To make child pay for his own uniform?

[Unifrom]

My child is 8 and is very unorganised, he’s constantly losing his belongings at school and with the cost of living I can’t keep up like this. They never get found/returned despite them all being labelled.

The latest thing is his fleece, that costs £19. Went missing on Monday and hasn’t been handed in, need to sort it. He gets pocket money at £2 per week and saves this up to buy something big, so he can cover this.

Me and DH can’t agree on whether he should have to pay for the cost of a new one out of pocket money.

So AIBU to think it would be a good life lesson for him to have to pay for a replacement? Or is he too young to have to pay for his own uniform?

But this is normal for an 8 year old.
He doesn't sound like it's on purpose.
Can you get him a second hand fleece?

Senior school is different, but you have to start modelling these things before they start so they are prepared.

He’s way too young.

Also, other kids do sometimes steal / hide other’s stuff to be cruel. Is he being careless, or is he being robbed by mean classmates? I don’t know and neither do you.

I’ve seen a child that age crying his eyes out because his mum told him he wasn’t allowed to take his jumper off at school in case he lost it but the teacher was telling him he wasn’t allowed to keep it on because of the hot weather.

It’s likely that the problem isn’t him, it’s school procedures in some way. But even if the problem is him, HE’S ONLY EIGHT.

You meanie.

What a nasty idea.

I do think kids are smarter and more able than some parents give them credit for, to not set any consequence due to his age, at 8, is baffling to me.

I’ve just sat down with DS and we’ve written down his uniform/belongings that he’s lost this school year and how much they cost to replace (time mainly spent discussing pounds in lego 😁)

I said this time I’ll just take 2 weeks money as a contribution and he can put the washing away too but if it happens again then he will need to cover it.

Maybe I’m a terrible, mean, lazy parent but he actually offered to pay for it in full once he realised and I’m very proud of how he handled the conversation, so I can’t have messed him up too bad!

Thanks for all the responses, hope I haven’t given anyone nightmares over my cruelty x

At 8, no. Not in full anyway. It would be a bit different if he was secondary school age.

I think he's old enough to accept some responsibility though so I'd probably withhold pocket money for one week unless he can find the fleece. Just explain that you haven't got £2 to give him this week as you have to save it to replace the fleece.

Surely there's some nuance between "just uncomplainingly buy endless coats to replace the ones he casually flings into bins on the way home" and "make him pay every single penny for everything he loses - that'll teach him!"

Age-appropriate consequences are needed if he's repeatedly losing the same things - a stern telling-off and asking for a contribution to the cost of a new one from whatever money he has saved, that would seen sufficient to me at 8. Making him pay for the whole thing is likely to be so overwhelming a blow that he won't learn anything, just feel resentful and sad.

Strategies to help him manage his belongings might also be useful, if he's consistently losing things. I am ND and had terrible executive function as a child and teenager. Years of pure misery being reamed out by parents and teachers who scathingly marvelled that such a bright child could be so careless and slovenly. Now I have lists and reminders and routines and other little tricks to help me manage.

There's a small but vocal contingent on MN who are obsessed with rubbing children's faces in their wrongdoings and teaching them adult "responsibility" at insanely young ages. They're convinced that anything less will lead to feckless, feral adults who can't find their way around a supermarket or hoover a carpet. Meanwhile, in the real world, learning responsibility is a gradual, organic process that takes account of the age and stage of the child and doesn't squawk in panic if an 8yo can't negotiate a mortgage yet.

I did this with both of mine in turn. It worked like a charm tbh.

Where is it though? It hasn’t disappeared into thin air, so where is it?

Is he being bullied? Are other children deliberately taking or hiding his stuff? It does happen.

I was the kid who always lost things. I was always punished for it - no pocket money at home, detentions at school. I'm now the adult who always loses things. Being punished didn't suddenly improve my memory!

Why are you giving an 8yo pocket money if you are short? I have never understood why kids of that age are given money. I didn’t get any when I was a kid or give any to my kids when they were so young.

in any case, you need to take more extensive measures to ensure this doesn’t happen, rather than making him pay. Watch the weather and send him without the fleece, removing the opportunity for him to put it down. Sew large name labels onto the front of clothing so it’s obvious if another kid puts it on. sew something on as a trim.

use embroidery thread to put his first name on stuff (massive, in contrasting colour). When my dc were at primary, there was a woman who took a black sharpie and wrote the surname of her kids on their white tops in 3 inch tall letters.

I think 10 weeks savings is too much. But not unreasonable to make him pay something towards it. I would say no pocket money for 2 weeks might be reasonable.

I can’t see where anyone is advocating that, what hyperbolic nonsense.

I wish I knew!
It seems a reoccurring theme in his class though that missing items don’t return, we do of course get the usual ‘oh I’ve got Sallys cardigan here I’ll bring it in on Monday!’ But in general, my missing item messages are met with radio silence.
Im confident he’s not being bullied. There probably are some kids/parents just keeping stuff their kid brings home, or the school. Schools insistent it’s not there and no parent has said they have it, so it’s obviously grown legs and walked off. I’m not going to go into the school guns blazing, he loses things whilst playing at lunchtime usually so outside where all of the year groups go. Things like stationary that he loses is always because he’s taken it outside and left it somewhere too.

When you say 'despite being labelled' do you mean actually labelled or do you mean sharpie on the label labelled?

It's really quite difficult for them to keep track of things if they have to sift through a pile of identical clothing, looking for the label and then scrutinising the faded writing for clues.