Flame amnesty : have you ever taken another child's clothes

[Bleachedandscrubbed]

At my children's naice Middle class school in a naice Home Counties town, it seems that there are uniform thieves, cutting out labels and nicking the nice stuff.

Can someone explain to me the thought process, especially given that I've just paid about £6 for 4 polo shirts and £10 for two pairs of trousers? It's hardly enough to make oneself a thief for, so why do it? Can someone fess up and explain?

This drives me bloody bonkers. I am the only single parent in a naive village and the only mother who works full time. I am permanently broke and yet still my kids are the ones who end up with uniform missing. I take my dd and her friend to an after school club one night a week and as they were getting changed I asked the girl why she was wearing dd's pinafore as it had had her name sewn in! She told me that she took it at the club a long time previously and her mum told her to keep it because she thought it was nice too!

My DD was in a gym and dance display one year. She came out afterwards in her shorts and tshirt as someone had gone off with her skirt.

Clearly someone went home with two, they must have realised when they got home that it wasn't theirs, or mum must have noticed when doing the washing but no, it never came back. It was clearly labelled.

It cost me £35 to get a new one for her.

Btw, that wasn't not the only time, but it was the most expensive.

I had a nice new hat of DD1s go missing in winter. She said a girl from a higher year took it. I figured she'd just lost it.

Until the weather turned hot 5 months later and she came out of school with it saying "x" gave it back she doesn't need it now

In all honesty we quite often in temporary possession of other children's clothes. Generally jumpers, bits of PE kit fairly often. Occasionally an identical lunch box. Likewise my kids jumpers lead a semi-independent life of their own. Nothing's stolen though. Generally I/someone's mum realises part way through the wash/iron cycle that there's a cuckoo in the nest and it gets returned. Lots of stuff in lost property at school though, and all of it unlabelled. Name labeling essential imo.

I once accidentally acquired a boy's coat from nursery. I only realised a year or so later when I finally had both our coat and the other boy's in the same place at the same time. I then realised that the other coat was named - but the boy's name was very similar to DS's (e.g. Bill and Billy - not that but along those lines). Plus my mum always took DS to and from nursery, so neither DH nor I had realised that we had the wrong - and ultimately two - coats. I did try to return the coat (DS had left nursery by this point), but as a year had passed I doubt it would have been any use to the poor lad anyway.

I always believed that it wasn't so much taking the good stuff, as keeping "something". So, if Dc comes home in the wrong shirt, you assume the other child has theirs and if it's not returned keep hold of the one you've got.

I've now realised however, that was far too charitable of me as it's always the good stuff that goes missing.

Actually the only thing DS1 ever lost at school was the England shirt they were allowed to take in to watch the football during the world cup. That can't possibly have been a coincidence - the only time he had an item cost more than about £5, was the only time he "lost" something

DS regularly comes home with another boy's rugby kit/PE kit. I just wash it, iron it, and put it back in his bag. As long as he has clean kit I have given up caring who it belongs to. I have no idea who is wearing his kit.

NO absolutely not.

In DD's 5 years at school I've borrowed an item from Lost Property once and that was after school activity, friend fell and had a massive nosebleed all over DD's jumper. We had to go on to another activity so I borrowed a sweater. I returned it fully washed the next morning.

My daughter starts reception in Sept. We have the option of having her name embroidered below the school badge for about £5. I think I might go for it!

I was somewhat pissed off when DD's expensive, bought-a-size-up PE sweatshirt went AWOL.

I was even more pissed off when it came home again, eventually, with a two thumbnail-sized holes in the elbow, too big to darn. Not holes from falling over on the netball court, but holes cut, with scissors, on purpose. WTF?

Very naice school, too.

Uh Uh should I confess........ hmmm

Well when my 20yr old was 6, he had a lovely coat that he went to school in every day, one day near Easter I decided to clear out our coat cupboard and found another one !!!!!!
He had brought it home in September by mistake when he didn't have his coat with him and put it away (thats my little soldier!)
I contacted the mother and gave it back, but she had already given up on it and bought a new coat for her DS.

I still feel guilty whenever I see her.

Ds' lunchbox including his favourite pirate sigg bottle were stolen. So was his nice pencil case, in which every single item was labelled. He is the only Pippi in school.

Dd, same school but younger year, frequently loses stuff or comes home with somebody else's. Everything always comes back, usually freshly laundered. Odd.

