Brain Fog?

[Sammish]

DS12 will be 13 in a two months, and his brain fog is driving us both crazy. In math, in particular, he can't remember how to do things he used to have down (which is know is common after summer vacation), but more worryingly, he is having a hard time re-learning those things. Basic logic just seems to be eluding him. He's a kid who's always been pretty mathy, and picks things up quickly. The past year or so not as much, but this year... I was trying to remind him how to find the area of a complex figure (break it down into things you know how to find the area of, then add those areas together). This was something he had down last year, but couldn't remember at all. So I backed up and broke it down into individual skills. I've now had to back up to the point where I'm asking him "if the whole line is 8m long, and this piece of it is 3m, how long is the other piece of the line?" And despite going over this repeatedly, from a variety of angles, for the past two days, it still seems a mystery to him. (This is just one example.) And it's frustrating both of us! He told me today that he feels like he's going backwards. Secretly, I agree with him 😟. (It's not that he's not trying - he is! And is frustrated with himself! But the connections just aren't being made.)

It's not just math - in science I was repeating the same thing to him over and over again, but he couldn't seem to remember it. I wrote it down, pointed it out to him, but he still couldn't seem to figure it out. 

However! He loves chess, and is doing just fine at that. Taking classes, doing well, plays it a ton in his free time. So not all brain function has ceased. 😏

We just started week 4, and it's not gotten better. He's eating and sleeping fine. He doesn't appear to be currently growing (at least, not currently eating us out of house and home). He does recover well - is upset for a while, but later on is okay.

I'm just not sure what to do. Any advice?

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

He's almost 13.  This is why middle school subjects often don't advance a lot of new knowledge, in my opinion.  We did a lot more hands on learning during the middle school years.  I found that it worked best for my kids. 

[Critterfixer]

Patience, I guess. It also seemed to help my boys when I reminded them that it was perfectly normal to go backwards and forwards in learning, and that the reason there's a lot of review is because it's not always easy to get something the first, second, or third time it's presented. Also that when something is tough and frustrating, there's a break point. At some place in frustration, you simply won't learn no matter how hard you are trying. I encouraged them to step away from the problem, go shoot some hoops, run a lap on the driveway, take a walk, get a snack, and then come back to it.