DD is a loser

[icouldnteatanotherbite]

I admit to a click-baity title, but I'm desperate for opinions.

DD is 12, and coming to the end of her first term at secondary school. She's bright, and at grammar school. No SEN.

She is keeping up with schoolwork and seems to have lots of friends

This term, so far she's lost:

• Sports socks (£14)
• Smart watch (£25)
• Bus pass (£250 - but £10 to replace - not so much the cost but took me a day to sort out with the admin with a rubbish bus company - I appreciate this isn't her fault)
• Tangle Teezer hairbrush (£10)
• Forgot to attend her piano lesson at school (£25)
• A few forgotten pleas of homework left at home for us to bring in - we haven't, so that she can face the consequences (although she's managed to blag it and hasn't had any repercussions yet)

We made her pay for the bus pass, so that she can "feel" the weight of losing £10 and hopefully look after it better in the future - but two days later she lost the hairbrush. She found the smart watch again, which she'd left in PE.

We have tried strategies - so she has a timetable printed in her room and another one downstairs, to help her get everything she needs that day. She sets a reminder in her smart watch for her piano lesson. Yet still, almost every day it seems that she's lost or forgotten something new.

I can't keep telling her off ALL the time, and I can't make her replace every belonging because she doesn't have enough money for me to bill her £10 every week or so.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

I was like this as a teen and still am a bit although I have strategies in place to some extent. Maybe read up on ADHD in girls, I don't have a diagnosis but many of the strategies for coping with ADHD are helpful for me.

She HATES me helping because she sees it as nagging. ("Do you have your reading book for English?" "YES OMG (dramatic sigh)"). I absolutely don't want to be doing this for her when (if) she's at university, so I need her to develop her own skills.

There’s a long road between age 12 starting high school and going to university. You scaffolding around her will model how to put strategies in place that then become second nature to her. Yes it’s tiring and frustrating but she clearly needs more support for longer than you anticipated.

I would get her on a list for assessment for ADHD as depending on the area she might just get an assessment by the time she reaches university then watch carefully

Sometimes the things you think she is doing ok in start to fall apart when other things build up

I think with ND especially with ADHD in females we keep things locked down and we learn from an early age how to come across as a good girl. We might want to run around in circles screaming our heads off and jump in big puddles but we look at other (NT)females and we know we shouldn’t do this as that is not what is expected and so we sit on our feelings and squash them down inside and we smile and mirror what other girls do and we make friends but we can never relax and show our true self.
Because our true selves would have our friend group running for the door.

Either in secondary school or university as life and the work gets harder and more complicated and the homework gets longer that everything starts to unravel. It’s when the mask slips, that is when all the plates that have been kept spinning by putting in more and more effort (that any NT doesn’t have to do) crash to the ground and life unravels

If you then do need an assessment at least it will be on the horizon

I would also look for yourself as ADHD is hereditary.

As a warning. People who have ADHD and are unmedicated have on average a significantly shorter life span than a NT or someone who is medicated.

In my case and I am sure lots of other women my age or a little younger and older.

Its devastating to look back on your life knowing that a parent was told about ADHD and could have got an assessment and there was medication available and your life could have been so different
But instead chose to punish any ADHD traits out of you. No matter what someone does you can’t change a chemical process in your body by shouting.

Have you heard of 'Clutterbug'

She an American youtube/tv personality with ADHD that invited the Clutterbug classifications which specifically includes the less acknowledged needs of people with many ND conditions as well as those with out. It has 4 categories:

• Lady Bird - Hidded/Macro
• Butterfly - Visual/Macro
• Cricket - Hidden/Micro
• Bee - Visual/Micro

If you understand these 4 categories you learn WHY people lose stuff and/or are messy and/or can't keep routines... it means the wrong system is implemented for them.

For the record I do NOT have ADHD (medically test and proven) but this understand was life changing.

Lol, totally adhd as much as you say it isn't! My husband loses things constantly, I have no idea how he does it, other than the fact he has adhd and has the artsy creative brain, there's so much going on in there it pushes little things out and he forgets!

Thank you to everyone for your opinion (excepting the PP who thought I was a monster for making her pay for her own bus pass).

I'm SO sure she doesn't have ADHD. She just doesn't tick ANY of the boxes other than being careless with her possessions. When I say she's untidy, I mean in a general 12 year-old way - lip balms and schoolwork littering her desk, couple of folders on her floor, a few items of laundry waiting to be put away. And when I say I'm messy too - I mean a pile of paperwork I haven't got round to filing yet, and bits and pieces from children's party bags that I haven't yet chucked/sorted - not a totally disordered household.

I do understand girls are good at masking, but seriously, she has no social issues (other than usual 12 year-old normal occasional misunderstandings with friends), no emotional problems (other than 12 year-old rudeness/answering back which is always dealt with and apologised for), no problems at all with attention span - she can sit and read for an hour or so, and will complete homework without needing frequent breaks (unless it's something she hates!). Equally she shows no signs of hyperfocus.

I am aware of ADHD as my brother has it - so I'm also aware it can run in families. She shows none of the symptoms or tendancies he has (e.g. poor time management). The forgotten piano lesson I can sort of forgive as the time moves every single week, and it's easy to get caught up in a lesson / break time.

I wondered if it was an entitlement issue. She is generally well-provided for and we can afford to replace things she loses - however, it doesn't send a great message to her that she can lose things and have them replaced. That's one of the main reasons we made her pay £10 for her bus pass. (It's about equivalent to two weeks' allowance, so isn't going to financially devastate her - also I "paid" her £5 for a chore at the weekend, which was massively over my going rate.)

It sounds to me from everyone's advice that perhaps this is on the edge of normal - whilst still being normal - for a Y7 who's travelling across town by herself every day, and perhaps we need to give it another term before worrying.

I was good at losing things in y7
moving round the school all the time threw me
I got better at it
We didn't have smart watches then, but I was always losing my glasses, I just had to cope till I found them again. eventually I just learnt to keep them on my face all the time and the issue resolved. now I only lose them because when ive taken them off I cant see them

My DS2 is like this
I bought him AirTags for his keys and to put inside luggage for holidays, which have helped
He also doesn't pay attention to finer details Once booked an online exam for 12 thinking it was noon, but was in fact Midnight!
After a caffeine boost he passed with distinction.
He's incredibly bright and has a masters first class honours but very little common sense

That list of ‘losses’ sounds perfectly normal to me. My 12 year old has lost/forgotten 2x music lessons, trainers, a pencil case, a water bottle, a pe jumper, a hairbrush…

The lessons were annoying but I solved it with a cheap watch with an alarm. It’s entirely normal when you’re just starting secondary to find it hard to self organise.

the pe jumper has never been found, but by making her go to lost property she’s found the rest. As incentive I tell her that permanent loss may mean a birthday or Christmas present is used to replace the item.

I apologised to DD for being cross with her for the latest lost item, and told her I knew she didn't mean to lose stuff.

Natural consequences will remain though - stuff she loses she will have to do without, or replace herself.

One of my DCs was like this. They are now 20 and just last week got diagnosed with adhd. I also would have said even a couple of years ago, definitely no SEN. DC is good at staying on top of uni work but cannot cope with anything else.