Chunking: The Secret to Helping Your Child Remember Important Tasks
Your brain is very capable of having ideas, thoughts, and inspirations, but it is horrible at retaining them.
You may have several brilliant ideas while you shower or while you are on a walk, but the moment you transition to the next activity, many of these ideas have already fled your brain. Some people don’t even remember what they had for lunch.
This is the same for your children's brains. Their brains are great at having wonderful ideas, but remembering them can be very challenging. Children under the age of 12 have trouble with the concept of time. They are also influenced by suggestions given by adults in their lives. Their stories change and the sequence of events change. It is really hard to know what actually happened. This is why children often forget where they left their jacket, forgot their water bottles at school, and why they forget to do the things you have asked them to do.
So how can you help your child remember better? You can help them create patterns so they increase their ability to recall. One of the ways you can help them create a pattern is chunking.
Chunking is combining a series of tasks into one memorable chunk. Here are some examples of chunking:
Instead of asking them to pick up individual items to get ready for school, use the same pattern each day. Instead of saying, “Do you remember your jacket? How about your backpack? Now go get your water bottle," say, “Grab your jacket, backpack, and water bottle” - combining several items into a repeatable sentence. Jacket, backpack, and water bottle. Repeat that every day, and soon your child will remember that there are always three things that are needed for school.
Utilize muscle memories to chunk a sequence of events. An adult taught this to the kid. The adult puts the phone in the left front pocket, car key in the right front pocket, and the wallet in the back right pocket. Whenever the adult leaves the house, the adult pats his left front pocket, followed by the right front pocket, and ends with the back right pocket, making sure all three items are accounted for. Soon the child would ask the adult if the adult had done his three taps before they leave the house. You can do this with your children by having repeating physical movement to chunk individual tasks into one and repeat them.
Use your unique gift and talent to create patterns: some people create songs to help children remember routines. Some people create a poster of the three things a child must do each night to get ready for bed. Think about your particular gift and how you can incorporate that into creating a chunk of actions that will help your child remember.
Routines need time and repetition to establish. Help your child remember better by putting things in order and repeating them frequently, so they remember one chunk of information at a time rather than many individual ones.
