How forgetful is your Year 6 child?

[confusedofengland]

Ds1 is 11 & just finishing Year 6 & primary school. He is a December baby, if that makes any difference. He is & always has been incredibly forgetful. I am starting to get concerned as in 8 weeks he will be going to secondary school & wants to get the bus then train there. I honestly think that he will not cope with this as he will leave things on bus/train or forget to get off or something else. I also don't see how he will remember to do & hand in homework.

DH thinks it is a perfectly normal level of forgetfulness for a child of his age. I am not sure & I also think some things he forgets are inconsiderate.

Examples from the last week or two include:

• not ringing 90-year old great-grandparents to thank them for congratulatory card & money. I mentioned it to him on Sunday when he got the card & again on Monday, they finally rang me on Thursday & I got him to speak then.
• not taking in bins for my parents. This is a weekly job he gets paid for, his school is across the road from their house so he walks near/past it twice a day
• leaving school jumper at the park
• after school jumper incident, leaving ice-cream money at the park (loose on the ground) despite bringing rest of his bag home
• forgetting about Scout Zoom meeting until I reminded him. This is something that occurs at the same time every week

There are other instances too, but these stand out. He is always very keen to check his phone, go out to play, go on Xbox, but maybe this is normal? If it is I will just have to keep reminding him constantly!

Yep, I have one of those!

What was he like before lock down? I cannot begin to think of the numbers of jumpers, hats (had to wear a school cap or not allowed to play outside at break - its a very hot country), lunch boxes, waterbottles, PE kits that have been left in various places over the years.

Basically just placemarking for ideas!

Sounds about right for DS at that age

Eventually we started charging him for replacement lost items which made some difference. We also have a family planner (as DH is rather scatty too) and work on the basis that if something is not in the planner it's not happening.

Things that worked included making DS pay for missed music lessons, but also making him contact the teacher and apologise. Using less obvious reminders, eg dinner will be at 6pm so we're finished in time for scouts at 7pm rather than nagging him to remember scouts. I have also allowed him to go places without the right kit (within reason!) and suffer the consequences. On one memorable occasion he forgot to take his sleeping bag to camp and had to sleep wrapped in a variety of clothing. To this day (6 years later!) his scouting friends still comment at every expedition "have you got your sleeping bag youngtreacherous ?"

Also, if he's keen on checking his phone then I would encourage him to set reminders on that.

And this may give you hope for the future, but DS at 16 is now the most organised and independent young man I have ever met, unrecognisable from the organisational car crash he used to be

My Ds was exactly the same he's 12, an end of August birthday and I worried about him starting high school and all the responsibilities that come with it.
He has been absolutely fine, it's a 30 minute walk to school he meets friends on the way.

He has forgotten to take things like homework, planner or PE kit. They get a negative mark for these and too many result in a detention so he's really good at sorting his bag the night before now.

Yeah that sounds normal

I have twins in y6.
They are like chalk and cheese.
Ds will forget every thing the problem is because his sisters always there she sorts him out (brings home his homework, makes sure he has pe kit). Next year they will be in different classes and he's going to get a big shock.
We've already started discussing expectations and consequences the school have for forgetting things and I've told him I will support the school. We've started setting reminders on his phone for scouts etc. He has decided he's going to have copies of his timetable in his locker, bag and at home. And reminders for pe kit etc. He's motivating himself as he wants to get the school reward trips but will need to not get lots of punishments along the way.

For secondary, set up structures for him:

• everything has a place and things go to that place (eg schoolbooks)
• homework & messages always written in planner
• homework done at X time each day
• a system for exercise books if kept at home
• checklist by the door
• PE kit bag physically tied to rucksack so can't leave it on train

All these kinds of things help a more absent minded child.

If you can, instil a 'do it now' mentality.

Plus reminders on phone for anything 'unusual'.

Thank you, it's good to know it's fairly normal, if rather frustrating!

Will try setting reminders on his phone & maybe a printed timetable - although not much in the way of set stuff once school has finished, until September.

My 63yr old is the same - I presume his mum used to pull her hair out and think he'd grow out of it

Sounds about normal to me, none of your examples sounds like it really made a difference to him so it's not so much forgetfulness as carelessness. When it really starts to have consequences is when he'll begin to be less careless.