to padlock DS' PE bag to his school bag?

[cakedup]

Genuine question.

I've had it up to HERE with lost PE kit. Sometimes it's the odd item but this is the second time he has lost an ENTIRE PE kit worth over £70 including brand new trainers that he wore twice.

After a couple of weeks of it not turning up, I told him that his only option was to FIND IT TODAY. He just rang up to say he's been to all 3 lost property areas and every single classroom he's ever been in.

As a side aibu, the PE tops have the school logo on and cost 17 fucking quid each. AIBU to just to replace them with cheap plain ones from now on and tell the school I am not forking out for anymore.

The only solution I can think of, is to buy a padlock that only I will know the combination number of, and attach it to his school bag, which he never seems to lose. This won't stop one off PE items being lost, granted, but at least he'll come back with something.

I know it's not an ideal solution and he needs to be more responsible etc but I cannot afford to keep paying out for lost kit. Also, he'll probably hate it as it won't look very cool or whatever (I've tried attaching it before in a temporary way but he just unattached it) but that's life, right?

[chiaseeddisapointmentagain]

I'd do it

[insancerre]

How old is he?
I'd be making him pay for the replacement kit

[cakedup]

Sorry, forgot to say, DS is 12 (year 8).

He doesn't get pocket money so he can't pay for it unfortunately.

[rcit]

Padlock it.
Our school recommend you put the name label on the outside of the school’s branded PE top. They are expensive and so many kids go in with a big name label sewn under the school logo. I don’t know where all this stuff ends up. I think it must be theft as otherwise the school would literally be overflowing with lost clothes. Boys can be really silly at secondary. They will do stuff like flushing clothes down toilets, chucking it on tops of lockers where they can’t be reached or seen, binning clothing, stealing, hiding etc etc

[cakedup]

Although, insancerre I almost considered giving him pocket money just so I could make him pay for it! Although that would probably end up costing me more to be fair.

[Bluelonerose]

I second the padlock idea.

I once found my ds1 pe kit in lost property.
He didn't even no he had lost it!

[cakedup]

rcit I do label everything but on the clothes tags so maybe I need to go one step further. And I think you're right, someone has done something silly with it.

[Leeds2]

Could you buy him some/all of the lost items as part of his Christmas present? Might make him think twice!

[cakedup]

What's worse is that in the two weeks it's been missing, to avoid detention, he has been taking his only non-school shoes to wear which have passed as trainers (those hi-top trainer types). These were also brand new and now he has knackered them doing PE in them. (Also, they're not meant for exercise so can't be good for his feet).

[cakedup]

Leeds2 I don't think I could bring myself to do that! And that's today, at my most angry...I can't imagine on Christmas eve being game!

[cakedup]

Thing is, he is remorseful. And it does mean we have to go back to Sports Direct which he hates with a passion.

[BabyOrSanta]

Is there any way he could stay after school until he's found it?

[Tinty]

I actually tie DD's PE bag to her school bag because she had left it on the bus three times. DH thought I was mean to do this, so he said she could leave it untied. Then he had to go to the bus station an hour away from where we live to pick it, up the same day he said she didn't have to tie it on!

She came home last Friday and confessed that she has managed to lose it again. The whole PE kit including school logoed and initialed PE top and Sweatshirt, shin pads, shorts, jogging bottoms (brand new, she wore them once), and trainers.

So sadly even padlocking PE kit to the bag doesn't work! She didn't leave it on the bus and it isn't in lost property. Guess what I told her she is getting for Christmas!

[cakedup]

BabyOrSanta he's tried that. There is literally no-where else to look. However, having experienced his 'finding' skills, I'm wondering if he has just walked past it. Having said that, he did get a teacher to help him.

[cakedup]

Tinty slightly reassuring I'm not the only one going through this! It's bloody infuriating isn't it?

[Yogagirl123]

Sounds like my DS1, he was around that age when he lost 3 PE kits in one week! Honestly, I am not kidding, he lost his kit, his spare kit, and the kit he borrowed from his younger brother.

I wasn’t very happy as I am sure you can imagine, a lovely friend of mine suggested tying the kit to his rucksack and did a demonstration, DS1 said if I go to school like that I will get bullied.

Every sympathy OP, he will grow out of it, obviously not intentional. My DS1 is at college now, he is doing a sports course!

[f83mx]

Is he definitely losing it - there's not a chance other kids are taking it etc and he's not saying?

[PricklyBall]

Football socks. I'm going to get them surgically attached to DS. They have all vanished. Every single sodding pair in the house. Including the ones he lovingly saved up to buy himself because they were (insert name of his favourite club) socks, and I wasn't spending 14 quid on a pair of bloody socks. He can't even look after the ones he saved his pocket money for weeks to buy.

[cakedup]

Yogagirl123 3 in one week is quite the record!

This reminds me of the time my sister borrowed a pyrex dish from home for cooking class. She never returned with it and denied all knowledge of it. My dad still goes on about it 30 years later!

[IHeartDodo]

My sister used to do this when we were little. She had 3 swimming kits in rotation.
At our school if you didn't have kit you had to either wear the horrible damp swimming costume from the lost property bin, which was disgusting, or swim in your knickers, - deterrent enough for me!
My mum used to buy second hand kit, and the more times you lost it the more horrible stuff she'd buy...

[cakedup]

f83mx I am fairly sure he would tell me if it was taken away, he talks to me about other similar things. But it has occurred to me that it's done without his knowledge? Who knows. But then one time when his PE kit 'disappeared' it turned up about 6 months later in a classroom.

[RavingRoo]

At 12 he should know better. Would stop him buying anything designer or logo’d in (or out of) school until he proves himself to you.

[IsaSchmisa]

Certainly when I was at school, stuff got nicked a horrendous amount. If he's given to leaving his PE bag anywhere, the kit could just as easily have been stolen as lost. Which I suppose would be another vote for the padlock...

[paxillin]

That stuff is all festering in the flea-ridden, smelly lost property cupboard in the school office. Go flying into school, darling, mummy has come to help you find it. He won't lose it again and if he does he'll find it.

[Beeziekn33ze]

At a primary school in a deprived area there was a regular lost property mountain gleaned from cloakrooms which appeared in the hall during the last week of term. A surprising number of items including coats weren't claimed.