Does anyone have any strategies for directing a lovely but very dreamy 6 year old DS to ACTUALLY DO THINGS

[Anchovy]

A polite way to put it is that my DS has developed a "rich interior life", LOL.

He is 6 and in year 1. In general terms he is an absolute poppet - bright as a button, very affectionate, funny, very happy. He is also doing well at school - reading fluently, popular, nice group of friends, absolutely loves going to school.

However over the last few months he has become so dreamy that it is very hard to get him to do things sequentially. He has absolutely no sense of urgency whatsoever. When he is supposed to be getting dressed you will find him sitting on the floor with pants, vest and one sock on thinking earnestly about whether Darth Siddius is more evil than Darth Maul. When I asked him to get table mats out yesterday he ran round the kitchen island twice, did a bit of hopping, annoyed his sister, and when I asked him what he was supposed to be doing he had no idea. He has just started at an out of school football club and spends a lot of time bimbling around on the touchline clearly having forgotten what he is supposed to be practising.

Is this just a developmental phase? Is it a boy thing to be such a bubblehead? I know I make it sound funny but it is starting to impact on his school stuff a bit and I think we need a few strategies for getting him to just get a bit more focus rather than this being a slippery slope to Planet Bubble.

Any views?

As a world renowned expert in spacey boys, I would say that if this hasn't been a systemic problem forever it can be considered a Phrase (as my grandmother's nanny apparently used to say).

(Strategies available on application, of course.)

That's interesting, Bink. He certainly hasn't always been like this - there were seeds of it last year, but it is much more of a recent thing.

Its almost as if he either has no interest in processing a request or, more likely, during the time taken to process a request more interesting thoughts overlap.

This, I think, is the internal dialogue chez Anchovy:

Me: "Ds, will you please get out 4 mats"

DS: Says "Yes, mum". Thinks "which mats shall I choose today? Which mats would Luke Skywalker choose? If I had to have a lightsaber would I like a red one or a blue one? Which colour lightsaber would Jack/James/Edward like best? Is Jack really going to bring his guineapig into school on Monday? What was his guineapigs name again? Ooh look is playing with my thunderbirds 1?..."

Me: "DS - what are you supposed to be doing?"

DS "I've forgotten".

My 7yo dd is very much like this, it's quite noticeable now that she's the worst of my 3 dds to get ready, always the last, always forgettting things. My 6yo and 3yo are much more focused.

She IS quite a bit better lately, at 7 3/4 than she was at 6. Still dreamy and slow - and it definitely affects her school performance quite dramatically. But she does more or less manage to get herself dressed and ready for school these days. I haven't found any strategy particularly helpful apart from accepting it's how she is, and probably always will be. We do give her a fair amount of responsibility - send her to the shop, let her come home from school alone - and maybe this is helping her learn to focus.

Anchovy -that could so easily be DS2, the internal monologue is exactly how you describe !

Hate to say it but you have just described ds1 who will be 10 in March. This includes the conversations in his head revolving around Star Wars . No help whatsoever I know, and not very inspiring for you bearing in mind my ds age. But good for me as I thought it was just me and ds having this battle

That's helpful, Fennel - so its not just a boy thing.

He was quite focussed when he was younger - so I'm really hoping its a phase.

I agree that getting him to do things as a responsibility without having us as a backstop is one strategy. I don't want to turn him into one of those 10 year olds who everyone runs round after and says "oh he's just dreamy".

My DD (4) has more focus, grip of strategy and concentration than most of the lawyers I work with!

OK Fennel - looks like it is more of a boy thing .

Bink - can we have some strategies please to cut through the internal fog?

I thought so ... I think you may be having the sort of phase that I think another MNer's child had recently around age 6/7 - to do with maturing out of generally compliant "little person" mode into an independent, following-your-own-thought-process mode.

If it is that (ie, a maturing thing), then I think he'd probably benefit from an uplift in practical responsibilities, to help him keep tabs on priorities - I think that's the only thing I think you should try to help him with - as it may be difficult for him to learn to keep his eyes on the prize when his brain is going off in so many interesting directions.

(Suggestions would be very different if this sounded like an underlying attention or memory problem.)

Cross-posts, sorry, strategies to follow.

I don't run around him by the way. And for what its worth his db who is 4 is and ds who is 7 remember far more about what they are told to do (whether they choose to do it though is another battle in our house altogether)

Ah, there are many like this - my personal favorite story is of a little boy I know who whilst "playing rugby" disappeared into woods, built self a large nest and then extruded a rugby ball egg from his jumper.Own DS! talks continually about Dr Who / magical happenings / Indiana Jones etc etc...

Right, OK, strategy no.1 is give him practical things to be responsible for & that - crucially - he wants to have happen, so he's got a goal in view.

