Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Absentmindedness

Today I received an email from Lydia's teacher kindly explaining to me all the assignments that she has failed to turn in. Has she been absent from school? Nope. Is she absent … minded? Yep!

And this isn't the first time I have received this message from one of her teachers. A few weeks ago I learned that she hadn't turned in several math assignments. And get this … two of them she had completed, but just "forgot" to turn in. How does that happen?

Much of the time when I lose my temper with her it's over being absentminded. {sigh} Poor thing. I just realized that she gets it honestly. I think I have forgotten what it's like to be a kid. Once, when I was in middle school I worked on a project, interviewed someone for it and everything, and then I just didn't turn it in. I don't know why. To this day my parents are baffled over that one.

I Googled absentmindedness in kids. Guess what? It's very common for gifted children to be absentminded & messy. Aha!! There is my excuse! I'm just too brilliant to be thinking about such mundane things as getting the laundry done or not throwing away Brandon's business checks (sorry honey!).

So here I sit … coming up with organizational strategies for Lydia. I know she'll be so thrilled to come home and discuss these with me. Or maybe she really will be. She thrives in structure, which is one of the reasons we are no longer homeschooling her.

Now if only Mama can keep herself organized, maybe, just maybe, Lydia's room (and life) will stop looking like this:


Yes, that's the current state of her room. And, I'm afraid, her life tends to look a lot like this … such chaos! Wow. Just thinking about it like this motivates me to want to help her organize her life (and mine). I'll let you know what we come up with!

5 comments:

  1. One of THE BEST ones you've ever written....

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  2. Don't discount hormones! She is getting older :) Maybe it's time to start her on some Evening Primrose :)

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  3. My girl keeps an 8 subject plastic accordion folder and the tabs are labeled for things like "homework", "parent signature", "yours to keep" (graded papers), etc. It's been a lifesaver for my girl.

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  4. Wow! If you think that room is messy you should see my teenage boy's. There is such a level of "gross" to teenage boys it is hard to beat. I wonder why we ever wanted to date one when we were teenagers. But my son is the same! The reason he is failing classes ... missing assignments. And yup he had them done. If you figure out what to do let me know. I am knocking my head around to try to solve this. I just didn't have that problem when I was his age... so I have a hard time "getting it". Sigh.

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  5. I'm with you, absentminded . . . that's what I am! (Whew! I thought i was losing my mind:)

    Kristin

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