Do you let your child keep things they find?

[thepingaloos]

Just trying to figure out if I am being a bit mean to my DC really.

I have always said if we find something in the street we leave it there in case someone comes back for it (those bits and bobs that have a way of getting lost, hats, little toys, hair slides, or jewellery).

I was with a friend a few weeks ago and the kids happened to come across not one but two things and their DC was allowed to keep both items. My DC then asked me why they were never allowed. I always thought I was doing the right thing, my DC have lost things in the past and I've always gone back searching for them and I know even the most daft thing can be treasure to a child. So on that basis I always say to my DC to leave it be, it's not theirs. I also thought it was teaching them about it not just being 'finders keepers', in the hope that they'd always try to find the rightful owner of something. But now I just feel like a very very mean mum and I'm wondering whether I'm actually being a bit harsh on my own DC so thought I'd use mumsnet to do a straw poll. AIBU?

Mine could keep nature finds but not things other people may have lost. They learned that they had to find their real owner.

We always try to put it in a place someone will see it if they come looking, and similarly have found our lost items propped up in gate posts etc. Except for the stuff taken by ops friends and Vampires kids of course.

Depends what it is.

Clothes or any kind of rubbish - leave where it is.

Coins, cheap clean item like plastic bracelet - DD can keep it.

Actual nice toy - we take it home and I post it on the local mums facebook and the village group. We’ve reunited several children with lost toys this way! I did tell DD if no one collects it you can have it, but so far everything has been collected.

many many years ago i found a hair clip at the ymca swimming pool. lovely engraved silver. so i kept it....only to be plagued with lice the following week.
back then my mom a hair dresser washed my hair with kerosene.
moral of the story, NO we don't keep random stuff we find. all toques mitts scarves and even keys are picked up off the ground and hung on the nearest gate post.
garbage is put in the nearest garbage bin.

Eww no I don’t let my kids keep shite they find on the street. Do people do that??

They do come home from school/nursery with their pockets full of pebbles though. Is that normal??

Also I know that picking up toys and taking them home to put on Facebook to locate owner is well intentioned and coming from a good place, but sometimes I wish people would just leave stuff alone.

I remember we once dropped my toddler daughter’s snuggly when we went to pick up my eldest from school. She was in the buggy and she must have dropped it. She realised in the school playground it was gone. We live like 8 mins walk from the school. We retraced our steps and it was gone. Some well meaning person had taken it and put it on Facebook later that night so I had to drive to their (slightly dodgy) block of flats to get it.

They were doing a kind thing but actually had they just left it alone it would have saved a lot of faffing

Thanks everyone for the pretty conclusive opinions, it's good to know we're pretty normal!

Presumably you've never had a child lose a toy and then by heartbroken it's mysteriously disappeared (into someone else's house).

Don't be so silly, of course my kids have lost things while we've been out. Especially tiny things like a little dinosaur or a plastic animal etc, but when you've been in the park or wherever for a couple of hours and it could've been left or lost literally anywhere then unless you're some kind d of super parent who's happy to trawl the entire place for the next 2 hours finding it then they learn to keep better hold of their stuff in future. And we always said better it gets discovered and loved a bit more by some other child than ends up in the bin when the litter picker comes along!

But yeah totally if you've got all the time in the world to scour the entire area of where a toddler dropped something when you were out then more power to you.

Usually no. The only exception was when she found some sunglasses in a trolley at the supermarket. I don’t really know why I let her keep those other than I didn’t imagine someone would come and go through a every trolley at Tesco for a cheap pair of sunglasses.

My dd was like a magpie when younger and was always finding odd bits of rubbish treasure.

It would depend on what it was as to whether she could keep it, she once found a tenner in Morrisons and I made her hand it in - she's never forgiven me for it!!

Little, broken trinkets that are of no value she could put in her pocket.

My ds and his friend found an envelope with 300 quid in. They knocked on a door and a lady checked her cctv. Belonged to a builder a few doors along. He gave ds and his friend £20 each!!

@Maltester71

My dd found an emerald necklace in an American swimming pool. I didn’t know until after we’d left the hotel.

Once home I contacted the hotel. Nobody claimed it for 21 days then a lady in Salt Lake City sent a photo of her dd wearing it as proof it belonged to her. It had been an 18th birthday present.

We sent it by recorded delivery to salt lake city. It was very strange, as it exactly matched a ring I have. Dd was convinced she was fated to find it. Having to send it back was a life lesson.

I hope you were thanked properly for the time and expense of sending it back.

