How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids
- Beth Skaret
- Feb 18, 2019
- 10 min read
Updated: Jul 8, 2025
Have you ever felt that tense feeling of exasperation climb up your shoulders and dig its claws into your last remaining nerve when you’ve told your kid like a hundred times to make sure something gets done…
...and then there you are, at the last second, listening to them freak out because it’s not done and they have run out of time?
Kind of makes you want to put your head through a wall, doesn’t it?
I SO know the feeling.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if your child could just figure out how long it is going to take to do something and then get it done without you having to nag them relentlessly?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if it finally “clicked” and they understood that spending all weekend on play activities is going to leave them with….HELLO….not enough time left to do a science project!
Well, you’ve landed in the right spot!
In this post I’m going to show you HOW to teach TIME MANAGEMENT to ADHD kids.
WOO! HOO! Praise the Lord
And don’t forget to grab a FREE PDF copy of Teaching Time Management for Kids!
Here we go!
To Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids, you need to do 6 things:
Be a good example time management & diligence
Show them how to measure time
Help them “discover” how long things really take
Let them practice in a non pressure circumstance
Set up a schedule or routine
Allow natural consequences
Is it easy...no.
Does it work….YES.
Is it worth it>>>>>>ABSOLUTELY!
Let me show you how.
My daughter with ADHD was like queen extrordinaire of procrastination. She did not get started on things right away, stopped when it got hard, put things off that weren’t “fun” or “interesting.”
Then….when it was like, 10 pm at night and she suddenly remembered that she had a paper due and hadn’t started it or hadn’t finished it….she freaked out. Full on screaming, crying and generally losing it.
That, of course, meant that I was also sucked into this disaster.
For a while I acted as her personal “life manager,” for lack of a better term.
I would keep track of all her assignments,
write everything on her calendar,
remind her every day, hour, etc.
I started to feel like this giant countdown clock that chased her around the house.
Then when she still didn’t get things done in enough time - or when she did, but only because I was standing over her threatening to remove all sources of fun from her life - we were both miserable, exhausted, and she still had no idea how to manage her time and assignments.
I was done.
There was NO WAY I could keep up managing her life details and mine full time at that level.
Instead, I decided to teach her HOW to manage her own stuff.
Here is what we did:
How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids: STEP 1
Be a Good Example of Time Management and Diligence.
If you want your child to manage their time well, you cannot be a poor manager of your own time.
Now, I’m pretty good at doing what I say I am going to do. I don’t like to do things poorly, so I either work at it until I’m proud of it, or I say no to things that I know I cannot do well.
Obviously, that isn’t everyone and I realized that this standard was too much to expect of my (at the time) 12 year old.
But what did help her was showing her HOW I organized my time.
I was intentional about
checking the calendar on my phone when making appointments,
writing down coming events on the house calendar,
asking my husband if he had any conflicts,
and making a to do list that I would check off each day.
I made sure that she SAW me do all of this. I didn’t pressure her or nag or say, “you should do it this way” I just let it be seen and known that I was proactive in managing my time.
This gave me credibility with her for this subject.
I stopped being the mom who just nagged all the time to get stuff done but had no idea how hard it was, and started being the mom who has a lot of stuff to do herself and has a way to keep track of it.
After a while, she started copying some of my behaviors, like making a checklist and trying to work her plan.
It still was a work in progress, because she had no idea how long it took to do some things.
That’s where steps 2-3 came in.
How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids: STEP 2
Show Them HOW to Measure Time
Some kids with ADHD struggle to tell time. Some can do a digital clock, but not analogue. Some can’t do either other than to read it.
Then you’ve elapsed time. (OY!) This is a really hard skill for ADHD kids.
Elapsed time is when you have to figure out how long something takes or what time it will be when you finish something.
It’s like those old annoying math problems from elementary school: “If Bobby gets up at 7am, gets ready in 15 minutes then walks to school and arrives by 8am, how long did he have to walk?”
Teaching kids to measure time can be hard, but is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY in life, so DO IT!
How do you do it…
There’s the traditional way, with the old fake clocks that you can move the hands around. They still use these to teach time on analogue clocks in first and second grade. The problem is, most kids are used to seeing digital time, so they don’t practice the skill of telling time that way outside the classroom.
There are digital clocks - but that really only give you an understanding of what time it is now.. They can’t see the next 15 min or hour sneaking up like you can on an analogue clock. It provides very little sense of urgency.
There are digital countdowns that you can find online (just google countdown). This works in showing time disappear within a specific time period (5 min, 30 min, 1 hour). It definitely creates a sense of urgency….when it gets near the end. Kids don’t usually start to feel the urgency until it’s around 20 seconds.
There are disappearing visual time timers (see link for image). As a teacher, I tend to like these because they look like analogue clocks and they have the red to show the time fading away.
Ultimately, you just have to choose whichever one your kid is going to like.
Whatever you choose, stick with the same tool and use it to help them measure time just like you’d help them learn to measure with a ruler.
How many minutes does it take to drive to school?
How many hours is it from when you get on the bus to when you get home again?
How many seconds does it take to tie your shoes?
Then make a point of seeing which activities take similar amounts of time and which are shorter or longer.
Which takes us to STEP#3.
How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids: STEP 3
Help Them Discover How Long Things Really Take
Once they get how to measure time, you can start to help them understand how long it takes to do certain things.
When I was trying to help my daughter learn how long it takes to do her homework, I had her use a digital stopwatch.
