I wrote about this when my daughter was younger. I cut her a lot of slack because her brain wasn’t quite wired for long term planning and strategy but instead, evolution has shaped her brain to be more adept at pattern recognition—at least in the early years. But more years have since passed filled with schooling and expensive extracurricular activities. Yet, she’s still forgetful. She’s misplaced her keys, her homework and her phone. Worse, she borrows things from me and then forgets to put them back and then I can’t find them! What gives? Is her brain even working?

Up until the age of 7 or 8, maybe 9, but definitely by the double-digit age of 10, she pretty much knows her own schedule and takes on increasing responsibility for herself. She does, until she doesn’t anymore. For someone who is a crowning champion of the memory game, I am shocked at the things she doesn’t remember. But seemingly, her brain’s default mode is in one ear and out the other. So, why is it a struggle? I think it boils down to three things: context, chunking and consequences.

 

Tough love is very difficult, no doubt. This takes a tremendous amount of trust and time. But we’re parents and we’re here for the long haul.

 

Context. Giving anybody random facts and instructions are ineffective—even to an adult. The receiver doesn’t know what it’s for much less what to associate it with and therefore little effort is expended in learning or remembering it unless it is sensationally ridiculous. Psychologist called this context-dependent memory which is an ability to encode related information together to improve recall. When it’s time for swimming activity, packing her swim gear is a contextual action and so she knows not to bring her cello. She already knows what to exclude and so the work really is to provide greater context so she refines her ability to include what is relevant (like a towel) as it relates to that situation.

Chunking. In psychology, this term refers to the decomposition and reorganizing of information into meaningful wholes. It is also the way short term memories are meaningfully sorted before being committed to long term memories. Chess players are known for processing information by chunking the pieces on the game board. Rather than remembering all the pieces on all the squares, chess masters can examine groups of pieces in strategic configurations. This selective distillation is the method in which grandmasters can mentally play-out the game without the requirement of reconciling the billions of permutations.

Consequences. Probably the most effective way for a child to improve their memories and take responsibilities for them is to live with the consequences. Good or bad, consequences are natural events arising from decisions made (or not made). For parents, it is one of the toughest things to stand by and watch the consequences unfold without intervention. Depending on the severity and recoverability of decisions, parents should stay out of the ‘reminder business’ and not ‘rescue’ their child.

Tough love is very difficult, no doubt. But worse is unending paternalism. You can’t be there all the time and to assist in all things—nor would either of you want that. Being their shadow will simply rob them of their independence. And the only way to ‘fix’ their forgetfulness is to allow it to unfold and let them experience for themselves the impact of not remembering. This takes a tremendous amount of trust and time. But it’s not like we signed up for babysitting only for the weekend and we go back to our childless routine on Monday. We’re parents and we’re here for the long haul.