On the inability to remember a request…
I realized two days ago what little attention span a three year old had when I told her one thing she had to do which was not jump on mommy, asked her to repeat it, and got “don’t step in the fire” – a request I’d given her two weeks before.
I start believing my child exists in seven second segments that have little or no relationship to anything while she’s in a place with options. When she’s confronted with possibilities her mind hits everything in the room and tunes out anything that’s not fascinating to her.
Unfortunately this seems to result in anything I tell her not working in short term memory, but being recalled much much later.
I have no real comment on this other than it’s an interesting phenomena to watch.