We didn’t set an alarm or anything (that would have stressed her out).
We just pressed start when she sat down and stop when she finished something (like a math assignment).
Then we kept track of how long it took to do “that type” of assignment.
So, for a math assignment of 25 problems...maybe it took 20 minutes. We wrote it down.
Then she took a break and did the same thing with each of her assignments.
When she was completely done, we added all the time up and figured out how long it took to do homework (obviously this could change depending on the day, but it gave a good example).
So, when she got home and wanted to play until after dinner we’d figure out how much time there would be left after dinner before bed and make sure that homework would fit in that time. If it didn’t, we figured out where it would fit or how to break it up.
We did this with many things:
Homework
Taking a shower
Cleaning her room (stages of it)
Watching a TV show
Getting ready in the morning.
Just as a caveat, we usually started by measuring these things on days when we didn’t have to be somewhere. The point was to make sure she could understand how long things take and see how much would fit into the time she had.
So, now that we knew how long things took, we could try to make them fit (according to their time size) into the total time that was available.
How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids: STEP 4
Let Them Practice in a Non Pressured Circumstance.
This is not just a one and done.
Kids with ADHD need a LOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGG time to practice things before they can become habits.
You need to give them time to practice using the new skills WITHOUT the deadline looming over them.
Maybe on Saturdays or maybe just work on the after school stuff.
Let them pick a goal:
Homework done by 5:00pm
Showered and in pajamas by 8pm.
Chores done in 20 minutes
Whatever it is, let THEM set the goal and try to accomplish it.
Let THEM measure it - they should be the ones with the clock or timer checking their progress and seeing if they have been successful or not.
Praise them NO MATTER WHAT.
Give them a high 5 if they succeed.
Give them a hug if they almost made it but went over.
Pray with them about it if they start to freak out because they got distracted.
Point out when they have improved.
How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids: STEP 5
Set up a Schedule or Routine
Once your child has gotten a handle on how long it takes to do things that are a part of their regular day, it’s time to make a plan.
Sit down and map out a schedule with your child.
They are going to need your help with this still as it is a multi step process requiring organization.
Start with a short time block - Saturday or afterschool.
Figure out how much time is available (block off dinner, sports, church, etc).
Figure out what NEEDS to get done (chores, self care, homework, etc).
List the “Want tos” separately. Always do “HAVE Tos” before “Want Tos”.
Put the NEEDS in order from most important to least important (possibly by due date)
Then plug them into the available time slots based on their importance.
These last two pieces is where they are going to need help.
Most people with organizational issues will either plug stuff in randomly until all the time is gone or will choose the preferred activities first.
In either case, it could result in filling the time with tasks that are less important while the really important tasks are still left sitting on the to do list.
They’ve planned their work….now they need to work their plan.
How to Teach Time Management to ADHD Kids: STEP 6
Allow Natural Consequences.
This lesson was a hard one for me to learn.
As I said earlier, I don’t like to do things if I cannot do them well. This would occasionally result in me bailing my daughter out when she did not manage her time will.
I would end up being the one who:
Cleaned the room
Typed the paper
Ran around collecting money for a fundraiser that was due tomorrow.
All this taught her was that if she messed up, it was okay because mom would fix it.
Mom had to STOP FIXING IT and MOM had to learn to be OKAY with that.
It was not easy, people.
But….in the long run, it was necessary.
As an adult, no one bails me out when I oversleep or forget to pay a bill or am late handing in a report.
As an adult, if I mess up, I am expected to face the consequences.
Thankfully, the natural consequences our kids face are not as severe as those we might face.
They do, however, sting enough to make the point.
When my daughter could not go to her friend’s party because she didn’t get her room clean...she was MAD.
But everytime she faced that situation again….she got it done.
When she (recently) didn’t finish the essay portion of a scholarship application on time and missed the deadline…
She freaked out. She cried. She was mad….at herself….because she knew that she had mismanaged her time.
She didn’t blame me or the website or the college deadline…
GET THIS…
She ACCEPTED RESPONSIBILITY for her mistake. She owned it!
Yes. It stung.
Yes. I wanted to cry and call the school and try to bail her out...but it didn’t do it.
My kid has learned that SHE is responsible for how she uses her time.
You guys, no amount of nagging, hovering, yelling, micromanaging or bailing her out would have EVER taught her that skill.
Seriously, how many adults can you think of that still have not learned how to take responsibility for the way they use their time.
THIS did it.
SO…...like I said earlier, ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT!
AMEN!
HALLELUJAH!
PRAISE THE LORD!
Colossians 3:23-24 New International Version (NIV)
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
You can teach your child time management. You can teach them responsibility. You can teach them diligence.
But teach it all as working for the Lord.
This last verse, while certainly a model of a good work ethic in managing time, is also a reminder to you as the parent to NOT GIVE UP.
Some days are really hard, but keep working with all your heart.
He sees you.
Don’t forget to grab your Free Checklist:
What you NEED to Do to make sure your child has
The best opportunity to succeed at school.
Like what you read here?
Check out the rest of my website and blog for more practical ideas to deal with daily ADHD issues and to find encouragement and support in this Journey: www.bethskaret.com
You are warmly invited to join us in our FREE Face Book group: The Jesus Me & ADHD Moms Fellowship. It is a group of Christian Moms of kids with ADHD who share, support and pray for each other as we journey through the daily struggles with ADHD.
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