Your preschooler’s forgetfulness isn’t bad behaviour and nagging them won’t help

Another school year is upon us, and both parents and children have a lot to remember as people are coming and going on new schedules: make and take lunches, bring an item for show-and-tell, carry cups to the table for dinner when asked. At this time of year, a young child’s forgetfulness can be frustrating for parents. They may be thinking (or saying) things like: “How could you possibly forget to brush your teeth when I asked you one minute ago!” Or: “What do you mean you left your lunch on the school bus?” It might reassure parents to know that the ability to remember to carry out future intentions, known as prospective memory, is still developing in early childhood. Research in my lab at Brock University has examined how this type of memory improves over early childhood . The results are clear: young children are still developing the skill of remembering their future intentions. Young children often forget to carry out their intentions and this is not due to bad behaviour. Forgetting for different reasons We see this in the lab, where children forget to carry out a simple intention (such as to place a specific card in a box) but seem completely unaware of their mistake. In fact, when asked to report what they should have done, most preschoolers rhyme off what they were supposed to do without any difficulty — despite forgetting to have done it. Importantly, children at different ages seem to forget for two distinct reasons. Children aged two and three tend to forget the content of their intention: they cannot remember what it is they have to do. In contrast, children over the age of three usually to remember what they have to do, but fail to carry out the intention at the […]

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