Peter Griffiths Daily Herald Column 1990

We All Forget Things, We Just Don't Like To Admit It

Daily Herald August 18, 1990

It's frustrating to forget. But it's only because we have so much capacity to remember that forgetful ness is a problem. Because none of us enjoys our forgetfulness, we don't brag about how forgetful we are with others. Like many other sensitive areas of living, forget-fullness is joked about more than it is talked about. We don't usually respond

Positively, towards others who are forgetful And most of us get defensive, if anyone comments about our own forgetful ness.

Parents encounter forgetfulness in their children on a regular basis. Yet no matter at what age a child is forgetful, parents seldom appreciate it. And, the more that parents get upset when their children are forgetful, the more they unconsciously reinforce this irritating behavior.

It's important to distinguish between different kinds of forgetfulness. There is the forgetfulness of newness, something we encounter from infancy to adulthood. Babies have to repeat a behavior many times to learn it. But, once a baby has learned to do something, it seldom forgets it unless it's going through a period of regression. The world of a baby, a toddler or a young child is expanding rapidly, yet they show a great ability to learn, although usually only one thing at a time. The more you understand how a child learns the better you can react to their forgetfulness.

Pre-teens and teenagers are renown for their forgetfulness, at least from the point of view of most parents and teachers. These people often wish there was a way to permanently affix something to a teen, to guarantee that it made it to school or home. Parents and teachers of teens are caught in a dilemma. The more they remind, the more they may reinforce reactive forgetfulness. The less they remind, the more they allow the forgetfulness of pre-occupation to develop.

There are no magic answers for dealing with forgetfulness, either in yourself or others. But here are some guidelines or theorems which can help you understand the nature of forgetfulness.

The first theorem of forgetfulness is that the degree of forgetfulness is directly related to your distaste of the experience you are forgetting.

The second theorem is that the harder you try to remember something at a particular moment of time, the less you will be able to remember it at that time.

The third theorem is that the more you say to yourself "I have to remember this", the more likely you are to forget it.

The fourth theorem is that the more someone else bugs you about remembering something, the more likely you are to forget it.

Forgetfulness is a stressful part of living that, both we, and others around us experience. The best guide for surviving forgetfulness is perhaps the Golden Rule - Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. But, this also requires your being willing and able to forgive yourself and others for being less than perfect.