Strategy no.2, key one of mine with ds, is "Two Words": I get him to repeat back to me what I've asked him to do/remember, but not the whole instruction: he has to boil it down to Two Words (he does the boiling, not me). Then he's got his own prompt.

(Incidentally, Two Words is also most useful when two or more children are each bursting to tell you something & shouting over each other - you just bellow Two Words at whomever its turn it isn't, they quickly say "Gym Kit" or whatever, & then when it is their turn you don't get those sobs about having forgotten what they meant to say.)

Bink I love the idea of Two Words, am stealing that even as we speak.

I heart MN

My DS1 (7) is exactly like this. Star Wars is obviously the root cause of all our troubles as he is into it as well. It doesn't help that school have started to put more responsibility onto his shoulders now he has started the juniors. I think barely a day went passed last term without me having to send him back into school to get something he had forgotten. He is getting better with that though.

I still have to ask him 3 times to do everything at home. It is definitely not a memory problem as he has a great memory for facts but if you ask him to do something it is in one ear and out the other.

I think it is a developmental phase. It might even be mentioned in the Raising Boys book. I will have to go and have a look. At the moment I have no strategies except repeating myself!

The whole thing (including Star Wars focussed interior dialogue) sounds exactly like my DH. But exactly. He's 34. Is there any hope that it's still just a phase?

My 7yo DD does exactly this, she is in a world of her own, have you discussed it with the teacher? You say he is doing well, it may be that this doesnt affect him at school. Apparently DD is very much focused on her school work and no problem at all so I have taken to telling myself 'It's just Ella, it's just the way she is' so as to not get angry with it or feel like she is ignoring me/faffing around.

If it was an adult you'd just accept that is the way they are and work round it.
Give him longer to do things, and make sure there are no distractions (Though DD manages to find distractions out of nothing).

One thing I do do is make sure that he is listening by getting him (gently) by the shoulders and forcing him to look at me so that I know I have his attention and then telling him what he needs to do and then get him to repeat it back to me. Obviously you can't do that for everything but it helps if something is urgent/important.

Had a quick look at 'Raising Boys'. Apparently young boys can have growth spurts that affect their hearing by stretching their ear canal and leads to them temporarily being hard of hearing. It just may be that your DS doesn't hear you properly and so he doesn't register properly what you have asked him to do. That would make it a phase!

Niecie currently my only strategy is raising my voice!

Marymoocow, I think we may have had a crossed post - I didn't intend to make any implications about your dreamy 10 year old

I'm loving Bink's 2 words. This is exactly what I need. So in my example it would be "fetch mats". I think I need to help out by making sure all the instructions are very clear and brief in the first place and don't involve a huge amount of options. Of course this isn't going to help with coming home with Alex's hat every day for a week or forgetting completely the Spike Milligan poem we spent all weekend learning for the poetry comeptition, but its a great start .

I think Bink is absolutely spot on when she says that he is turning from a compliant "little person" into someone with his own interior world.

Nah, don't buy into the hearing thing - I think if you whispered "Lando Calrissian" from 2 rooms away he would hear!

I do get him to look at me when I am asking him to do something. (This was after yesterday when he was distracted by a book while on his way to get changed for a birthday party). I said that if I said a word three times ("Listen, listen,listen", or "concentrate, concentrate, concentrate")before telling him something that it was our sign that he really had to take notice as I really meant it.

I wish with DD it was as simple as not hearing/listening properly!

There's the difference Anchovy - if I said "listen listen listen" to ds it would trigger spaciness rather than head it off - he would glaze at me & then go floating into another room murmuring "listen ..." (prob. the nice sound of it).

I have to be very key-word strict - so my table-setting example would have to be "Mats Table" - a verb would probably derail him. But that's where there is some sort of attention/practical memory issue (no issue on factual memory re Star Wars, of course!)

Most of the time I resort to getting shouty too Anchovy!

I do wonder sometimes if my DS doesn't hear. Isn't it true that women's voices are harder to register than mens lower voices? Not sure where I got that either - mine of useless information, me. Just wish I could remember where I read it and then I could at least check.

Anchovy, i'm not sure what you are playing at but give my son back!

Oh, the relief of knowing that you're not alone

Anchovey - loving your internal dialogue description .Just like my dd1 (age 6, yr 2). She has always been a dreamer though, but I am optimistic she is slowly getting better. Not changing, just being a bit better at focusing.

We say her name at least twice before we speak to her, and do a similar 'two words' thing by instinct - thanks to Bink I will be making more use of that one.

We also don't try to speak to her unless she is looking at us, or if she is doing anything else, as there is no point.

Really hope it is a phase for your DS - I can see the little person thing may well be true. I wish you much patience for the duration though - I find it completely infuriating, and then I remember that dd isn't being a pain, she is just being her, and she is pretty lovely tbh. She has a 'rich fantasy life' as I describe it