7.5 y o forgetting and losing stuff

[Toadinthehole]

This is the situation:

• She regularly leaves her lunch box at school. Then she forgets to recover it from lost property. The school has actually thrown away a lunch box because of this.
  
• She leaves homework at school. Or she forgets to stick it in her book (which she should do during class). When clearing out her room I found 3 sheets stuck in a box of soft toys. On another occasion when collecting her from school I found 5-6 sheets in her desk.
  
• She is currently missing her school jumper and sun hat (replacement cost $NZ100) having taken them off and left them somewhere
  
• she generally leaves stuff lying about and has to be reminded to pick them up.
  

FWIW she's doing OK in school - behind in maths, very much ahead in reading, and has been bumped up a year.

No incentives / threats seem to work. I think she genuinely does try - she is just very 'in the moment', if you see what I mean. I doubt she'll change any time soon. In the meantime, any suggestions as to how I might mitigate the problem?

[SavoyCabbage]

I could have written this! Dd's first teacher said she was the first child she ever had who had still not remembered to get out her water etc. in the mornings after a whole year.

My dd is nine in two weeks and I think it's only in the last year that she has started to become more responsible. At the start of the year, she wasn't remembering to do her homework but she is now (with six weeks to go)

I say her down a while ago and told her she needed to get better at the morning routine as I was going back to work. I was having to remind her to brush her teeth and put on her shoes... And it did seem to help.

[shuffleballchange]

Sounds like ds1, right down to the maths and reading! No great ideas, but glad its not just me!!

[allgoodindahood]

This sounds just like my ds1. He has always been scatty but it was at age 7 when these issues really started to become apparent. After much liaison with the school they informally diagnosed mild dyspraxia. They said that he has been masking it up till now but now that he is expected to take more responsibility and rely less on me, his brain is being pushed to the limit. I'm not sure whether I believe the diagnosis. His new teacher thinks he's no worse than anybody else in the class. But We have put some strategies in place to help him, remind him, organise him etc and try to be more understanding. It must be quite stressful to keep getting things wrong and getting told off for it even though you've tried your best.

[Toadinthehole]

allgoodinthehood

What things do you do to help DS1?

I am contemplating attaching a list to DD's bag - ie, things to remember: homework book, school jumper, school hat, lunchbox, pencilcase. The problem is that she might forget to check the list.