Losing the plot with child losing everything!

[CalmGreenWasp]

I’m not really sure why I am even posting this, but can I ask for advice on dealing with children who constantly lose things. For context, this year (Jan to now)

1. Three expensive coats
2. Three School jumpers
3. Three ties
4. Two entire PE kits
5. Countless pencil cases/homeworks
6. One pair of trainers (from her actual feet that day!)
7. Three tablets (lost and broken)

any advice or funny stories welcome. I am losing the will!

This did happen once with my daughter. She landed home in a Poundland coat that you could spit through..her coat (£100) was the same colour..luckily I got that one back

My son lost 3 PE kits in his first year of secondary. Swore he'd checked lost property. Making him contribute to replacements didn't work but getting him up early on the weekend to schlep into town on the bus with me to buy new stuff seemed to finally do the trick. At parents' evening the lost propery cupboard was open - I found the 3 lost kits in nanoseconds!

This is what I feel bad about. I do reprimand her, she can see I am exasperated, she does feel bad about it, I have actually made her cry at times and I feel really shitty about that.

If I make her pay to replace these items out of her own money, is it actually going to stop the behaviour or improve it?

I’m worried that if the behaviour can’t be helped, it’s like punishing her because the sky is blue

But what can be helped is that you can liaise with school, advocate for her, and literally go through lost property yourself to find her belongings. Have you been in?

ADHD? My son with ADHD lost so many things over the years including a laptop several cables for it, mobile phones. He once lost his DofE kit bag with all of his stuff in it and it was a school one and I had to pay to replace everything.

But, but…why didn’t you all search the field for them? Did you just drive away without the shoes?🤯

Hmm. There’s something about self sabotage here. The broken tablets, the shoes. Could it be that she’s overwhelmed with things and just disregulates somehow?

Think of the stuff she has lost and damaged. Then rewind to before that. Are the items important for her to succeed at school? Has she ever lost anything sentimental? (I am betting she hasn’t.) it might not even be conscious on her part but OP you’ve got something going on here, neurodivergent related and I’d guess it’s not quite as simple as ADHD.

This isn’t entirely correct. Children with ADHD need to learn strategies, some need to be incentivised to learn/embed the strategy. A positive reward rather than punishment might work better - ie ‘keep hold of your blue coat til Xmas and I’ll get you a new pair of trainers’ etc.

ADHD is not a get out of jail free card where we can’t question any behaviour. All children with adhd and other neurodiversity can (must!) be supported in helping themselves or we are not preparing them for adult life.

You are quite right on that assumption, she has never lost her purse, nor a bracelet that cost 1k. Are you thinking autism spectrum?

I know it seems lazy on my part..I collected her at about eight in the evening so I had to run to get dinner on, cleaning done etc. the field was like a bloody forest and I would’ve needed to search, possibly for hours, so I cut my losses and went.

No. I work 8-7 five days a week, for me to keep up I would be in lost property every other day, which is just not feasible in my work. I have asked teachers to check that she has everything before she goes, but this is not implemented, too many kids and not enough time I suppose

She can't live life constantly losing stuff, ADHD or not. This is the problem. You need to equip her with tools so that she keeps track of her things.
Air tags are a good idea.
A physical tick list before she leaves school.
A written list of things she writes as she takes them off.

We all have to find solutions to things in life. She won't have unlimited money as an adult to replace stuff. I wouldn't replace anything for her for 6 months, while working alongside her with strategies.

The labels I used on my DD’s stuff was last name and my mobile number, so any person who finds an item can call me. This may help? Lost property is a vortex…

The name labels I put on my kids things have my mobile number on them. I have had several calls over the years and had a coat returned along with water bottles etc. the easier it is for the person finding the stuff to return it, the more
likely you are to get it back.

I’m sorry if I have missed this but how old
is she?

She is 10, turning 11 in December. I really need to iron out these creases before secondary school as she will be travelling to another town.

This is happening in a primary school?!?! I assumed it was secondary.

OP, this is mad. I understand you can't go in during the week. I work full-time too. You need to liaise with the school and get someone there on board and helping her out. The school need to know that they potentially have a thief.

What are your wraparound arrangements? Get them on board too.

This is even worse. Stop buying replacements and speak to school. No way has this much stuff lost.

Hi op.

I thought you might appreciate my not as expensive story.

DD bought a branded puffer coat from the school shop at 8.30am. The shop knew her to be a sensible girl and so instead of labelling it for her, allowed her to do it herself when she got to class.

The coat remained unlabelled and lost by 4pm.

It was £60 on the school bill with no coat to show for it! However we refused to let her have a second attempt!

That’s a big red flag there. She needs an assessment.

Just seen you work long hours. Sounds hard. Is there anyone who can go with DD and check everything, honestly children don’t. Also any lockers, drawers and pegs in the form room and any other classrooms the child uses. It’s absurd painful but not every teacher shepherds lost property into the lost property. So difficult and good luck.

I work across a lot of schools. I promise you that every primary headteacher I know would want to know about this situation, OP. Please contact the headteacher or deputy head. It may seem trivial but this number of lost belongings indicates at best a problem with the school's lost property system, and at worst one or more serial thieves.

God I hope you’re wrong on the latter, I’m going to AirTag everything moving forward.

She will be paying for a new iPad (rightly or wrongly on my part 🙈) on Friday evening if she can’t find it tonight.

Hi! I'm your daughter in three decades time. Two small things I haven't seen recommended yet:

Get her into the habit of checking around her when she leaves a place. I developed the habit in my 20s and it's made a world of difference. I still lose things occasionally now, but I catch left things more often than not because I usually check out of reflex. So classroom, bus, whatever, quick glance at the chair, under, on top of desks.

Get her a bag the is well designed to organise what she needs to have regularly. Lay out all her things on the bed and figure out the key things that she'll need on a weekly basis, then take them to a shop with lots of bags and figure out what would go where. If it's an outdoor shop the staff will likely be more than happy to help. Get her to practice putting things away in the "correct" place that makes sense to her. I've been using a bum bag for years for certain things that often get lost in other bags, which used to lead to chaos and panic. I doubt she'll want to use one (not everyone can pull it off like me 😎) , but it's an example of something that helps.

And try not to be too down on her about it (not that I've got that impression). She likely feels shitty every time it happens, even if she doesn't show it. I know it made me feel like a failure. Still does sometimes.