that he will arrive early anyway. I think it will not be a catastrophe if the mother has a poor sense of time and puts pressure on the child. But if she constantly pressures him and this is not supported by facts, over time she may develop a certain neurosis in the child. He will get used to rushing, and that will be wrong.