to insist my son spends his birthday money on replacement PE kit

[Snorbs]

My DS has managed to lose his entire PE kit from secondary school. It appears that he didn't bother to put it in his school locker as he was supposed to, he just left it on top of the row of lockers. And I only found out about it, by chance, a week after it went missing. That means he lost it all within a mere two weeks of starting at secondary school(!)

Coincidentally he's just had his birthday and got £70 in birthday money. It will cost at least that to replace everything.

So, WIBU to insist he spends his birthday money on replacing the kit? We don't have much spare cash at the moment so if I financed the replacement kit myself then it will mean tightened belts for the next couple of months.

I'm so pissed off that he was a) so careless in the first place, b) that he tried to conceal it from me, and c) has only started trying to find it now I've got on his case about it I thought he was smarter than that.

Snorbs - if he is being sheepish and a bit vague, is that normal for him? Make sure nothing more behind it (god forbid) perhaps??

If normally sheepish and vague, it could be nothing, but new boy, big school, could someone have hidden it as a "joke"?

Sorry to be harbinger of (possible) doom, but these things do go on.

If you are absolutely sure he has lost it through carelessness and not had it nicked off him then imo YANBU to want him to pay for a new one.

Maybe with his birthday money is a leeetle bit unfair- I'd say half of it or in installments with pocket money.

Hopefully it'll turn up. at the price of it though. I left school in 2002 and it never cost that much at my school. It was plain white polo shirt and black shorts/netball skirt/track or jog pants. No logos allowed (to stop competiveness/bullying).

YANBU to think of it but abit U to do it. I know how it feels as my DD has done this. What I do is leave the birthday money and money from others alone and deduct money from pocket money for a few weeks or send her with a basic packed lunch (she hates that!) for a while to recoup some of the cost.

There has to be some consequence or how else will they learn? Maybe ring the lost property yourself as DD lied that she had been there and actually hadn't but said she had which seems quite common at that age. I would also try getting the stuff cheaper or 2nd hand if I could, that way they learn they won't neccesarily get an exact replacemnt if they do not take care or something.

If you can't afford to replace it by those means (reducing pocket money etc) then obviously you will have to consider having him pay. Thirds or half isn't so bad. It may even turn up eventually, many things of DDs have some weeks later.

I know it is awful when you spend alot on things and they just trash/lose it etc but it is nothing personal, just that age.

I wouldn't do anything until I'd contacted the school myself. If there is something behind the vanishing kit that your DS isn't telling you the threat of your going into school should help.

There's a good chance that some or all of the kit might turn up if the school is aware and checks name tags on kit. In the short term you should be able to get the school agree to a couple of weeks grace during which your DS could wear his own clothes for sports.

I wouldn't make him pay for it until you're sure it's not coming back.

I didn't actually mean COMPLAIN when i said ring up the school. I typed that word by mistake . But it may help to ring the school to ask and see if it is in lost prop etc.

Are you sure someone hasn't nicked and he's too scared to say especially with expensive football boots in it, DH doesn't pay anywhere near that much for ordinary footie boots.
If you go to lost property then you can prob get the logo stuff from there even if its not his. At DD's school if stuff hasn't been claimed for 3 months then it goes into a different box and you can help yourself if you have lost something.

my son had his stolen at the end of last year. he swore he had put it in his locker. i did email the school about it.

i only replaced the shorts and PE top. i haven't bothered to purchse the expensive John Lewis rugby shirt. luckily his trainers were outgrown but it is still annoying.

i hate the way things go missing or are thieved at school. i remember my son having nice football boots in primary and someone stealing them off his peg. he had no locker then.

i don't know about making your son pay for the kit. could you get any of it second hand.

also the school may have some spare or from pupils who have left.

At least they have a locker.My DSs school just leave their bags on the shelves in the cloakroom.they are forever going missing.They usually turn up again eventually People who have forgotten their pe kit 'borrow' another one and don't put it back in the bag again, or they take the wrong bag home.
I wouldn't punish him,but would only buy him secondhand replacement kit

I think I will investigate the options of second-hand PE kit. I'm not going to pay £19 each for two PE shirts, again, if I can avoid it. And I'm going to go to the school myself next week to find out if he's been telling me the truth. His vagueness isn't too much of a surprise but this was to a much greater extent than usual.

