To make my 6 year old buy his own water bottle?

[throweay]

He is 7 in October, mature for his age.

He has lost seven (!) school jumpers this academic year. His name is in all of them, but they just go missing. Never in the lost property. He will just leave things on the floor, on benches etc.

Same with water bottles, with it being hot he obviously needs one in school every day. He has lost three since Monday last week.

Last week I bought him a new school jumper (was the only one we had, as the rest are all lost) and a water bottle. Surprise surprise, he has lost them.

I have very gently explained the importance of looking after our things, and how such things cost money. Tried to come up with strategies on how he can better look after things.

I ask him to look for them when he’s next in school, he never does.

Would I BU to get him to pay for a new water bottle with his pocket money? He gets a £1 a week and only has £7 in his account.

I feel it may be harsh, but I have tried every other way!

In addition, all this buying of water bottles just screams plastics and landfill. Surely the water fountain was a better eco option?

You need to contact the school yourself about jus list property. In our school we contact the teacher and she will check it ask in school chat for other parents to check if their kid took it. If nothing else is going on (others taking them) then I would stop his pocket money for a few weeks so he learns consequences. My daughter used to lose everything, except the stuff she cares about so she's had to learn consequences and responsibility for her property and things improved

Have you contacted the school?

Have you considered the possibility that he may have something like ADHD? I think at that age he needs help and to be shown different ways of remembering things rather than what he may well see as a punishment.

If you / your partner work full time then this might work - it certainly did for us...

"Would you rather:

1. lose another jumper / drinks bottle OR
2. Have an hour of fun with mum / dad? Because if you would rather the fun, I'm sorry but that jumper costs us 1 hour at work"

Hugely helped DS with understanding the value of money too. Everything "cost" me half an hour / two hours etc.

Eldest is now 16. It completely stopped my eldest wanting stupendously expensive trending trainers etc too. When he got a part time job at 16, he made a comment one day to me about a particular brand of top his friend has and that he'd "have to work 5 hours for that, no chance!" Made me smile a bit, that 10-12 years later it really has stuck with him.

I started sending in disposable water bottles. 1.80 for 12 from Aldi. A reusable water bottle has to be used many times over before it breaks even with disposables. DS felt bad and started making more of an effort and had gone back to reusable.

I second the PP who said a laminated checklist attached to his bag. Even if only 3 things on it - Lunchbag
Jumper
Water bottle

We used to have another one for PE days with, guess what, PE kit added.

saved my dyslexic & ADHD kids numerous times.

Don’t they have water fountains in school? Perhaps he can use them rather than carrying a bottle about with him all day?

@throweay says everything has his name in, in her OP, @lampyyy.

So much stuff going missing does sound like more than just carelessness - either other kids taking stuff home (by accident or on purpose) and the parents unpicking nametapes and keeping them, or possibly bullying, as previous posters have suggested.

I wouldn’t. My son lost everything at school, several PE kits etc. As he got older we realised he has ADHD. Could it be that he’s struggling with executive function rather than carelessness? I’d try and find strategies such as reusing cheap plastic bottles, asking for school help finding the jumper there and then if he doesn’t have it at pickup etc. Try not to get frustrated, he’s only little - he needs to know you’re his safety net x

I stopped buying them at that age. I had a note home from a teacher and said that my kids could drink from the bubbler like I did as a kid, I was sick of replacing water bottles.

My youngest was like that in KS1 - I used to check that he had everything with him at pick up and if he didn’t he was sent back in to go and find things. He’s still a bit forgetful now at 11, but nowhere near as bad and hasn’t lost a water bottle or jumper for longer than a day throughout all of year 6 (so far).

This sounds more like a school problem than a child problem.

Surely a member of staff should have picked up the lost item at some point and returned it/put in lost property.
Also, it's not up to a 6 year old to ask to check lost property. That really needs to be the parent.
School should also be checking that things are labelled and that each child has the correct property.

throweay Put your surname and phone number on clothes and articles so if they if they get left outside school people can phone you..
Have you looked on your local Facebook page?

