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Dear Jean: Our son, age 12, is intelligent,
talented and loving. This is the trouble spot: He is also forgetful and loses things. The latest loss was of a key to our house. This would not be such a big thing but in the last 3 years he has lost 6 keys. He neglects to bring reports and information home from school, we often find out about grades/ events at the last moment. When we bring these things to his attention... he looks at us with the look of a "deer in the headlights." He has no idea how or why he cannot be responsible. What would be an appropriate way to handle this? Jean responds: Hi, First, be careful your language. You say he's a wonderful son and big brother; that statement doesn't go with his being "irresponsible." We can hurt our children by applying epithets to their behavior that are too broad, that imply character deficits that they then take to be accurate descriptions of who they are. He is forgetful, yes--but that's a far cry from being 'generally irresponsible.' It seems to me that the trouble with his losing and forgetting things is either constitutional--he has an attention deficit disorder--or emotional. The way you diagnose the former is for his school teachers to evaluate him on a behavior instrument that tends to reveal attention deficits where they exist. It's tougher to explore the possible emotional causes of his "losing and forgetting" behavior. Perhaps he is unconsciously sending a message that his being trusted (for whatever reason) with keys to the house is beyond his sense of his own ability. Ditto with the other things he loses....is he asking for his dependency needs to be met, in the only language kids sometimes have, namely, behaviors? I can only suggest the kind of line of inquiry you might need to pursue, but you get the idea, I hope--think/feel your way into his skin. He'll help you do that if you let him--make it safe for him--to talk to you about what he's feeling. And you make it safe for him by not assuming, from the start, that there's "something wrong" with him, and by not criticizing, emending, or making suggestions to what he says. Just LISTEN to what he may be able to tell you about how he thinks and feels in any area of his life. You may have to go pretty far afield to start to get a feeling of what may be going on...but a sympathetic and pretty general inquiry, it seems to me, would be the first place to start. He's losing and forgetting things for a reason, and the reason is not that he's "bad," as you already know (but he may not know). Try to help him find the reason. Hope this helps a little. Jean. Disclaimer: Ms. Walbridge's
response to your question is |
He
is a wonderful big brother and son.