Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To make DD pay half for lost uniform?

121 replies

TLIMSISNW · 26/09/2020 09:44

DD1 has just started year 7.

She’s lost her school jumper which is £20. It’s her birthday next week and she will be getting birthday money. I’m debating making her pay £10 towards a new jumper or whether we should cough up and just buy a new one.

I don’t want to be mean but also I do t want her to think that she can be careless with her stuff and we will just keep replacing it. Or perhaps we could but this one but if she loses another one then she will have to pay or contribute then.

I’m sure this is quite a common issue so WWYD/what have you done if this has happened with your DC?

OP posts:
DiscombobulatedAf · 26/09/2020 10:35

I think that’s mean. Kids lose things. Just tell her to be mindful in future

Original poster
TLIMSISNW · 26/09/2020 10:38

Thanks all, that’s really helpful.

We’ll pay for this one but let her know that there will be consequences in future. I like the idea I’d earning it through chores. It’s not about punishing her, it’s about consequences.

It had her name in it and it’s not in lost property.

We got through quite a lot of pe t-shirts in junior school but it wasn’t too bad as the boys and girls tops were the same so she could wear her DBs.

That’s really helpful.

Oh and no newspapers, I do not give you permission to use this story.

OP posts:
Cadent · 26/09/2020 10:40

Oh and no newspapers, I do not give you permission to use this story.

I’m not sure even the DM are so hard up they need a story about a missing school jumper Wink

Skysblue · 26/09/2020 10:40

Of course you shouldn’t deduct it from birthday money, that would be a really mean gesture on her birthday and create a bad atmosphere for the whole day. Bear in mind:

  • she didn’t chose to go to school
  • she didn’t choose to wear a uniform, it’s something the school and you force on her
  • she may not have had any choice about taking the jumper off, at our school the teachers often say “it’s too hot for jumpers everyone take them off”
  • ‘it got lost’ is not the same as ‘she was careless’. Perhaps she was, or perhaps she put it in a perfectly sensible place and someone else (teacher/pupil) knocked it out of sight or picked it up, either by mistake or for a laugh. Kids do sometimes steal stuff and hide it just to see what happens.

You put her in this situation, you are just as responsible as her for the loss. She’s just started secondary school in a pandemic, has possibly been robbed and your first thought is to punish her. Lovely 😐

Original poster
TLIMSISNW · 26/09/2020 10:41

I’m not sure even the DM are so hard up they need a story about a missing school jumper wink

I’ve been stung before. Sad

OP posts:
Goldenbear · 26/09/2020 10:41

YABU, harsh and unfair. They do lose things in the first term or more likely they are taken by someone else whose parents have encouraged them to do so. I think this lessons after year 7 first term as if there are 'takers' they have set themselves up for the year! My son's PE tracksuit top was lost or take in the first weeks of the first term but nothing since and now he is in year 9!

Goldenbear · 26/09/2020 10:42

Lessens not lessons

Original poster
TLIMSISNW · 26/09/2020 10:43

You put her in this situation, you are just as responsible as her for the loss

Errr. No

OP posts:
RandomMess · 26/09/2020 10:43

I would get her to keep checking lost property and anyone she sits near etc and ask them to check if they took the wrong one home by accident (and theirs is in lost property).

Original poster
TLIMSISNW · 26/09/2020 10:43

YABU, harsh and unfair.

You do realise we hadn’t decided to do this and was asking what people do and what the consensus is?

OP posts:
Oblomov20 · 26/09/2020 10:51

Even I think that's too harsh. She's only year 7 (my Ds2 is and has already lost a Pritt stick Grin and a lunch box).

Knittedfairies · 26/09/2020 10:54

Would you still be considering making her pay half if someone has pinched it? I understand that you're cross because she took it off and left it somewhere, but it should be in lost property if someone hasn't taken it.

Watermama · 26/09/2020 11:00

Yanbu year 7 is old enough to take care of her property. I would have her pay 50% this time with a warning next time she pays 100%.

12309845653ghydrvj · 26/09/2020 11:00
  1. Tell her to go to lost property and get one from there—guaranteed to be a dozen that fit.
  1. Do ask her not to do it again, but I think the problem with your idea is you’re now turning her birthday into a punishment. You literally get one day a year when it’s your day, it’s really mean to try to teach a lesson then. Can guarantee the only thing she’ll learn from it will be that she doesn’t want to spend time with you as much as before.
CoRhona · 26/09/2020 11:00

If she lost it at school, I would wait to see if it turns up. Could be in a cupboard and just not have made it to lp yet.

Rocinante39 · 26/09/2020 11:05

Don't spoil her birthday, whatever you do.

IceCreamAndCandyfloss · 26/09/2020 11:10

Children and adults lose things, it’s human nature. There’s no way I would make a child replace a lost item from their birthday money.

Just another reason to add to the list never to gift children money.

Goldenbear · 26/09/2020 11:11

But it is 'AIBU' so I apologise if I have been grammatically incorrect with using past tense rather than future. I will adjust accordingly- if you did use her birthday money for a school jumper, I would personally consider it to be very mean spirited!

walker1891 · 26/09/2020 11:13

I think children should be in the habit of being responsible for their own things way before Y7.

VickySunshine · 26/09/2020 11:16

Gosh, you sound just like my mother. Kids lose or put holes in just about anything and I must have replaced a shed load of jumpers, blouses and gym skirts. Shout and wave a shitty stick if it makes you feel better but in my experience ( and I had three ) you can threaten them with Siberian Salt Mines and it makes no difference. They're just kids, it's like hoiking their skirts up or demanding a belly-button piercing for Xmas , it's an unconscious act of upsetting the ordered logic of the world that comes with puberty. My mother used the back of her hand, I prefered and irritated glare and a cuddle. I loved them too much to bother over a school jumper. That's why I had them.

KarmaStar · 26/09/2020 11:18

That's harsh op.kids are having a rough time at the moment.
And when you lose something,she will be keen to know your punishment.
Let her enjoy her birthday please.

Frappuccinofan · 26/09/2020 11:19

Replacing a jumper for the first time shouldn’t come out of her birthday gift, that’s really nasty imo. At the age/year she is, it’s still easy for someone to have accidentally taken hers or to easily misplace it as she’s still settling in

NameChange84 · 26/09/2020 11:20

When this happened to me at the same age my Mum (who was HORRIBLY strict) didn’t do anything like you’re proposing which is very mean and cold. She knew that I was uncomfortable wearing second hand clothes but explained I’d had a new one and not been careful with it so from now on anything that was lost would be replaced with second hand, starting with the jumper. Got the second hand one, which was much poorer quality but very cheap and a few weeks later the new one with my name in showed up. It’s quite common for other children to take them (sometimes by accident, sometimes as a prank or bullying) and then not own up when it’s “found” or guilt gets the better of them. Usually found stuffed in a corner or on top of a locker or something.

Can you put a message on school WhatsApp/Facebook etc, asking parents to check the label of their child’s jumper as your dd’s is missing and not in lost property? Our class teacher used to often ask us to check our labels in registration after a parent reported something missing...same at ballet! Such a common thing to happen and never deliberate by the child that’s lost it.

12309845653ghydrvj · 26/09/2020 11:27

When I was in secondary school we regularly took each other’s jumpers by accident and thought nothing of it—someone else would be wearing yours, they’d just sort of rotate! A lot of children aren’t precious about this and it’s genuinely hard to keep track of a lot of identical items

TheHoneyFactory · 26/09/2020 11:28

gosh no. its a lost school jumper. please don't be so harsh.
a consequence of having children/teens - they will lose (and destroy) things.

Swipe left for the next trending thread