Noah this morning poured his cereal in his bowl, opened the utinsil drawer for a spoon, poured his milk, closed the milk carton, and tried to put the milk carton into the utinsil drawer.
Yesteday the dogs were out when Noah came home. He opened the door and let the dogs in. Molly carried a ball that must remain outside. We call it the "stinky" ball. I said the stinky ball needed to go outside and Noah opened the door, stared at the tv, and was oblivious as the dogs stepped on his feet and ran out. When I asked, "what are you doing?" he swayed back and forth almost as if semi-conscious and closed the door. I mentioned the dogs he let Molly in and closed the dog on Crystal.
These types of absent-minded actions on Noah’s part have become increasingly bad. I feel it has slipped beyond "being 10." I do not yet know how to snap him out of it. I feel he has some enourmous stress or anxiety built up in him. I am sorry. At 10 years old you should feel no stress or anxiety. We are going to start by making his life as stress free as possible, do some juggling, and perhaps yoga. I would like to see an improved diet also.
Stress & anxiety suck. I’m sorry to hear that’s the suspected culprit to Noah’s absent mindedness. Keep us posted on how the yoga & diet work.
I’ve always been scatter-brained. It’s amazing to me what stress & anxiety will do to your memory. My productivity plummets and my thinking gets sluggish and not sharp or clear.
Stress and anxiety at that age is built in.
Is he getting enough sleep? My daughter started exhibiting signs like this, but moving her bedtime up 1/2 hour seems to have alleviated it.
Doug … take a look at this: http://tinyurl.com/pj2va
Does any of that seem to jive?
I don’t think absence seizures fit. Noah has also had a cat or mri with no abnormalities (Cathy will correct me if I’m wrong there). In all fairness to Noah, a lot of this is “just being 10.” I meant to meantion this in the post: This morning I asked, “What were you thinking when you tried to put the milk in the drawer?” He said, “I was thinking about how good my Corn Pops were going to be.” The dog episode was hyper fixation on the television.
Noah is a middle child so some middle child flakeyness is expected. His older brother has Aspergers so the odds of Noah showing some spectrum traits are high. I honestly think that Noah is just thinking so much that he stops thinking about the mundane.
Try to reduce external stimuli. At his age, he lacks the ability to filter all the noise and distractions. With fewer things going on at a time he will be able to focus on what is important.
Excellent thought.
Our oldest went through a similar period a while back. And we’ve had times when our youngest has been flaky like that.
I totally agree with the external stimuli thing. Kids get so fixated on television or other things going on around them that they tune everything else out.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. If you cultivate that trait in a positive manner, he could make an excellent studier. 🙂