31 Days of Repetitive Parenting: Day 19 "What did I just say?"

Our son is very bright, academic, creative, intelligent, witty and smart.  He is also quite forgetful.  Early on we would fondly refer to him as the "Absent Minded Professor."  You know, the type that are so focused on academics they forget to show up to teach the class!

Bud received prestigious awards at 8th Grade Graduation!

Lately, Bud has earned the moniker of "Captain Oblivious!"

Now before you think we are "labeling" our child, I'm pretty sure he's the one who came up with his latest nomenclature.  He usually laughingly replies, "Just call me Captain Oblivious!" because it has really become quite absurd at times.

As I said, he's a smart kid, but he's usually so distracted by  focused on the task at hand that he doesn't pay attention to what is going on around him.  This has been happening since he was little.

When our kids were toddlers, we got in the habit of asking them to repeat our instructions.  "What did I just say?"  That way we would know whether they had been listening and understood correctly our expectations.

With Bud, we just keep on asking, because when we forget, we usually come to find that he didn't hear us at all.

Just a few weeks ago we had been talking, time and time again, about needing to be packed up for a road trip the next day.  This meant that the kids needed to have their bags in the car before we left for school.  Bud was clueless.  He was scrambling to get his things packed at the last minute. He apparently had missed those conversations taking part all around him and we had forgotten to confirm that he had indeed heard what we had said.  Subconsciously, I must have been hoping he had grown out of this phase.

I recall in 6th grade that things got so bad that we needed to have a checklist by the door so he would remember his back pack, lunch, homework, etc.  When we made the shift from elementary school to junior high, we all anticipated that he'd be the kid in detention every week because of all of the forgotten homework.

I am proud to report that he has never gotten a detention nor has he consistently forgotten homework in junior high or high school (miraculously!)  I am amazed at all the things he keeps track of with homework, memorizing lines, and the double rotation school schedule (I don't think I ever would have made it to class!)

So perhaps his selective hearing problem only occurs at home?  Hmm....

All the more reason to keep repeating, "What did I just say?"

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