not being able to find things

They are both males, no hope for them. The only solution: a woman to find it for them. LOL

They look with man eyes. That’s all. I have that same problem in my house. My husband and son do the same thing all the time. My husband will work himself into a lather looking for something that he is sure I relocated….when I look it is in the same spot he looked 10 times…..magical…heeheehee…..gotta luv them……..

That’s exactly what I was going to say… Testosterone poisoning!

Karen

I cant recall

With 3 sons and a dh I know theres a ‘male’ component to this one yet my LD son definitely is to the nth degree on this.

I was thinking it was the distraction factor-the inability to focus on what is important-oh, theres the jam-look at the pickles-I see a light-does the freezer have a light too. And then the realization he was supposed to find the milk and he has no idea how long hes actually been standing there so…MOM!!!! I cant find it!

I have an adult friend with ADD and she often identifies with things ds does and explains it to me- I cant always get my mind around her explanations but I accept she knows what shes talking about

2step directions is one she and I just discussed-ds does the first part but not the second-as soon as I mention he forgot something, he remembers and completes the task without me specificly saying what part 2 was(which tells me he didnt ‘forget’ as in a memory issue) She says that is typical of her ADD-she just cant sustain focus long enough to do part 2 -her mind goes off on other things

Visual spatial-I do think dh lacks this. Moving furniture is a nightmare-I know the table will not possibly fit in that space-I can tell its too big-he insists it will-we try and-low and behold-its too big. This happens a LOT. Meanwhile, he can load the backof the van perfectly-which confused me as being conflicting to his ability until I realized he wasnt visualizing when he loaded-he moved it around and trialed and errored- the results were perfect(I suck at loading) but he wasnt “seeing” it but ‘doing’ it

Same problem here and all my female friends seem to experience the same difficulty with their guys.

Personally, I think it’s a guy thing.

I was getting ready to respond with “guy thing” too, but then thought, if I’m honest with myself, I have the same problem, probably worse than my son or husband. The only difference is that when they announce “I can’t find it”, it becomes my job to locate it. When I say “I can’t find it”, for some reason, the world continues to revolve (!) and I’m on my own.

The only strategy that I’ve come up with is starting with the most logical place for the item is likely to be located, and then picking up and/or examining every single item seperately and saying out loud “This is it” or “This isn’t it”. Sometimes I’ll get distracted doing even that and miss the object anyway. Occasionally, I’ll find what I’m looking for by thinking to myself that the only place that I haven’t looked that makes any sense is ____. And that’s where it will be.

Marycas,

The 2 step direction thing may be add but it is also visual perception. When a person has to do several tasks they must put it into visual pictures in their mind. People who have visual perception issues have trouble with multistep tasks.

My husband and 3 year old boy are aces at finding things. My husband is almost anal about putting things in specific places so he knows exactly where they are.

How said that mom has to ask a 3 year old to find her keys?

I remember watching Roseanne Barr in one of her first HBO comedy shows,
one of her jokes was that ‘men think the uterus is a tracking device’. Goes to show that all though a few women have difficulty it seems the majority of men have it :o)

Yep, I heartily agree. It’s a standard joke in my house that the males will run around “looking” forever, whereas the females will find something within a few seconds.

I’ve watched my husband and son look for things. They place their hands in a drawer, but their eyes don’t really search. Meanwhile I’ve already spotted the object sitting in that drawer. I use my eyes to look; they don’t.

I don’t think this has anything to do with a disability, unless you call just being a man a disability! Please, all of you men, don’t take it personally, we women have our own set of ‘disabilities’ ha!

Hi Joan,

That’s an interesting observation, and makes me wonder about another thing that my son does. When we go into a store, I will automatically remind them, “not to touch”. Within seconds, my younger one (but he’s not THAT young… he’s 9 1/2) will have something in his hands. When I remind him that he’s not supposed to touch, he invariably replies that he’s “just looking”. Maybe they NEED that tactile input to process what they see?

Karen

Do you all think this is related to not knowing where to put things after they are used? I ask my kids to put away clean dishes, stuff gets put every which way, but they know where to go to get bowls and spoons when they want to eat (when I put the dishes away). Hmmm.

It’s teaching ‘em *young* that we all ahve things we can contribute — and that nobody should be too proud to ask for help, it just makes things easier so what’s the big deal.
So I must be a guy, eh? I have learned to tie in the verbal side of the brain for that kind of thing.
In fact, I was locking the door and thinking I was really doing in a NLD way… It’s a deadbolt, and I stuck it in and tried four or five times in different directions, “stick the key in and turn, if it doesn’t work go the other way. Okay, *one* more time and I’ll wake up the other half of the brain and pay attention to whether it’s sliding in.” Which I had to do… but it was a conscious verbally directed effort.
NOw, I”d also been immersed in WORDS all day in a writing project…

I believe your right - I think there is a connection and they DO need that tactile input to process what they see. My age 9 daughter does the same thing. I have FINALLY figured out that they is not intentionally disobeying me.

