Do your Kids need Help Focusing – Meet KazuTime
Giving my daughter help focusing has been a priority since we started homeschool because it’s heartbreaking to watch her struggle with an attention disorder.
She is highly emotional, easily distracted, impulsive, and tremendously sensitive. She gets caught up in the moment and doesn’t always have the internal ability to rein herself back in without external support and discipline.
Watching her struggle with an attention disorder is hard, helping her focus doesn't have to be. Click To TweetWhile most children need help focusing at some point, teaching her how to monitor herself is a daily struggle in our home as her parents, but as her teacher, I’ve seen how being distracted has become a wrecking ball for her education.
Difficulty with focus affects every aspect of her education.
Learning to focus on a task, pay attention, manage distractions is tough stuff in early brain development. Yet, most children are able to build these skills as they mature.
But kids with attention disorders need external support to gain these skills internally.
We use this great program called IXL. It even uses a visual timer for each section, but she will still waste time because she can’t pay attention to it. I’ve watched her get distracted between answering a question and pressing enter.
While new advances in ADHD medication might help focusing, I would rather start with behavioral strategies.
Counting has often worked to help her maintain focus on a task. I have her race to beat my count to finish a chore, which worked really well with her little competitive spirit. However, counting isn’t as effective now that we’re working on longer assignments and tasks.
I bought some kitchen timers, but I still found myself having to remind her often to pay attention to the timer.
Even with a kitchen timer, my distractable babe gets off task. We needed something better #KazuTime Click To TweetShe was still getting off-task and finding herself getting distracted.
I had to reassess my strategy for both of us.
That is when I discovered KazuTime.
Barbara Wichmann and Karine Pepin created KazuTime to help young children manage time better. Realizing that children often struggle to grasp the concept of time, much less manage it, they strove to develop an interactive app that would be fun to use and empower children.
The KazuTime app features puppies playing along a path for set amount of time that I choose. Kids can choose from three friendly puppies for each task and a different background color for each timer. Parents can also purchase a couple alternative backgrounds.
Tasks are repeatable, which is nice for daily chores. I can set the time for an activity, and she can watch the puppies progress or listen for the barks. What is neat is that the barks come at 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 of the set time to further build the internal sense of time. It is a gentle timer compared to loud noises and alarms.
For my six year old, KazuTime helped conceptualize amounts of time.
Even after just a month of using the app, I can see she has a better grasp of time, but still needs the app for help focusing.
I received a free download of KazuTime which is $2.99 in the app store for my review, but the opinions are mine.
My six year old LOVES it. She gets really excited about racing the puppies to the igloo and pressing DONE before they get there.
From my perspective, the dogs don’t do much and has very limited in customization, BUT this is probably intentional. The app is supposed to help kids accomplish other tasks on time, not distract them with activities.
And it works!
My daughter already is finishing tasks much faster with much less distractibility. I am glad KazuTime reached out to Heaven Not Harvard with their helpful app.
[jetpack_subscription_form subscribe_text=”Enter your email address to get more of this encouraging content!”]
26 Comments
Rose Barnett (@mRoseBarnett)
Jennifer this is absolutely so cool AND that you shared it with us all. We have this problem too (homeschooling) so I will try it out.
Jennifer
It really helps.
Scott LaPierre
Thanks Jennifer.
My wife homeschools our six children, and having something for the younger ones to do while she’s working with the older ones is attractive. I checked out the link to KT.
Elizabeth Marshall
This looks like an awesome resources. I have a 6 yr old who struggles with attention some times so I am going to look into this more. Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer
It has helped mine!
Carrie Anderson
My 8 year old most likely has ADHD and possibly another learning disability. I’ll have to check into the app and see if it would work for him. Thanks for sharing about this!
Jennifer
It can’t hurt! Giving kids tools to use in life is always a good idea
Tara
I am going to have to check this out. My son is very easily distracted. My girls would just think it was fun!
Jennifer
It is fun and makes getting all sorts of chores done more fun. Picking up toys, brushing teeth, etc.
De Bolton
You have described my middle daughter exactly. As she is getting older her endearing quirks are beginning to become academic speed bumps. I am going to take a look at this. Thank you
Andrea
Great idea – also what might help is watching what she eats – like making sure she doesn’t eat too much sugar
Jennifer
We have already made all those dietary changes. She gets very limited sugar, dyes, etc.
Mary
The app seems like such a simple concept! I am excited that it works for your daughter. I should recommend this to my sister for her daughter who is struggling with the same issue.
Jennifer
Certainly worth trying! If nothing else it can help kids brush teeth for two whole minutes.
Mihaela Echols
I love the idea for timers! With mine I have her do a problem then do a lap around the room then do another one.
Jennifer
Ha! We definitely do physical activity at times as well. Sit ups and stairs!
Kay
How neat! We’ve adopted two children and they both have issues with focusing, especially the little boy. It’s great when you’re able to find something that clicks with them!
Jennifer
Our daughter is adopted too! I love how adoption mirrors our relationship with God the Father!
samantha wiraatmaja
This sounds so interesting.. I wonder if it works for adults ha!!
Jennifer
Ha! I suppose if you like puppies!
angie church
will be sharing this with my teacher friends who may or may not be aware of it thanks for sharing come see me at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
Jennifer
Another great one is IXL. If you click on that in post it will open my review of their site which has all sorts of features for educators.
Crystal
That app sounds really neat and the price is not bad at all!
Terri
this sounds wonderful for my nephew. Thanks for sharing, I will share with my sister
Daisy Suman
Our son also struggles with focus from time to time and has to be reminded to finish his tasks especially when it involves any writing exercises. KazuTime sounds like a wonderful app because he keeps asking about time without fully grasping it. Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer
I hope you find it’s helpful too!