Dog days – children’s memories and recounting tales

Children’s memories always amaze me. Mainly about how much children remember. Selective memory only, because I’m not sure mine is that great at remembering what he might just have read.  And it’s definitely audio or visual items he remembers, rather than written.  That obviously makes it much harder to learn at school unless he’s been shown something first or hears the explanation alongside. N has a memory that can remember things from when he was much younger.  And he can recount more detailed technical information that I wouldn’t have thought an 8 year old could remember.

Anything on the farm N soaks up. Largely because it’s practical and he’s there watching it, or doing it at the time.  Not everything is entirely accurate, but he spins a convincing tale.

He’s pretty good at remembering school days as well.  I get a lot of information back from school, certainly more than most children.  Often they’ll remember if prompted but won’t necessarily come out with it. But N is very open about what he will tell me.  I’m hoping that relationship and trust carries on through his tweens and teenage years, when you really want and need your children to stay honest with you.

With school, it’s about timing.  And opportunity.  Plus a sharing of both of our days.

But recently, I’ve been very impressed with N’s recall and understanding of what went on with our sprocker spaniel.  Unfortunately she had a hurdle fall on her leg.  The same leg as she injured before.  An operation and cast later for the break, and we were hopeful she would recover. But after a second vet’s stay, and proposing another op, she didn’t make it. 

She was such a character, it’s certainly sad to lose her, although N is quite pragmatic about losing her. Being a farmer’s son, he’ll have worked through the steps, how things went, and he watched her being buried. He remembers where each dog over the years has been buried.  He has a sad moment on occasion where he’ll miss her bounding over to be stroked, and will refer to funny occasions with her. But overall he’s moved on.

What was amazing was his interest in visiting the vet with her and telling me afterwards all about the injury. I heard about which parts of her leg was injured, how it was different to before. What the vet and anesthetic would do, and where she’d stay and be looked after. What the waiting room was like, how the cats and dogs are kept separate, what other animals were in.  Everything you could possibly imagine, he soaked up like a sponge and recounted to me.  Technical names were mentioned, and different vets from the 2 practices that had been involved.

I think I need to mention to his teacher what might work better for his school work. And getting N to remember things like spellings. Maybe I need to get him listening to Alexa spelling words he needs to learn to make them stick, as well as him using scrabble letters to remember them.  Although he’s ok at memorising a list for spelling tests, it’s putting that knowledge onto paper when writing text that things get careless and his spelling ability is forgotten about. 

So I have a child who has a memory like a sponge. I must remember not to talk about things I might not want repeating. So far, I’ve been safe, but it’s only a matter of time before my opinion could get me into trouble.

And it seems N is like an elephant who never forgets. He remembers things I’ve forgotten about from year ago.

But unfortunately he still doesn’t remember to put his pyjamas upstairs or clean his teeth without fail every morning.

How good a memory do your children have?  Are they visual, audio or practical learners?