Please reassure me my 12yo will become an OK adult

[Covert19]

TLDR: Tell me the most pea-brained things your child did, and how they've turned out 15 years later.

This is mostly lighthearted - please no armchair diagnoses of ADHD, ASD, etc

I have a wonderful 12yo son. He's got the memory of a goldfish and the attention span of a hamster. Organisational skills are zero. Won't use a diary, despite me giving him one and showing him how to use it effectively.

He's constantly losing things at school. I've just had to fork out another £50 for lost PE kit items (I got them in the next size up, so they're effectively next year's kit and I don't feel too out of pocket).

I've had some success in getting him to remember to go to his music lessons in school by making him pay for the ones he misses (suddenly he's found the ability to check the timing and set an alarm on his phone).

Yesterday, he managed to miss his school bus home - the school is a 45 drive from home - but he realised rather than making me do a 90 minutes round trip, he could get back to our town on a mixture of Underground and overground trains. He had his bank card with him and phoned to tell me his plan. I, of course, was having kittens at the thought of him navigating his way around public transport, but he tagged along with some streetwise friends who travel on the tube to school usually, and they took him as far as the overground. He managed to get back home to our town on the train. Hooray! Except, he lost his wallet somewhere along the way. [facepalm].

This is him all over. Confident in a way, but clueless and not at all able to organise his thoughts and his belongings so that things like this don't happen. If ever I try to talk to him about something in advance - like how he can make sure he doesn't lose his wallet by keeping it zipped up in a bag and not in his hip pocket, he gets narky and won't accept that it's a possibility that he might need some help with - then it all goes wrong.

He has trouble taking responsibility for his mistakes and, I think this impedes his ability to think ahead and avoid things going wrong.

Please tell me this is normal. Please tell me about your now adult sons and daughters who were like this but grew up to be capable adults who did not go through life in a fog of lost documents and missed appointments. He's sending me prematurely grey.

[Bythemillpond]

That was me to a tee. I once sat in the wrong class for a full hour and didn’t notice that it was a different topic, teacher and entirely different classmates to usual until the end when the teacher asked me if I was new

Dd did that 😃

[MiddleParking]

A useful comment in response to ‘got lost on your way to tiktok?’ What would you suggest?

[SleepingStandingUp]

@itsgettingwierd

Functional useless I'm definitely saving that expression. So true and Ace!

Happy to share.

Literally half the responses to our pregnancy announcement were around me not forgetting where I'd left the baby!!

[SleepingStandingUp]

@MiddleParking

You're not charged per word you know, you could try offering a useful comment

[Namechangegardens]

@covert19 I'm not making I diagnosis here but he sounds 100% like my 30 year old partner before he was diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive type) as an adult and started on treatment! He is an incredible man, really best of the best, and I'm sure your son will grow up to be wonderful too.

[itsgettingwierd]

Functional useless I'm definitely saving that expression. So true and Ace!

[MayMiracle]

My ds is 7, but I fear you've described his future self. He is hapless, clumsy, forgetful, & has zero attention span. He is also funny, loving, cheerful, charming, friendly and kind - so I hope the latter gets him through

[Sundayscented]

Our daughter was like this - lost everything, disorganised, some unsuitable friends etc. Now she is a Navy Engineering Officer, happy and well adjusted. Works hard and plays hard, rarely looses anything and organises lots of people! I wish I'd started a thread like this when she was 12 for reassurance! He'll be fine .

[cozycat1]

Sounds like my son was at age 12. By 12/13 they should have some kind of organisational skills. The lack of such and mind like a sieve has led to many "pea brained" moments for my son over the years, too numerous to mention. Might seem funny as one offs, but put them together as a constant nearly every day occurrence and it can really start to affect how they get on. It became more noticeable at high school as his friends matured and became more "capable".
Interesting you mention he has had detention for not handing in homework. This was mine (except no detention as they don't do that at his school) . Inability to plan, organise and meet deadlines (as well as pay attention in class) greatly affected his school performance, leading to underachieving to his potential. Age 15 he was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. Now age 16 his school performance has improved with the medication he is on which helps him concentrate, but he still has a long way to go develop strategies to help him with the normal everyday tasks that most people take for granted, such as planning in advance, remember things, awareness of dates/times/deadlines etc. I think he will find "life admin" difficult in the future.

