helping my 9 year old deal with my short term memory

[chrissycornwall]

Hi

Can anyone help? I have a 9 yr old son who is finding it difficult to understand my lost of short term memory. He tells me things to remember from school or other things and gets really frustrated when I forget. How do you explain a subarachnoid hemorrhage to him and how it has affected you. is there any book to help him understand. thanks xx

[RecoveringH]

Buy a whiteboard and pen. Put it up in the kitchen or by the front door where you will see it often. Ask him to draw a picture and write one word on the board to signify a particular thing you need to remember about his school. You are meeting half way. He is providing a reminder, you will learn to use the symbols to remember the whole thing! Good luck Chrissy. To explain to him, draw a head with a big bandage on it. Tell him his drawing and word on the whiteboard will help to take the bandage off.

[cat3]

Chrissy, H's whiteboard suggestion would help so much in eliminate stress of forgetting. I have a big problem remembering appointments, birthdays etc so I have a large calendar above my bedside table and, every night before turning out the lamp, I faithfully note all upcoming events. Checking it is the first thing I do on waking.

I had a spontaneous SAH and my daughter decided to tell my grandson a white lie as to why I was hospitalised for so long to avoid spooking him with ideas that anyone can be struck down without warning. But it's obviously much more difficult for you as a parent.

Keep talking with your boy in terms he understands, whether it's about your 'Poorly brain' or something more detailed. If it were me I'd emphasise how rare it is to stop his imagination running riot.

And maybe contact his school to make them aware of your memory issues, and that any failures to keep up with requirements are not down to your son.

There are books detailing the after effects of brain injury especially written for children ; I see if I can locate them again & get back to you.

But definitely go with the whiteboard Chrissy. Things should improve as your brain is trained to a routine of checking the board, and hopefully it'll be a combined project of you and your boy.

Cat x

[cat3 in reply to cat3]

Chrissy, this book gets good reviews. It's available on Amazon priced £9.99 :-

************************************************************

My Parent has a Brain Injury Perfect Paperback – 1 Dec 2011

by Jo Johnson (Author), Lauren Densham (Illustrator)

5.0 out of 5 stars

10 ratings

Cat x

[WinB]

I found singing has helped me so sing him a song after he has sung it to you xxxx Sounds silly but it might or might not help xxxxx Helped me xxxx Good luck to you and Son xxxx

[MissForgetful25]

I say I'm like a computer thats not working properly. I may seem fine because I'm still running but I'm very slow and I have to print what I can straight away because even though I save documents I can never find them again. My way of printing these things is my memory now lives in a daily diary that I try to keep updated as my day goes by with what I am doing - that includes ticking off when I've eaten and when I was on meds. If I leave it to the end of that day I may forget.