My 8 yr old is sweet, good natured, cooperative and very, very smart. He is also, for lack of a better word, drifty. For example, I'll ask him to go put away a stack of laundry, and he'll cheerfully say "Okay!", and 5 minutes later I see the laundry on the kitchen counter and him in his bedroom doing something completely different. Or I'll remind him to change his shirt, then knock on his door to find him with no shirt on at all, engrossed in a book. Meanwhile, he is constantly asking questions about everything, and I mean everything, under the sun - pretty good clue as to where his mind is!
It's not defiance, and I don't think he has attention span issues, because he can focus like a laser when he wants to and has no trouble staying on task at school. It just seems like there is a lag between his ears hearing something and his brain processing the message. I know he's young, but is this normal? It does not seem to be an issue for any of his friends. I love him and would not change him, but it is driving me crazy.
What can I do to help him pay attention?
My oldest son is like this, and he's now 24 and I've never been able to change him.
It's his personality, and there are good aspects to it. Kids like this tend to be very easygoing. Yes, it's normal.
We have one just like that here! Not defiant, just head in the clouds. When she was younger, here's what we did:
1. Make sure you have the child's FULL attention before speaking. I actually have to pause the TV or make her turn away from whatever she's doing in order to have her full attention. I don't speak until she is looking me in the face and her hands are empty.
2. I ask her to repeat back what I've just said. There are many times she will start to repeat it back and then say "Oh wait, what did you say?" She wasn't really listening.
3. I remind her that I need her to do it now, and I have her report back to me when she's finished. When she was younger I'd set a timer to keep her on task. She's not ADD or ADHD, she just wouldn't do something if she didn't want to and there was something more interesting to do. When caught, she didn't even look guilty, just surprised that I was upset.
4. I remind her to come to present time when we are out and about. I will stand at a curb and wait until I feel like she is here with us, and not daydreaming.
5. I have always given her plenty of free time to imaginative play and daydream. It's just a matter of making sure she's back on "Earth" before giving her instructions!!
Kids have different learning and processing strengths.
My son was like this. I could tell him something like please go get a bag out of the car, and he'd return from outside 20 minutes later and say something like the trash cans weren't at the curb, they were already in the garage. Huh? And giving him a chore would invariably end with him reading anything - a cereal box, a book, whatever. And the chores didn't get done.
So, finally I figured out that he is a visual learner. Instead of talking myself blue in the face, I simply used post-it notes or index cards. I would write "put laundry away" and hand it to him. Seeing the words made an impact. It saved a lot of aggravation. So try visual cues. Use a small post-it note and stick it right on the back of his hand. If he's sitting at a desk or table, write in bold Sharpie on an index card and set it in front of him. Be brief. Use as few words as possible. "Laundry. Put away." "Take off shirt. Put on clean one".
My son is intelligent, and now is 25, a college graduate, and successful. But he still will occasionally call me to ask me to text him if it's an important reminder that he needs, like "pay insurance bill today". Seeing it in text makes him remember when hearing it a dozen times just goes nowhere.
Your son may not be "drifty", he might be so visually acute that he is easily focused on what he sees. That can be a good thing! He might be an artist or able to do things that require excellent visual skills, like a surgeon. My son is an engineer and his job requires that he have a real grasp of wiring layouts, diagrams, etc. He would have made a terrible psychologist, for example, which involves really listening and responding to a person. So enjoy your son's strengths and use them!
My son is like this. Very 'head in the clouds'... or as we like to say "lost in space". I empathize as I'm a bit this way myself, very 'in my head'.
For my son, when I see this happening, I usually do two things:
one- I have him repeat the direction back to me; if it's time-sensitive then I stick around and watch to make sure it gets done.
Sometimes, too, he gets to talking and distracting himself, so I tell him "shoes and backpack, no talking until you are ready to go". I do have to remind him at times to 'stop talking and do your job now' when he's putting shoes on the wrong feet because he's thinking up some awesome fantasy story in his head.
Lastly, now that he's getting older, I make him work for the reminders: lets say the shoes get on but he's standing by the door without the backpack. "Hmmm... looks like you forgot something." If he is stumped, "Think about what I asked you to do." Stumped more? "Go check your hook". He's six, not sixteen, and I know he's just stuck up in that little brain of his. More and more we are inferring that 'something's missing' or "you forgot something", etc. and making him recall what it is he needs.
Sure hope he grows out of it. As an adult, I have tools to stay focused, but kids are still learning.
He's a bright kid for whom the interesting, exciting things in a book take priority over mundane things like changing his shirt.
Don' make a big deal out of it unless it's imperative that he put on a clean shirt because you're walking out of the house in five minutes.
Yeah, I am 53 and I drive myself crazy sometimes doing this and one of my sons is the same way. Personality.
Cheerful M has good advice.
Really, it's your job to train him to try to focus in a time frame, give him tools to accomplish things, when all else fails, give him tricks to remember things.
Be aware, you are in for the ride of your life sometimes! Especially in middle school!
It's probably just his personality. Be happy if this is the worst quirk he has!
It's normal for some of us.
As for what you can do to help him pay attention, I like Elena B's idea (I'll have to try that with my dreamy child), and I also think Cheerful M has good ideas.
Some people are just a little fuzzy around the edges. It's not ADHD. It's personality. But they do still need to learn to function in our society, which is not an easy place for dreamy, wondering types. I know this well - I'm one of the dreamy ones, as was my father (a physics and chemistry teacher - wonderers make great scientists), and as is my daughter. Gently teach him how to pay attention and how to follow through. But don't be surprised when at 25 he still can't find his shoes, or remember why he was looking for them in the first place. :-)
My 11 year old is like this and always has been. We'll walk through a parking lot and even though I tell him a hundred times to move toward the parked cars, etc. he is just in la la land!! I'll be watching to see if you get any helpful suggestions.
Regarding the questions I would ask him to stop and think before he asks questions "do you think you can come up with the answer on your own?" Sometimes you might just have to say "only two more questions until 2:00, Mom's brain hurts"!!
M
If I'm understanding your examples correctly, it sounds like the problem you're having is that he is not following through as QUICKLY as you would like. Does he get it done eventually?
Have you tried being more specific about timing? Like "please put that laundry away before we leave for soccer at 3:30", "please put that laundry away immediately", etc?
This is my oldest! She gets so distracted...by everything, yet, she has amazing focus and attention.
I created a chart this morning of some of her routine. I'm hoping to just keep pointing her to it until a habit is formed. I do find that she will stay focused on laundry, for instance, if I stay with her.
Otherwise, I look forward to hearing what others says!
Some people have slow processing and short term memory problems. My son is this way and I am now going to get him tested for Dyspraxia. If your son has slow processing it's lifelong and he will need a bit more than other kids when it comes to reminders and explaining things better.
I don't think that he's not paying attention. If he weren't paying attention, he wouldn't get started. I think it's a matter of him not really thinking he has to follow through.
My grandchildren used to do this because my daughter would tell them to do something in another room and then not follow-up to be sure they were doing what they were told. So they'd just go in the other room and do whatever they pleased.
Again, just a matter of you not making him follow through with what you've told him to do. If I went in and found him with no shirt on reading a book, I would take the book as a consequence and then find some chores for him to do. He needs to learn that he has to do what he's told to do when he's told to do it. He can do what HE wants AFTER he's done doing what he's told to do.