I sellotape my phone number on the inside of an arm of my own glasses and change the number to that of the hotel when on holiday.

I know of two different cases of when pairs of shoes/trainers were taken when left outside a classroom, one was a young child’s, the other an adult.

Who collects him from school?
Do they check he has everything he should before leaving school?

It's worth a try. It sounds infuriating and if it makes no difference then I would do what everyone else suggests and buy disposable bottles

Our PTA used to go through the lost property bin (and it was a big bin, bigger than a supermarket trolley, and always full) and return anything with name labels in. Everything else got washed and sold for £2 at the end of each term. Non uniform things like coats and water bottles were photographed and put on the schools FB page.

Maybe suggest / offer to do that?

My child is like this and I have started saying she will have to pay for replacements BUT only since she was about 9.5 and year 5.

6/7 is too young IMO

It does sound like something weird is going on- in addition to your child being careless. 7 named jumpers not appearing in lost property?? Someone is taking them home and renaming them. 3 water bottles in a week? Surely school staff would notice them cluttering up the place, pick it up, check the name.

I agree with you.
Very odd.
Your poor wee child might be totally unaware of nastiness in others, bless.
I’d have a word with the teacher.
One of my dc’s smocks was taken when she was in pre school.
Purposely stolen.
Luckily I got a heads up from a classroom assistant.
We got it back.

How about rewards for remembering? My DD has complex needs but we’ve worked hard to instil the importance of remembering to bring things home, ie money and the time it takes to replace. I don’t just shrug and say ‘oh well’ but I also don’t tell her off either. I just remind, remind, remind, ask school her with strategies to help, so it’s part of a transition process for example. I reward her for remembering everything. My personal view is that’s it our role to help them grow up slowly and take responsibility. 7 is still quite young and I know it’s not unusual at that age though.

Yes it’s harsh, maybe look at why he is losing things and how you can support him in not doing this. Reminders, prompt cards etc

That amount of jumpers lost I'd be sewing airtag or tile trackers into the lining.

Hello, I share your frustration. My 8 year old is like this. Most memorably, losing 3 coats in one week (the same coat twice). It can drive me mad and it always falls to me to try and chase these things down - or replace them. It’s labour intensive and wasteful. HOWEVER he genuinely cannot help it, and it doesn’t matter what I say. He has ADHD and we have been helped to understand that this is part of it. Have you considered this possibility? Does he have other potential ADHD symptoms? There is no magic formula for handling it unfortunately. I AirTag valuable things like musical instruments and then just have to check him at pick up for what he might have lost and make him think where it could be/ go back and get it immediately. Teachers are aware of the diagnosis and are pretty good at reminding him. Can they help? Speak to his class teacher.

I might try the making him buy one if I were you (and have done similar with the coat - I bought a cheap replacement on vinted), but with compassion. And you need to consider what you’ll do if he keeps on losing them despite the penalty?

if I were you I would raise it with the school as well because clearly their lost property system isn’t functioning as it should. Also, buy all uniform secondhand if you can so it isn’t as expensive to replace.

I would also say that I am tentatively hopeful that mine is growing out of it - a little.

Good luck.

YABU to expect him to go to school and go to the lost property and find his belongings by himself. He would need to remember, ask a teacher for permission and then look through the lost property, identify the items and then take them back to his classroom. That’s a lot to expect.

YOU need to look in lost property or YOU need to email the school office and explain what’s happened.

Labelled items almost always turn up somewhere accept the odd item which will get nicked.

As PP have said, they should be making their way back to him if they’re properly labelled. In our school only unlabelled stuff goes in lost property and labelled stuff goes to the classroom.

I wonder if they’re being stolen or hidden by other children? Where is he losing his bottles? Ours don’t carry them around, they go on the trolley in the classroom, what’s your school’s system.

What has his teacher said?