My 6-year-old can’t tell me what he did at school, and I don’t know what to do about it
I picked him up from school an hour ago, and he’s currently on the living floor building a block tower that he swears is “taller than the whole world,” and there’s still a smudge of blue tempera paint on his left ear that he wouldn’t let me wipe off in the car. If you asked me what he did today, though? I got nothing. Because when I asked him 10 minutes after we pulled out of the parking lot, all he said was “nothing. Stuff.” When I pressed, he just turned up the volume on the Daniel Tiger song playing on his tablet and stared out the window. That’s how it goes most days.
It’s not just the day recap, either. Homework’s the thing that’s really been getting to me lately. He’s in first grade, so homework’s just 10 minutes of sight words or a quick math sheet, nothing crazy. Last week we practiced the same 10 words for 15 minutes before bed, he got every single one right, laughed when I messed up “cat” on purpose. Next afternoon, when we sat down to do the worksheet the teacher sent home, he just blinked at the first word on the page for a full minute and said “I don’t remember.” I thought he was being silly, messing around to avoid going to bed, so I asked him again, and his eyes got all shiny and he just repeated it, quieter. That’s when I realized he actually couldn’t pull it up right then.
I talked to his teacher at conferences two weeks ago, and she said she notices the same thing. She’ll ask him a question that I know he knows – he can name every dinosaur that ever walked the earth, for God’s sake – and he just freezes. Stares at his shoes. Won’t say anything. Five minutes later, when she checks in with him one on one after class, he answers perfectly. No mistakes. It’s like his brain is still walking to the question when everyone else already left the room.
I know I shouldn’t do it, but I compare him to my sister’s kid, who’s the same age. That kid comes home from school and reenacts every single minute of her day, from who pushed who on the slide to what kind of cookie they had for snack to every single new thing she learned. She’ll recite the whole alphabet backwards just because she can, when you ask. My kid can remember every single line of the Bluey episode about the magic xylophone that he watched three weeks ago. He can remember that I promised we’d go get donuts with sprinkles next Sunday, a promise I made two weeks ago. But he can’t remember what he ate for lunch three hours ago. It’s so weird, right? It’s not like he has a bad memory. It’s just… immediate recall? Like the stuff that’s supposed to be right there, it’s hiding somewhere he can’t reach it when you ask for it.
I had my in-laws over for dinner last weekend, and my mother-in-law asked him what he learned at school that week, and he just shrugged and said “don’t know.” I felt that hot flush creep up my neck, like I’d somehow failed as a parent, like I wasn’t working with him enough or something. Even though I know I am. We do 10 minutes of homework every night, we read two books before bed, we play those silly memory games in the car. It just… doesn’t stick when someone asks for it right away. The other day we were driving home, I’d stopped asking about school 20 minutes earlier, he was just eating his chocolate chip granola bar, crumbs all over his dinosaur sweatshirt, and he suddenly just goes “oh yeah, we planted bean seeds today. Mine’s gonna grow taller than dad. Alex’s fell in the dirt and the teacher had to get him a new one.” Just out of nowhere. No one even asked. It just popped out when his brain was ready to let it out.
I’ll admit I get frustrated sometimes, even though I know I shouldn’t. The other night we were doing sight words, and he couldn’t remember “and” for the life of him, and I snapped a little – not yelling, just sharper than I meant to be, like “c’mon, we did this yesterday, what’s wrong with you?” And he just folded his paper up really small and put his head on the table and his shoulders started shaking, and I felt like the worst mom in the world. He’s six. What am I doing, snapping at him for not remembering a stupid word?
I’ve been scrolling the local parent Facebook group at 10pm after he falls asleep, typing in things like “six year old can’t remember school work” just to see what comes up. Half the posts are people saying it’s a working memory issue, get him tested, half say it’s just six year old brain, they’re still developing. I go from “oh it’s fine, he’s just slow to warm up” to “am I missing something that’s gonna mess him up later” and back again, all in the space of 10 minutes. My cousin was like this when he was little, I remember my aunt saying he never could tell anyone what he did at school, and he’s 25 now, an engineer, remembers every single deadline and all my birthday and everything. So it can turn out fine, right? But that doesn’t stop the little knot in my stomach every time homework time rolls around.
I don’t need a million advice comments, honestly. I’ve already heard all the tricks – ask specific questions, don’t press, do more memory games, all that. I just… wanted to put this out there, see if anyone else is in the same boat. Is this just what six is? Is your kid the same way – can remember every random cartoon line from a month ago, but can’t tell you what they did at school today, can’t pull up that sight word they knew last night when it’s time for homework? Am I just overreacting, making a big deal out of nothing? I don’t need a perfect answer, I just don’t want to feel like I’m the only one standing here, staring at a half done first grade worksheet, waiting for my kid’s brain to catch up when it’s ready. (1128 words)
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