[riotlady]

That was me to a tee. I once sat in the wrong class for a full hour and didn’t notice that it was a different topic, teacher and entirely different classmates to usual until the end when the teacher asked me if I was new.

I am reasonably functional now, I swear! I just rely on my phone calendar, alarms and lists

[WellTidy]

I used to lose or leave behind so many things as a child. School bag left at the swimming pool changing rooms (off site), dance kit left at the church hall, brownies/guides cardigan at the community centre.

It was constant. We would always have to go back for things.

Even as I got older, I remember leaving my coat on the train, leaving groceries behind at the supermarket etc, leaving my bank card in the self- pay machine at the cinema. I know that everyone does things like this from time to time but for me it was way more often than average.

I haven’t done it for ages now and am a really organised middle aged woman!

[upsydaisyssinging]

I was like this as a kid and... I'm still like that. I do have a good academic job, several degrees, own a house and so far my own kids have survived my mothering though if that makes you feel any better.

[1990shopefulftm]

Disclaimer: I do have a couple of diagnoses.

I was a disorganised messy teenager and yes I do mess up occasionally still but I m a married mum of a 6 month old and I sort all our families life admin so I m a decent functioning adult.

[problembottom]

One of my sisters was like this as a teen, she drove my mum to absolute despair. She's now the deputy head of a huge secondary school and happily married. She still can never find her keys mind you.

[MiddleParking]

[FrankensteinIsTheMonster]

@MiddleParking

Yikes...

We got a yikeser here 😂 got lost on your way to tiktok?

[Butwhhhyyyyyyy]

My son sounds exactly like this to a tee, he has a diagnosis of Auditory Memory Disorder, not adhd. He forgets almost instantly and can't remember more than a short sentence.

He is also very funny and loveable, maybe your soon may have something similar.

[MiddleParking]

Yikes...

[Lyricallie]

This sounds like me. I'm now a vaguely successful adult but there is a running joke that I have no idea where my purse is (I'm like the queen I don't carry money). I've left our passports in toilets numerous times on holiday. (Always managed to get them back). However my fiance is now in charge of them at all times.

Weirdly I am very organised in life I just lose everything. There is hope for him! Maybe buy him a tile for his wallet haha.

[SleepingStandingUp]

I am not where hope lives, sorry.

I still misplace umbrellas, keys, bank cards, all sorts

However I got myself two and from highschool for 7 years on two buses each way, I went away to Uni, I lived alone, I had a grown up job, I did grown up volunteering involving getting myself across the country by train and I only ever lost my tent once. I've never left any of my kids behind anywhere. I've occasionally missed appts or forgot water bottles but when you're responsible for someone else you have to force yourself to be more organised.

Basically I'm still useless but I'm functional useless 🤣🤣

[FrankensteinIsTheMonster]

@MiddleParking

It’s incredibly strange, unboundaried behaviour to start armchair diagnosing the child of someone who’s specifically requested no diagnoses

Not as "incredibly strange" as using pop-psychology jargon like "unboundaried behaviour" to describe people saying what they think on an anonymous public forum 😂

[NewUser123456789]

My partner was apparently like this as a child, forever losing stuff, breaking stuff and incapable of anything practical. Nothing has changed, she still loses, knocks over, drops and breaks everything and is still totally useless at anything practical. She's a fully qualified accountant and manages to pay the bills and not kill anybody so in that sense a successful adult.

[CoalCraft]

People really can't resist the armchair diagnoses can they

[UhtredRagnarson]

OP my best friend is like your son. She is in her 40’s and a total scatterbrain. Always losing her keys, bank card, missing her bus etc. But she is the loveliest woman you could hope to meet and in her job which involves working with very vulnerable people and being a manager of a team she somehow manages to ace it. She frets and panics about being useless but when it comes down to it she pulls it out of the bag every time and totally excels.

Have faith. Your son will be absolutely fine. You may just need to keep a spare key handy for him all the time.

[trunumber]

Oh as an addition - I do have a doctorate now, but I failed most of my GCSE's because of it and had to resit them all. I was a good kid, I wanted to learn and study, Turns out I just didn't know how.