helping your teen with remembering

you forgot your __________ again?

Here's the Problem

You've reminded your son or daughter at least 10 times in the last 24 hours not to forget his or her (fill in the blank). You know, whatever that thing is: books, sports equipment, permission slip, lunch, etc. etc. etc. This is now becoming a daily ritual. You say, “Don't forget,” and they say with increasing frustration, “I won't!” It's as if they've never forgotten anything in their lives. And then of course there's the phone call from school or from practice: “Hiiiii,” said in the sweetest and most loving voice you've ever heard from your teen, and then the dreaded words, “I FORGOT MY _______ .”

Naturally, it's at the most inopportune time. You're just about to walk out the door or go into a meeting or are dripping wet from the shower, and you lose it. “How many times did I ask you if you had your _______? That's it. I'm done. I've had it! No way! OK, where do I bring it?” You cave! Why? Because even though your teen hasn't thought ahead of the consequences, you have. The teacher said he would give your kid a zero if he forgot his book again; the coach said your kid would be benched if he forgot his equipment again; and so on and so on. So you leave whatever you're doing so that your kid doesn't get penalized for forgetting. But how will your teen ever learn to remember?

Why It's a Problem

This is like watching a rerun of your least favorite show when there's nothing else on TV. It's torture. If it makes you feel any better, all teens are forgetful. It's not just your teen. It's a normal consequence of an overloaded brain. When you yelled up the stairs the night before or in the morning before school, your teen registered it for a second, and that's when you got the scream, “I have it!” But seconds later, she receives a text from a friend asking some really important question like, “What are you wearing today?” Or just before getting organized to come downstairs, she looked in the mirror and was disgusted by what she saw, or her favorite song just played on her iPod shuffle, and whatever she was supposed to remember has been supplanted by something else. Teens are driven to distraction. Their brains deliver so many new thoughts every moment that it is almost impossible for them to keep track. Just telling them to remember does not work. It does in the moment you scream, and then it gets lost in the hurricane-force wind that is their thinking.

Here's the Solution

The work is to help them come up with a strategy for remembering. The key in designing this strategy is that it has to be something that works for who they are and how their brains work. Maybe you're a list maker, and if you could just get your teen to make a list the night before of what he has to do, and what he must remember for the next day, your life would be so much easier. Maybe your teen buys into the list idea, but two days later the dreaded call comes in again: He forgot! What happened to the list, you ask? I'm guessing it's on the floor under the bed, or in the dirty laundry basket. The list was never his idea in the first place, so he never took ownership for making it work.

This happened to a parent I worked with. Her daughter was a great kid, but extremely forgetful. She had a full life of sports, clubs, and friends. Every day she forgot something else. The mom was at her wit's end. The list idea went down the tubes, and Mom was desperate to find another solution. It seems that her daughter was quite artistic. Words didn't carry a lot of meaning, but color did. I suggested they get some multicolor Post-it Notes, each color representing something the girl needed to remember to bring to school. Before bed, the girl would post on the door leading to the garage the appropriate “colors” she needed to bring the next day to school. This way, as she walked out the door to go to school she would be reminded of what she needed for the day. It worked! The strategy, designed specifically for her brain, was the key.

Maybe your teen is permanently tied to his phone and would read a text from you just before he comes downstairs. Maybe it's Post-it Notes on the door or an alarm set on his phone that gets his brain focused on what he needs for the day.

There are a million strategies. Make sure the one you use is your teen's, not yours. Rather than being critical and yelling at him about his lack of organization, you can say, “I get that mornings are really hard for you. You have a lot on your mind, and it's easy to be forgetful, but we need to come up with a new strategy. I'm game for anything, and it might take a little trial and error before we find something that works, but I'm happy to help you with that. Here's what I am not willing to do anymore. I'm not willing to interrupt what I'm doing to bring you what you've forgotten. Let's just get a good system in place.”

Remember, just saying “Don't forget” is not helpful. Figuring out a strategy for remembering is!