Is this U?

[TowerRavenSeven]

I got called on this out of the blue from an old 'friend/enemy'.

From the time ds was old enough to understand until maybe the age of 5 when he needed to do something (go to bed, leave the house) or stop something (come in from playing) we sometimes used a timer.

I'd give ample warning (10 mins) or so and tell him when the timer rings it's time to do whatever we wanted him to do. We definitely did not use it every day, more like a few times a week. MIL had green pepper shaped kitchen timer, and we had an apple shaped one so it made it kind of fun plus more importantly he could see how much time he had left because the dial moved, it wasn't digital.

It was kind of fun to say 'apple rang, time to get your shoes on', etc. it worked fantastic. Ds never questioned it and it didn't make us the bad guy, if pepper/apple said it was time to go it was.

However above said old friend/enemy once told me it was bonkers and an utterly stupid thing to do, treating ds like a dog (?!) I myself use a timer even now a lot, like I'll clean for such and such time, then take a break, so I never thought this was odd at all especially it's not like we used it for everything we asked ds to do. But it always bothered me that she thought it was demeaning to ds and bonkers. Do you think it was?

Timers are really useful. My parents didn't use a timer but they would always say things like 5 more minutes TV/until bedtime/until we're off to school, etc. Your friend's being goady. Ignore her.

Thank you so much again for your kind answers.

Another one who has and continues to use s timer. Picked it up from parenting classes. They also use them in our preschool when there's arguments over a specific toy, to countdown to changes of activity and to encourage fidgety children to stay at an activity.

Great idea, OP. It's so hard for little kids to get the concept of time.

I used to count down from 20 to get them out of the bath, used a timer for time outs, and give them a five minute and two minute warning to stop an activity.

We use the Time Timer. It's brilliant because it has a visual display. It's about helping kids manage transitions, not about training them like dogs... Your friend sounds ignorant and poorly informed.

That is genius!

It's not weird or unreasonable. We have used a timer too. Ds1 has special needs and it works really well for him and also means that it is the timer making the demand, not me, which is not me getting out of anything, it means it is less stressful and less pressure for ds1.