DD regularly comes home with P.E shorts not belonging to her but they always end up back with their owners because I make her find them. She has hers maybe one week out of four. Today I washed a pair belonging to "George". She is in year ten and doesn't even get changed with the boys, WTF?

today

'naice' as far as I know, was a typo found on a posh shopping list hence MN excitement when anyone finds a shopping list and naice is now used for posh/nice/middle class....I think, maybe someone can confirm

naice ham if you were wondering, maybe waitrose

I think it was originally Nice Ham (Cod taking the piss out of it always being suggested for buffets) but "naice" is how Jilly Cooper's lower-middle Jen Teale characters / Hyacinth Bouquet pronounce it.

I don't know OP...I saw a lightweight butterfly h+m mac at nursery identical to my DDs which went awol last Summer, but I have no proof and I am not 100% sure so have kept schtum.

I bought my daughter, then 6, a £40 red thick coat from Next. Around 2 weeks later, she came home in a similar, but thinner, £10 Tesco one.
I took it back to school the next day and explained to the teacher, but never got the coat back, and no child ever turned up at school wearing it.
She has since lost about 3 school cardigans, and recently came home with a cardigan with a rip/cut in the sleeve, clearly not the one she went to school in that morning, with her name on the label.
I've come to the conclusion she is ridiculously careless with her belongings, and some parents are thieving bastards.

I once washed, ironed and returned a shirt that my eldest son came home wearing, never saw his again. Next time it happened I kept hold of it, which is clearly what the other parent had also done.

When my son started secondary he needed black football shorts with a badge, couldn't get his size so painstakingly sewed a spare blazer badge onto a standard pair, came back from first PE lesson with a different pair. I've lost count of how many different rugby shirts have come and gone. Given up now, as long as he comes back with something...

I have several pairs of pants that DD came home in after accidents at nursery when she was potty training. I think they came from the spare clothes box but must have been lost by some other child at some point. I suppose I should return them to nursery but I feel weird giving back pants even though they have been washed.

DD also kept coming home in another girl's wellies because they were the same design but different sizes. I ended up knowing the other girl's parents quite well as we were always swapping them back

I think it is mostly happens by mistake, someone gets another's clothes and then they can't be arsed to sort it out, so they just keep it. As my old boss used to say -believe cock up before conspiracy

I would love to know the motivation too.

In her first week of Reception my DD lost a pair of shoes. They were expensive, leather ones and there'd been a mix up after PE. She came home wearing an unnamed pair or pleather ones. I sent them back with a note the next day but hers never got back to us. They were clearly named so I can only assume the other parent decided they were nicer than the ones they had bought and kept them.

She also lost a branded sweatshirt early on that was found in the lost property box 2 terms later. It hadn't been there when I'd checked earlier and someone had clearly washed and worn it a lot as it was faded and beginning to fray.

I haven't had anything bought home as a swap. My dd has gone to nursery with a cardigan on and come home without one twice so there isn't any swapping going on here.

My son came home with a coat that was well worn, ingrained dirt and the seams coming apart. It was the same coat but obviously a much smaller size. My son's coat was labelled but we just assumed the kids had just picked up what they thought was their coat. We took it to the school office the next day as although the coat had a name in it, we didn't know who the child or parents were. The other child's parents hadn't called in to the office so the secretary just exchanged the coats when the children had gone into class.

Although the coats were the same style and somehow ignoring that the coats were blatently different sizes, I can't help thinking the parents thought they'd keep hold of DS's one as it was in better nick and would save them buying one when he got bigger.

It's basically stealing from a kid I reckon. Some poor kid would feel awful coming home having to tell their parents their coat / sweater / shoes have been taken.

I've only had this twice so far with DD (Year1), she's lost her cheap supermarket school skirt with name tape sewn in. She said she saw another girl in her class wearing it (she recognised the logo next to her name on the tape) and told the TA who didn't do anything about it.

It's annoying more than the cost as she now only has one grey school skirt and the weather is still a bit rubbish for her summer dresses.

She's also lost her PE hoodie (again a cheap supermarket one) and I've told DD she's not having another one until September so she'll have to be cold during PE and after school clubs. She's only 5yo, but I refuse to simply replace. TBH she'll probably have outgrown it anyway so not anticipating being able to re-use for Year2.

Nothing turns up in lost property either.