Reasonable consequences for teen losing expensive door key twice?

[Zoo2tropolis]

This may be a mix of AIBU and WWYD

My DC is early teens. Usually very responsible, well behaved, very few problems at any age. At the start of the school year they were given a door key. In a pouch, to go inside their school bag and stay there. Told to keep it safe, we have a special door and lock so it's really expensive. It would only be needed every now and then when noone gets home in time to let them in.

Around Xmas time, they lost the key. Then eventually found it, but we were mad they hadn't looked after it. They had taken it out of the pouch, left it loose. The responsibility and importance of keeping it safe, and consequences of not doing that were impressed on them. We helped them devise a means to keep it safe - put it in a zipped pouch, again within school bag and it should stay there.

Today they said it's lost again, this time the zip on the pouch apparently broke, they put the key tucked just inside their phone case and it's gone. The phone has been taken multiple places and they have no idea when it went or whether in or outside the house.

I'm saying the consequences for this should be:

1. Grounded for 1 month, due to seriousness of the issue and it being lost despite previous conversations (but they can still go to clubs)
2. Loss of phone except for travel to and from school for communicating
3. They should use their laptop to come up with a way to earn money to cover cost of a new key, as this is about taking responsibility

So AIBU, or what would you do in the same position?

Get a lock box outside front of house! Kids and adults lose keys! Not sure punitive punishments would be helpful in this scenario

Get one of those lock boxes and give them the code so they never have to take a key

Locks are generally replaceable quite cheaply. Missing/ lost keys are a security risk. Whatever consequences you think are reasonable need setting against the risk that your child won't tell you the next time they lose a key.

Where do you keep your own keys? Why is your child using a pouch in their bag instead of a keyring in their pocket / maybe clipped to a belt loop? Is there a problem with school uniform rules?

Standard security advice is not to stand on your doorstep fishing for keys so a pouch buried deep in a school bag isn't a great place for them to be. My solution would be to make the child use their keys more often so it becomes a habit to never leave the house without a key and to keep the keys somewhere that makes sense to them.

Consequences sound too harsh aside from covering the cost to replace the key to be honest. I understand why you’re annoyed though of course. Also is the key not on a keyring or something? Wondering if there’s a way you attach the new key to a clip/hook/carbiner or something inside said bag? Tell child not to remove from clip inside bag but perhaps use while attached so there’s lower risk of loss, if it’s on a long enough keyring to do this? Just some ideas anyway

Big over reaction from you. £50 doesn’t sound that shocking. Just put it on a lanyard and then clip to a loop inside their bag. I don’t think any of your punishments are fair, they are over the top.

Changing a lock is dead easy and cheap, and the cost benefit is that if you ever need to change the barrel again because they've lost their key (or you've lost yours), and you deem it necessary to replace the lock rather than get an extra key cut it's only another £10-£20 .

Could you put a coded key box in a non obvious place? We have one and now they’re older my children use this to get in when they get home in the early hours. Saves worrying about losing keys…..

they don’t get a replacement and have to wait outside

You are harsh. If it’s such an expensive key then think of a way to stash it somewhere in the garden for them. You literally say how good they are, and want to come up with a punishment that’s fitting of a really bold child,

My child has ASD so I would not punish for this at all. We would work on systems to avoid losing in the future.

We avoided this issue entirely by installing a door key with an entry code. There is nothing for her to lose.

she has lost her car key. It wasn’t a huge problem because we were smart and attached an AirTag when we handed her the keys the first time.

This is what you should have done after the first loss. A tracker is a cheap and easy solution.

Agree. 1. Lanyard connected to key and attached to the inside of the bag. I think a zipped purse is not secure. 2. And cheaper copy of key.

No consequences except having to pay for the key.

Blimey! All this over £50. What will you do if they lose/break their phone and it’s a lot more expensive to replace? A new lock could well be cheaper - we got a new set of keys and a barrel a couple of weeks ago for about £25.

Way to hard onthe consequences. My son was constantly loosing keys. Its only now that he is driving that he has them all together. We ensure we have a spare car key for his car as we know what will happen at some point. He is a scatty person and no amount of punishment would change this.

No key is the answer. They need it rarely and keep losing it.
We had (and still have) a keybox in the porch when ds1 went to secondary school.
DS2 wanted his own key and still has it 5 yrs on.
Why give him another key or punish him?

I would never punish a teen for losing a key. Its just a key at the end of the day.
If you are really that tight, give him a back door key

Absolutely agree. Unless the key is attached to something, a lanyard, school bag etc, it will get lost. I think your consequences OP are way over the top.
Goodness knows how much this key cost but take a little bit from DCs pocket money each month or something. Attach the key firmly to something. Get a key safe? Use the back door?

Sorry but all of these are completely disproportionate.

I am assuming you have ultion locks, and i appreciate they are expensive to replace keys (upwards of £45) but there are cheaper sites you can get them from, but i would expect teen to pay for the new key. Maybe grounded for a week but the rest is massive overkill.

https://helplocks.com/ Do them for around £15 a key

I guess you mean a banham lock. I’m an adult and I lost mine one time. It happens. Was an inconvenience but not the end of the world. Id let child know that next time it needs replacing they’ll either pay for it in instalments from their allowance, or have to wait til you’re home. Ask them how can help- a keyring, lanyard, chain?

grounding a kid who is generally doing their best for losing a key is crazy.

Why would you ground them for losing the key?
Surely the only response is to not give them another key?
They either wait to come home when you will be there. Or they pay towards a new key?

like when you lose your work pass for the umpteenth time.

grounding them does not seem relevant at all. Nor taking away their phone.

the treatment needs to be relevant to the issue. Hence. Charge them for a replacement. Sliding scale. More than 1 loss in rolling 12 months - £25. Twice in rolling 12m - full cost of replacement. That sort of approach.

Try not to shame or punish. Work with them to come up with a solution that will work for not losing the key again. And talk about what they can do to pay you back the value e.g. extra chores? I'm not sure why you are so angry about this and wanting to be so punitive. Are you worried about security?

We have a key safe. And DS has a key on a loop of strong rope / string which is attached to a hook inside his school bag

These consequences are too harsh.
We have been in this position and second time it was lost (around 3 months after the first time) they had to pay for a new key out of their saved pocket money.
However, our replacement key was around £10.
This was 3 years ago. Never lost a key since. Seems they value their own money more.
I would never have taken their phone or grounded them though.

I would give them extra chores to pay off the £50.

Can't you attach a tracker tag to the key? It's saved my bacon quite a few times now!