to be at the end of my tether with forgetful DS9

[greytshirt]

My DS is extremely clever. Hes top sets for everything and passes everything with little effort. However he is unbelievably forgetful and dense. I have to tell him everything at least 4 times. He will then re ask the same questions over and over. I eventually change the answer (for example "what colour is the sky?" say blue over and over then change it to "purple") and he pulls me up on why I have changed the answer. So its almost a habit rather than genuine questions.

He forgets his coat, shoes, hat, gloves WEEKLY. we have to buy new clothes for him on almost every day out/trip/holiday. He has left small items like toys and large items like ipads in places, so it doesnt matter the size/price.

He exits the car and will leave his coat inside, door wide open and just wander off. We call him back every time and make him redo it, so its not a case of him just being spoilt.

I spend half my life re telling him things and calling him back to do things he hasnt done.

Recently I have been making him buy things out of his pocket money. For example he lost his hat - he paid £6 for a new one. This seems to upset him but hasnt improved him forgetting things. I have tried reciting lists to him before he leaves somewhere - nothing works.

Recently he has started losing things in school. He is very innocent and doesnt see bad in other people, no matter what we say. For example he gave away £60 worth of Pokemon cards to a boy in his class because the boy didnt have any (he did and is from a wealthy family so didnt need them). If people ask to see things or borrow things he instantly gets them out and shares, which results in them being taken. The teachers can almost never trace them or get them back. Last week he took in some sweets to share, took them out in the middle of the playground and had people snatching and stealing them. I had told him to give them to the teacher to give out but he hadnt listened.

He came out of school today and informed me hes lost a sporting award he was given yesterday. He took it in for assembly. Apparently he took it out to show his best friend (who is lovely and wouldnt have taken it), then looked away and it was gone. Magically disappeared. Rather than tell his teacher he didnt say anything till hometime then ran round like a headless chicken looking for it (as everyone else left, including the person whose taken the award). Hes come out, 15 minutes late, extremely distressed about it. I do not understand how someone can be this dense. Over and over. I have warned him multiple times not to get things out near people and to take care of his things. He doesnt thing then acts shocked.

His 5 year old brother is the complete opposite of him so we believe its just built in.

AIBU to not have a clue what on earth do I do? I am sick to death of it. I am sick of going into school about things and I am sick of him showing no respect for anything. I feel like I spend my days dreading him coming home to see what the latest drama hes involved in is and then the evenings repeating the same things at him "dont lose things. dont leave things unattended. dont get things out in large crowds".

Sorry hes age 9 as title says

Has he ever been tested for add/adhd? Chronic forgetfulness and misplace meant of things is the bane of many adhd parents life.

@PerryPerryThePlatypus i have thought he may have something similar but never been tested. School have never flagged any issues (apart from being daydreamy). Hes extremely clever and well behaved, would this tie in with ADD/ADHD?

Well firstly I would only let him take things he absolutely needs out with him. The less he has to look after the less he has to lose. How you go about making him more careful I dont know. Maybe a sticker chart for everyday he remembers his gloves or hat etc with a small gift when he has enough stickers?

Dyslexic children suffer with organisation and are daydreamy

So do children with Aspergers

He has a shoet term memory loss somewhere

Sounds completely normal for a nine year old boy whose mind is generally elsewhere. I think five year olds have less going on so it’s easier whereas more is expected of nine year olds just when they’ve got football or rugby, cards to swap, caterpillars to track and a few superhero moves to practice.
I’d just give him gentle reminders until he’s 19 or 20.

@sweeneytoddsrazor we do try to only take minimum items but he always manages to lose something. if we dont take toys it will be his coat or shoes. its so odd. its like he HAS to lose something. Love the sticker chart idea, he works really well to rewards.

@greentulips will look into these, thank you.

its got to the point though where, to stop this happening I would literally need to hand a 9 year old teacher his trophy and say "keep this safe" then collect it from her. hes ridiculous. I worry about his future.

I'm sure all children are capable of being ditsy and forgetting things on occasion, but your ds sounds far more extreme than that - and when a child presents an extreme behaviour I would think there was something neurological going on.

There are other pointers in your ds's character - he seems very unsophisticated for his age and doesn't seem to realise that other people are not as trustworthy as he thinks; despite having examples of people taking advantage happening to him he doesn't seem to learn from this. Being very disorganised, easily distracted, able to focus strongly on things that interest him but not at other times, needing instructions repeated frequently all points towards a neurological difference (such as but not limited to ASD) and I would be pushing for assessment (probably starting with GP appointment, outlining the issues you've mentioned here).

There are strategies available to help with this sort of thing - like pp has said, even simply reducing the number of items he takes out with him would help - although it won't "cure" him. One thing for sure: your ds is not doing this on purpose, he absolutely cannot help it and punishing him is like punishing a fish for being unable to ride a bicycle. He will not be acting shocked when people behave differently from him and act dishonestly - he will be genuinely shocked, as that isn't how he behaves himself and he will expect the same level of honesty and integrity that he feels himself.

If it turns out that he is neurotypical after all, being assessed will do no harm. As he is achieving well at school, the amount of support available will probably be limited, but it's always worth actually knowing what's going on.

Clearly he's not doing it on purpose, so there's no point getting angry at him, it would just be cruel. He may have some kind of disability or he may grow out of it soon. Google executive dysfunction. You can be very smart but struggle with organisation.

Don't let him take anything out that you can't afford to lose, and stock up on hats and gloves from the charity shop.