No, my DC are not allowed to keep things.

Money or jewellery I would hand in to police, cafe owner etc and teddy bears, toys etc I’d put on a fence or wall to make more visible.

@Maltester71

My dd found an emerald necklace in an American swimming pool. I didn’t know until after we’d left the hotel.

Once home I contacted the hotel. Nobody claimed it for 21 days then a lady in Salt Lake City sent a photo of her dd wearing it as proof it belonged to her. It had been an 18th birthday present.

We sent it by recorded delivery to salt lake city. It was very strange, as it exactly matched a ring I have. Dd was convinced she was fated to find it. Having to send it back was a life lesson.

And a good life lesson too @Maltester71 one she will remember.

I’m sure they were so grateful at your honesty too.

@Maydaysoonenough

My ds and his friend found an envelope with 300 quid in. They knocked on a door and a lady checked her cctv. Belonged to a builder a few doors along. He gave ds and his friend £20 each!!

I love this! We lost a unicorn teddy, I'm glad nobody took it home with them. Thing is when you find things, sometimes you don't know what to do with it- I'm glad the builder was reunited with his money

@VestaTilley

No, my DC are not allowed to keep things.

Money or jewellery I would hand in to police, cafe owner etc and teddy bears, toys etc I’d put on a fence or wall to make more visible.

This is what I and most people here would do I think. Your friend is more unusual allowing this I think op. There’s a recent one on my local area Facebook group where young teen has lost his iPods - the mum can track them to a location nearby - from her own phone but no one has ‘found’ them….she is convinced they have been picked up by someone but sadly no one has handed them over.

An older ds many years ago found a fiver in Boots. We handed it in. Few weeks later they rang to say he could keep it. A lass I worked with found 60 quid and kept it one Christmas.. Couldn't have done that.
Sometimes I hang a glove it hat on a fence! Can't imagine taking a lost toy home.

I found a lovely shawl in a remote area last month. Covered in mud and leaves so had been there a little while I think. I brought it home and posted it on the neighbourhood groups, gave it a wash too for good measure. No one has claimed it so it's sitting on top of a cupboard in my kitchen.

I don't let my kids keep things they find. I think it's important they learn it's not there as they may pick up stuff in a park or beach otherwise and take it. I did let my eldest keep a couple of NERF darts recently though that belonged to the street bully who deliberately broke his scooter and lots of other kids toys.

I’m so glad most of the responses say they’d leave the items. We’ve always done that but I know several people who would let their children keep things.
Last year my son lost a cuddly toy and some game cards at a uk holiday resort. His bag came unzipped and they fell out on the way to our room. We went straight back but they’d been picked up. We checked all week at customer services and with the cleaners but no one hsnddd them in. He was so upset. It was a really special cuddly toy with memories attached that couldn’t be replaced. I was so disappointed that whichever family found them didn’t hand them in ☹️

Magnolia. The lady sent my daughter a card to thank her.

My daughter of course had done nothing other than feel disappointed that we couldn’t keep it (she was ten at the time). However she does remember it, and talks about the incident fondly

I was never allowed to keep any items except stones and sticks, and coins up to £1 if they were like on a road or a path with absolutely no one around . I use the same approach with DD. We’ve lost quite a few items over life, always came back later and it’s very nice to find some of them and very disappointing not to find others.
I’m very surprised that someone will keep something like a hoodie.

Plastic tat and hair clips yes
Actual teddies or clothing no

It’s a cycle. DD has lost loads of plastic tat and clips and doesn’t miss them.

I would always keep cash

DS is a magpie, but fortunately only with random stuff in the house, for example a button on the side or a hair clip etc. Outside he still puts interesting stones and things in his pockets. The child is 8 🤦🏼‍♀️
If he or DD came across a pound coin or something and it wasn’t obviously being looked for or someone who’s clearly just dropped it then I’m happy for them to keep it. Anything else we leave. My kids have both had strong attachments to what could count as “tat” but would have been heartbroken to find gone if we’d gone back to look for it if dropped.

My kids have been on both sides of lost and found. My oldest daughter lost a very precious toy from Disneyland. This was before social media so we placed a free ad in the classified section of the local paper and when we heard that it was found she wrote thank you cards for the shop who had kept it and for the paper who had published her ad.

On the other hand my son found an M&S gift card with a substantial amount of money on it. We posted on local pages on social media, local radio and reported it to the police and contacted M&S. The owner never came forward so after 3 months we let him spend it.