As suitable punishment for 11yo girl?

[TheRhubarb]

I know you will probably say that all girls are like this but with dd she is driving me insane!

She's a good kid generally, quiet and polite and we have a close relationship. However she just does not take responsibility for her possessions. Yesterday we hunted through the house for her calculator for Maths - a not cheap calculator as you have to get one the Maths dept specifies. Turns out it is lost. Today she has lost her phone, just after I had credited it. I've turned the house upside down and it's not there.

Trouble is she just doesn't take care of her things. She will put something down and forget about it. She's also on a last chance regarding her hamster, but I've just been upstairs (hunting for phone) and her room is covered in hamster poo, there are dirty clothes under the bed and in the bed, weekend clothes (from last weekend) scattered about, papers, etc.

Now we've had this issue almost forever and I have done everything to try and make sure she keeps organised. So we have bought her a desk, she has her own wastepaper bin, I got her a whiteboard on which I've written down a routine that she is supposed to follow every day when she gets back from school. Just things like Monday: Put dirty clothes in wash etc. But she has not been doing it and now she has lost 2 things, one of which (the phone) was a birthday present and was not cheap.

She's at a sleepover tonight but I'm not sure whether to let her go or not. I am exasperated and fuming that she's lost her phone. What can I do that will make her realise the seriousness of taking responsibility for her things?

Probably losing her things is punishment enough. I presume you won't be replacing the phone? DS is like this, and always has been. If he loses something essential - like a calculator or waterproof - it gets replaced with a cheap equivalent. If he loses a "luxury" item, he has to replace it himself.

I won't be replacing her phone for her although it's annoying as the phone was largely for emergencies as she gets the bus to and from school, so it was for my peace of mind that she could contact me if she needed to.

Just hope that we find it or it's handed in at school.

Oh dear have you got e younger version of my dd ? had exactly the same thing with the calculator the other week, needed it for her mocks and could nt find it at 11pm the night before, same stuff with the bedroom - i have tried to accommodate her scatterbrain by refurbishing her room with huge sliding door wardrobes, an ottoman bed ( loads of storage for her stuff in both) to no avail she is 15 and has always been like this. I dread going in to wake in the morning as it is impossible to walk in there because of stuff on the floor, cups plates, books, clothes, wet towels, things that crunch when you step on them - i have more or less given up - i do insist on a major clear up when our cutlery and crockery stocks are runnng low - one good thing though she is super at her school work and is no problem generally, lovely nature etc - Good luck

I think you are living my future, as DD is very similar in terms of untidiness and losing things (unlike DSes, who have had the odd lapse, but are normally pretty reliable). So I'm watching this with interest, as I'm interested in anything I can try now in the hope of heading it off!

If she needs a phone for security reasons, coukd you get a really plain (ideally naff) one, and say it can only be upgraded when it has been kept safely for XX months? And if you have to replace the calculator with the school approved model, then dock her pocket money (with interest!). Does letting her run out of clean clothes have any effect? (Say you'll wash school items and nothing else - and if you can't find the items in the detritus, that stays dirty too).

oooh, you have my daughter in a future version of herself.

She lost her homework this weekend so had to go without it today.

I made her write a letter to the teacher to say that she could not find it and had looked all over her room and her friends' rooms and that she would accept the punishment that her teacher gave her.

No idea what to do, but will lurk here in the hope that someone has solved this problem.

As to punishment - I do think that punishments that are connected to "crime" are best. So get her a cheap and crappy phone until she can prove she can look after it. If she wants better then she has to replace with own money.

My nine year old put her mobile through the washing machine. I bought the £20 one from tesco, unlocked. And made her pay half immediately from her money box.( It's more for me she has the phone to arrange where to collect her from school).

My 8yo is just like that,completely different from me who is careful with possessions and v organised and I have just had to try to let it go and to accept that she is not the same, and try to guide her into some feelings of responsibility. Even punishments that fit the crime haven't really worked - lost library books meant no borrowing until she had 'worked' off the money to replace them but she lost yet another one just a week ago. My husband reckons there are worse personality traits to have and I've noticed that the upside to not caring about possessions is that she is not at all precious or greedy about her things and shares them with ease.

My dd (also 11) has a total pigsty for a room. We regularly order her to tidy it up, with the usual sanction of no friends around until it's 'Mummy tidy' (which means things genuinely put away not stuffed in cupboards.

Recently we removed most of her storage space as she was just using it to stuff things away. We cleared I think three bin bags out! She is very sociable so not having friends, or visiting friends or sleepovers until it's clear works quite well. I am always amaze at just how quickly it goes from tidy to tip.

Oh the other thing that works quite well is that our dog has a tendency to eat things left on the floor.

I wasn't that dissimilar as a child, so I can't get too mad!