I've always made it clear to my DCs that if they come to me with a problem then they know they'll get a sympathetic hearing. If I find out about a problem that they've been trying to hide, though, then I reserve the right to get cross. Particularly if it's a problem that I'm going to have to deal with sooner or later anyway.

Bah. I knew that secondary school wasn't always going to be plain sailing but I had rather expected it would take a bit longer than this before we hit our first big problem.

Thanks for all the opinions. It's very handy to be able to bat this kind of thing around occasionally.

If I were going in I'd definitely ask the teacher about shoes ie what do most children wear. If you can get cheaper ones without making him a target for having 'different' shoes it would make his kit less of a target.

I don't mean to be picky, but are you honsetly sayong that both his indoor and outdoor kits, and his trainers, and his football boots were all taken into school on the same day? Because that seems unlikely. Are you sure it's all lost?

It does make you long for the days when you could pin things (like scarves and mittens)to them doesn't it.

I agree with getting your DS to contribute towards the cost especially if money is tight. I had a school cardigan as a birthday present one year (and was delighted as cardigans were cooler than jumpers!), but boy did I look after it. I only had one skirt, two blouses and two jumpers (and the cardigan) plus a secondhand skirt from the PTA shop. If I'd lost any of it then I'd have to go without and would probably have to have a secondhand replacement. It sure focusses the mind.

Angelberry they have lockers to store it in.

yab ab bit u
starting secondary school is really scary for an 11 yr old, I would cut him a bit of slack this time

But you still wouldn't leave it in school, it'd only be taken in on the days you use it. (otherwise how would you wash it?)

Last year in his first year at big school my ds lost 2 school shirts, 5 pairs if school trousers (he often didn't change after games and just left his clothes in school), both PE kits (total cost £80 not including trainers. I can understand the need for nice school labelled stuff for teams but ds is not at all sporty so the cost rankles), two wallets with money in, one mobile phone and a textbook that had to be replaced. He just never used his locker for some reason even though I pay £40 a year for locker rental. This year he knows any loss will be paid for by him. I have made sure everything is name labelled which is my end of the bargain. So far this year he's only lost some of his own money so we're getting better.

Op yanbu but I'd go halves this time and make sure he knows he'll pay for the lot next time which will hopefully prevent any next times

If he has to buy new kit with his money - he will learn the lesson fast

could he get second hand stuff?

Yanbu, last yr dd had to spend £40 of her birthday money getting her saxaphone fixed, she'd dropped it, it then got stood on after being told time and again to put it in its case (which alone cost £80)

Valuable lesson learnt, shes been much more careful since !

When we bought my ds's sports kit the shop offered to initial it for free. So his initial are in large print on the front of the shirt. This makes it much less likely to be stolen, as it would be obvious the child was wearing someone elses shirt.

YABU. He has moved from primary school, where presumably everything was safe and cosy, to a big nasty secondary, where life is very ,very different. but if he had just left his PE kit on top of the lockers, then it should still be there. The real villain of the piece is whoever stole it. your son made a mistake, but isn't going around nicking PE kits, as someone obviously is. And no wonder he didn't tell you, if this is your reaction. Buy a much cheaper PE kit (can't believe it costs £70) and if you think you should then get him to pay a bit towards it. But I should imagine he doesn't need to lose his money to have learnt his lesson.

You can't always buy a cheaper kit. DDs is all logo'd and was well over £50.

angelberry, he had both PE kits in one bag. I did suggest to him that he only take in what he needed but he said that he could just leave it all in his locker (ho ho). As for washing it, he didn't manage to hang on to it for long enough.

As for buying cheaper kit, the only realistic options for further savings are a) second-hand, and b) cheaper football boots. I spent quite a bit of time finding the absolute cheapest of everything else I could.

If anyone's got good ideas for places that do boots with removable studs for less than £20 then I'm all ears.

Personally i wouldnt take all of his money to replae the items. I would head into school on monday and ask to look in lost property and see if it can be found.
You can get football/ rugby boots with removable studs from Sport Soccer for £15/£20