Forgetfulness

Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children just have other things on their minds, sometimes. Not only that, if we do too much for them, they won't learn to handle responsibilities requiring them to remember things. And hey, everyone forgets.

Logical consequences

If forgetting is a habit, let your children face the repercussions. For instance, if they forget to take their lunch to school more than two-three times during any given school year, stop bailing them out. Call the school office to request they don't lend your children any lunch money; you want them to experience a few hunger pangs. Their hunger pangs will help them remember next time.

Solutions toward self-direction

It's all right to show them empathy, "Gosh, I'm sorry to hear you forgot your homework. I used to get so frustrated with myself whenever that happened to me."

Don't let your children use the ol' "I forgot" line as a way of getting out of things they don't like to do. This avoidance is just a rationalization ploy that then breeds self-deception.

Use humor: Go up to your kid and, without saying a word, tie little strings on all his or her fingers.

Use questioning: "What can you do to help yourself remember your homework assignments?" "What happens when you forget to turn in one of them?" "How do you feel when this happens?"

Use impartial descriptions: "You don't seem to have any strategies to remember your babysitting commitments. Perhaps I can help you come up with some that worked for me."

Use choices: "You can try to come up with ways to organize yourself so that you don't forget your girl scout meetings, or you need to quit altogether."