Question
HI, I've been working on forgetfulness for a while on my 7.5 year old daughter. She is given an instruction, but VERY often either fails to complete it or does an incomplete job of it. This has been an issue for at least 2 years on and off - she should be able to remember 2-3 step instructions at this age?? Her teacher has approached me about it saying when she cleans up after class, she either forgets to put away something or forget the other thing she was meant to do. She is much the same at home with cleaning up and tidying, and instructions - often forgetting to pick up something or throw away something that's left on the desk/floor that she's tidying. We have taught her to go back and check it but she won't check without being told to. This forgetfulness extends to leaving her book, jackets (we've had to replace 2 of her jackets, and forfeit Christmas present for her), lunchboxes at school. Again, we've taught her to check but she wont bother without us telling her. We also can't keep buying lost things which can become expensive!! We've done 3 tickets a day for months and months (on forgetting and talking back), and some days she's great at not forgetting...but some days, she forgets at least 2x daily, or doesn't do a complete job of it, sometimes even after I make her go back to do it! How can we reduce the margin of error and put the monkey on her back for this? It's driving me nuts! I understand that we get tired and forgetful on some days but this is a definite pattern that's occurring far too much. I think a margin of error of 2-3 tickets a day is too much as well, allowing her to forget 7-14 times a week without a consequence, apart from a few sharp words. What should we do to make her really worry about it? Any strategies would also be very welcomed!