I’m thinking about getting my some some accommodations for being “testosterone challenged”.

Ditto. When I am out of the house, and my son (8 yrs old) and my husband (41) need something like a light bulb, or god forbid, toilet paper, they ask my 5 year old daughter where to find it.

Well, daughter and I are definitely female (and hetero and hormonally normal and all that) and we can NOT find things!!

For some reason scissors are the worst. I go around where are my scissors? Where? and she says she has no idea — I bought two or three new pairs of scissors a year and they all went into a black hole. Now I’m living alone I haven’t lost any scissors for a year, but also haven’t done any sewing so it probably doesn’t count.

I can look straight at my desk/work table and say where are my scissors, and someone else can walk up and there they are right in front of me. I *think* there is something about recognizable shapes and broken patterns acting here, but don’t know.

I never lose my keys — because I never, ever look for them. The keys live in the front pocket of the purse, the purse lives on its hook in the hall closet, and that is final. When I leave, the purse is on the shoulder, always.Yep, it’s compulsive. But it works.
This is from a person who forgets her own birthday and anniversaries, so believe me, it’s a life-saver!
Same system for driver’s licence and credit cards.

Books in the bookshelves are filed almost library style, by subject matter and in larger categories alphabetized by author. So is music. Compulsive, but it works.

Most things in the house have specific locations where they go right back, from the magnetized bottle opener on the fridge door to the antique clock key on a string tied to the clock to the writing and art materials in the Wal-Mart plastic drawers beside the work table. This doesn’t mean the house is terribly neat or I’m a neat freak, quite the opposite, but most things can be found *without* looking — once it has to be looked for, forget it and buy another.

On the other hand I haven’t gotten a handle on paper and it regularly takes over every surface in the house, now being a bad infestation. Any simple one-step method that doesn’t involve losing my tax form again would be welcome.

Two-step directions are bad for me and hopeless for daughter. We have ways of breaking up the steps, writing lists on our hands, and so on. Messy, but better than missing exams or forgetting to pick up the kid.

Things to be done the next day are filed overnight on top of the shoes (or purse) so they can’t be left behind.
The watch is placed over the bridge of the glasses overnight so it’s hard to forget it — down to once or twice a month anyway.(Darn! forgot it again yesterday!)

When looking for something, I use the Sherlock Holmes approach — visualize or for daughter verbalize where it was last, go there, and reconstruct the crime. This works often, although it isn’t perfect..

I would strongly recommend that if you have a family member who has a *serious* losing/forgetting problem, you teach them some of these coping skills. Make a list the night before and put it in your shoe, put your key and ID in your wallet and never ever leave home without the wallet (no excuses — a just going to … is the break that ruins the habit), put your watch on your glasses or shoes so you can’t leave home without them, put things in alphabetical order as you put them away, write vital things on your left hand, put neverything in one location and stick to it, and so on. It takes a month to get a habit started and six months to a year to make it permanent, but then you can back off and let the habit do the work. My daughter is far from perfect but she is a lot better than I was at the same age, and what more (except for those scissors) can I ask?

Only touch a piece of paper once. When you get the mail immediately go through it and throw everything out that needs to be thrown out, file what gets filed (have a bill file if you only pay bills once a month, one friend who does this is such a fanatic she pays her bills as soon as he she gets them in the mail,) write things on your calender then throw out the flier etc.

Always remind yourself, I only want to touch it once. Sometimes you do need to save certain things that are “to do’s” but a “to do” file works well that you can leave on your desk.

This is a real system taught by organizational consultants. It isn’t mine.

I like this one-time theory and tried to make it work, but reality intervened:

Can’t pay the bill until I get paid. Have to call an office that’s only open certain limited hours and have to keep a reminder out. Have to go get a blood test for thyroid later this week and then see the doctor the week after, and need the papers for that out to remind me. Log book for tutoring, must be out on desk. And so on.

My ex-husband claimed to be the most organized person in the world. He had numbered and dated and labelled files and everything. He paid his bills on a monthly schedule. I said “great!” and handed everything over to him. Boy, was that a mistake. Guess who could find his college transcripts? Guess who had to do the income tax six years out of the seven we were together, and who had all the records at hand?

I really do want to get the papers under control again. There’s a really bad infestation dating from when I sprained my knee and was on bed rest.

But, on the other hand, there’s organization and organization. When trying to get the bank to approve a mortgage on my self-employment and part-time income (please wish me luck and pray for me everyone, I need all the help I can get) I was able to put my hands on all the income records, mine and ex, from the last eight years including two moves.
I’m trying to figure out a technique that will combine my ability to manage things mentally with a more reasonable degree of neatness and order. No luck yet but any coping suggestions welcome.

God bless you Victoria you have my sincere best wishes and prayers for getting what you want and need.

email me sometime.