Try to help him embed some routines.

When you are parking, ask "how will we leave the car?" The answer should be a routine, i.e. always the same things, or always take things from the same place.

Teach him to remember all his clothes by working logically through his body parts - Should you have something for your head? Something for your neck? ....

Every time you get up to leave somewhere, teach him to look back behind him for forgotten things.

My son has working memory problems and because of this he is extremely forgetful and away with the fairies, could be that with your son maybe?

Also visual cues can be very helpful. Maybe you can work together to draw picture cards to jog his memory, e.g. pictures of the things he needs to bring home from school.

Yes, bright, dyslexic child here (nobody picked up on it as reading very good etc) but so forgetful. Constantly losing clothes, items. Has issues with his working memeory which causes the problems.

Trying to devise strategies to help, so we have laminated card in bag with a checklist. He’s getting better with remembering homework but still forgets his coat! I read somewhere but to get angry as it really isn’t their fault.

Not to get angry

thank you everyone, i am reading all your posts. all sound likely! i will make a GP appointment tomorrow. I am also making a list of things to google from your posts. Appreciate all the answers!

It would do no harm to get him checked over for dyslexia/dyspraxia or the like. I'm reminded of a boy I taught, he sounds so similar. Absolute sweetheart, easily tracked down by following the trail of discarded possessions, but very bright, and we didn't realise how much he was over-compensating, an absent-minded professor in the making. He got through to Oxford, choral scholarship, to read Classics - and finally hit the buffers when he had to cope with another alphabet to do the Ancient Greek bit! The diagnosis explained a lot..... Ironically, he could have been getting help from our dyslexia specialist if we'd spotted it sooner. He could have been helped with coping strategies, and was only too willing to learn and be helped.

Short term memory issues apparently can be a dyspraxia thing. My friends ds has this and it’s a Real problem for him.

ADHD doesn't preclude well-behaved and intelligent - so it could be a possibility. One of many!

My ds (now 16) has Dyspraxia. He is very bright, but his handwriting isn't great. He didn't have many symptoms, so he wasn't diagnosed til he was 10 and in year 5 at school. He really flew when he was allowed to use a computer.

Ds is very vague, and needs lots of prompts/reminders to do things, particularly when he is a bit stressed. Even things that most people accept as routine, like brushing his teeth.

Sorry for going missing, work thing popped up. Lots of children with adhd/add are well behaved and intelligent. As with ASD, dyspraxia etc.

I didn't want to scare you by saying it does sound like there are maybe some questions and an assessment might not be a bad thing. Children on the milder end of disorders usually fly under the radar until puberty when differences become more apparent.

Hello, I'm dyspraxic and dyslexic and that sounds exactly like me.
I was forever having things taken from me in primary school, and I quite literally went to leave the house to pick up a package the other day, looked at the card from the postie and thought 'Ah yes, I mustn't forget that.' and promptly put on my shoes and left the house without it. Which is the kind of thing we all do once in a while, except I do it every single day.
You can learn to work around it, I use reminders on my phone (with variable levels of success I'll admit), lists, and I have to put things in the same place every day so I know where they are. I'm horribly untidy, is your DS?
For the record, I am incredibly bright, always top of my class/grammar school etc etc etc, so it is perfectly possible to be very clever and also totally useless at real world things. We frequently joke I have 'doormat' written on my forehead, I'd move heaven and earth for other people, even if they really don't deserve it. It helps to have supportive people around you to say, well that was a bit daft, but it wasn't your fault.
Don't get cross with him about losing things or having things stolen. I know it's really frustrating, but being angry won't help.

Aww it’s not his fault, it’s just him. Why the rush to diagnose things all the time. He’s just a little boy who is forgetful- not a huge deal. And it’s not nice to use the word dense to describe him.

@Seryph he sounds exactly like you in everything you said, except he is unbelievably tidy at home. His bag is in a certain order, his bed is always made, his toys always put away. yet he just forgets everything. Its very strange. Its good to know you have coping mechanisms and its not as bad as in my head, thank you :).

Im reaching a point where im getting so frustrated, which (as youve all said and I do know) isnt helpful. Coming on here to vent has helped. I just feel like I have no idea what to do. I really do worry about his future and what he will do without me there. He doesnt seem to "learn" from his mistakes at all and constantly repeats actions.

Not trying to make you worry OP, but when you said you are concerned for his future- my little sister is exactly like this. She is 25 now and it has not changed, if anything it’s worse. Today she forgot to take an important data bank to work for a presentation, so decided to ‘wing it.’ It did not go well.

She too is incredibly smart but very dense, and we all worry about her and get frustrated with her in equal measure. We assumed she would grow out of it but hasn’t.

Do speak to a GP or someone, see if you can do anything for him while he is still young!

No experience of these conditions being mentioned, but with my DC I do checklists every day and never let them take toys out of the house. As we leave for school, we have the same routine, do you have your coat, gloves, hat, drink bottle, bag etc. As you pick your DS up, run through the checklist again so if he’s left anything behind, you can get it back straight away. Minimise what he’s taking out of the house, I always just say “you’d be very sad if it got lost or broken, so let’s leave it at home”. He might still lose the odd thing here and there, but less than now by the sounds of it.
Like a PP suggested, as you park the car, run through “what do we need to do when we get out? Make sure you have your coat and bag, shut the door behind you” etc. Repetition might help.

@Petitepamplemousse coming from a teacher your comments really are quite unhelpful and concerning.