AIBU to make DD13 buy a new school jacket with her own money

[mikeyssister]

DD13 has just started secondary school. She's a divil for leaving stuff down, not putting things away, leaving stuff behind etc etc. We've been trying to work with her for years trying to teach techniques so she'll remember to check she has everything with her.

It's lashing rain today so I told her before she left to catch the bus to school to put her jacket on. Turns out she can't find it, has no idea when she last had it or last saw it. She remembers seeing a jacket on top of the lockers in school and is hoping it's hers.

She went to school knowing we're not annoyed with her, but being very clear that if she's lost her jacket she has to pay for the new one with her savings. It'll cost €65.

AIBU to insist she pays for it because:

1. We can afford it
2. She's only just started secondary and is still getting used to moving classrooms and having to bring all her stuff with her
3. The money she'll be using was given to her as presents
4. She's a really good girl who causes us very little trouble

Hopefully, she'll find it in school, but if she doesn't we'll need to make a decision.

Theft is a huge problem in secondary school.
For that reason alone she needs to take care of, and lock up, all her property.

My SD(13) is exactly the same.. a really good kid, well behaved, etc but forgets everything! I get frustrated, not angry.. but I have warned her that if she comes home in someone else's school shirt or without 1 trainer (yes..twice she has lost just 1!) again, I will label everything she owns..even her knickers and bras 😂

So bloody frustrated. Yesterday she left her phone in school and was convinced she'd lost it.

My DD is exactly the same. Forgets everything and it drives me bonkers.

I'd leave it for now and ask for a contribution for the next time she loses her jacket.

My best friend is 37 and does this. It drives me crazy. She sort of gets caught up in the moment, but also is quite and over thinker, so ends up focusing on the wrong details...

YANBU at all. I can see DD doing that in secondary. She's in year 5 and her scattiness has shown no signs of improving. I've recently taken over paying her dinner money again because she always forgets. I regularly have to send her back upstairs at school for things she's forgotten.

Hello Crumbs 😆

Threaten to replace with a not-as-nice cheap shop version of said jacket... Then she can either take care of the one she's got or stump up the difference for the jacket she'd actually be seen dead in

(My dad made us have a wax jacket off the market once - mortifying)

I was a lot like this at her age. Only with me it was my PE kit being left in random classrooms. Poor nurse must have been sick of having my PE kit constantly turn up in lost property!!

She found the phone. But can't find her German folder.

Her laundry bin had been at the bottom of the stairs since Saturday morning and she hasn't done a violin practice since her last lesson, despite daily reminders on said phone.

I'm genuinely at a loss to know what to do.