What is your first memory?
Think about it. Can you describe the smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings attached to the memory?
How old were you in this beginning recollection? Were you a small child, or were you a toddler, struggling to stand?
Did you know that your first recollection could be a false memory? You may have been told a story so many times that you developed a false memory of the event. For example, your father may have told you about a time when he was called to the school because you were beating up all the boys in your kindergarten class. You may have heard the story so many times that you envisioned yourself punching the biggest bully in your class on his nose. You could see his face, the classroom, and imagine your feelings at the time. However, later in your life, you run into your old principal, and upon sharing the memory with him, he confirms that you never hit the biggest bully in your class. In fact, you were in trouble for hitting another boy because he stepped in front of you when you were in line for the slide. His friends rushed to help him, and you hit them, too.
You have no recollection of the true event, but you believed the story you had placed in your own mind to be the truth. You created a false memory.
Unfortunately, most of us do not develop memories until we are five or six. Until that time, we suffer from childhood amnesia. Childhood amnesia refers to the child’s ability to form long-term memories before a certain age.
Traumatic events seat themselves in our minds, and children may remember a car accident, or something worse, at an extremely young age. The brain may embrace it to prevent the person from reliving the event in the future. The brain may also camouflage the memory with another, unrelated memory, or repress the event entirely.
What if you want a child to remember a happy event, like a birthday or a trip to the zoo?
Researchers believe that children can form short-term memories as young as a year old. Some people believe that if children actively talk about, or act out, the event repeatedly then they have a better chance of forming a true long-term memory. However, if you describe the event to the child, that child will form a false memory based on your retellings.
It’s tricky, I know.
So how do children learn if they cannot form long-term memories?
Well, the idea is that children form short-term memories that make long-term associations. Sensory stimuli can affect the development of associations, as well. For example, you may not recollect how you know that your grandpa takes you for ice cream on Saturdays, but when you realize that it’s Saturday, you expect your grandfather to take you out for ice cream. On the other hand, as a toddler, you burned your hand on a skillet the last time your father made potatoes and onions. A week later, you associate the experience when you see an iron skillet with cornbread come out of the oven. You remembered the pain from the burn, so the association may be clearer.
People have memories from their early years. Are they all false memories?
I was so upset when a doctor told me that I didn’t have true memories before the age of six that I decided to prove him wrong. He laughed at me when I told him that I remembered my parents fighting before their divorce. I was two and a half years old when they divorced. The doctor pretended to humor me when I said that I remembered several instances before the disagreement that ended their marriage.
I have a clear memory of my father’s black leather chair. He was watching the Carol Burnette Show (I remembered the lady with a mop in the spotlight during the credits), and I climbed down from the chair and slid into the kitchen. I squeezed my hand into the drawer next to the door and found the Sweettarts candy. At that time, Sweettarts were in a roll with their brand name on white paper, and I discarded a couple until I found my favorite flavor: grape.
I remember coming into my house on Christmas Eve. I had fallen asleep on the way home from my grandmother’s house, and my father carried me into the house. My father and mother believed that I was still sleeping, but I spied a red tricycle near the tree.
I have a distinct memory of crying for my pacifier one night. My father walked into my nursery (connected to my parent’s room), picked up the pacifier, and stuck it into my mouth. I wanted to see my father again, so I slung my pacifier onto the floor, and I cried. My father returned in his long john pajamas, and I heard my mother say, “Let her cry if she does it again!” I didn’t want to be without my pacifier, so I kept it in my mouth.
Are these false memories? No.
Sure, the fight between my parents may have been traumatic, but what about the unrelated recollections? My mother never talked about these instances, and my parents never witnessed my Sweettart burglary. They both thought that I was genuinely surprised by the tricycle, so they never knew that I saw it before Christmas morning. I asked my mother about the pacifier incident, and she thought that I might have been around eighteen months old when it happened. She had no clear memory of the event.
I have several other memories before I was six. After all, I started kindergarten when I was four years old, and my teachers weren’t around to supply my mind with false memories after I moved on from their grade.
Can a child form long-term memory before he or she is six years old? I am proof that it’s possible. My memories are clear, contain sensory details, and the other people who were present have not spoken about the events until I mention the recollection.
If you remember running through your grandmother’s house some time before first grade, I believe you. I think it’s possible for you to remember going to your toddler circle, and I believe you when you say that your mother bribed you with ice cream when you were very young so that you wouldn’t tell your step-father that she locked the keys in the car.
The brain of each human is a uniquely wonderful instrument, and we have not fully grasped its abilities. So, if someone tells you that you could not have formed a long-term memory before six years of age…just forget it. 😊
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