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!

As @throweay isn't coming back to the thread there's no point in trying to help

As others have said, it's a good idea to deduct the cost of things he loses from pocket money. He'll either learn to be more careful with his stuff or that.not having money to buy treats with is not a good experience!

My son was just like this at that age, it drove me bananas (and actually worried me as it felt kind of unusual) - I also tried various ways to get him to take responsibility, which just made us both unhappy but didn’t really solve things. Between 15 and 18 he really had a bit of a MH wobble - long story short he was eventually diagnosed with Pure OCD (not the tidying sort) and had CBT to help during his Uni years. He obtained a First in Computer Science and is now 35 and settled/successful (albeit still gets anxiety spikes). I think my advice would be (looking back) - keep up calm strategies to support but remember to put this stuff in perspective; your and his health, happiness and relationship are the paramount things xx

A pp said ‘gently explain’
why? Unless there are send issues he needs to be told off and immediate consequences. First few times maybe ‘gently’ talk to him but three bottles in one week?!
This is the problem with this gentle parenting craze at the moment. Creating children who take no responsibility for their own behaviour. In my class I have children who lose something and then insist on me helping them find it because if they don’t their parent will tell them off. They know they will have a consequence because their parents have made that clear. Then there are others who don’t care to find their belongings because - it’s alright mum/dad won’t mind, they’ll just gently talk to me and then just buy me another one.
Taking away pocket money won’t work for a six year old because the consequence is not immediate enough. Three weeks later when he wants to buy something he won’t link not having enough money to losing his jumper on Monday.

...and on another thread, I was castigated when I said a four year old in nursery school has to be reminded about not opening doors and leaving the room.

One way of looking at it is this. It’s the fact that the items don’t show up that is so frustrating and making you want to take action. If you found them in lost property, you probably wouldn’t be thinking about punishing him/teaching him a lesson. So in a sense we’re talking about holding him accountable for the fact they haven’t shown up, which could be attributable to someone being less than honest with the item (ok, still the child being careless in the first place but compounded by something out of his control).

My kids haven’t lost stuff as much as this but we have had experience of labelled or easy to identify stuff completely disappearing, and it is baffling and infuriating. DS lost a nice new water bottle with his name sellotaped on. I scoured that school for it. Another child appeared with the same bottle. But no mark where there would have been if someone had removed the label. So the mystery continued never to be solved. But I strongly suspect there was more to it than just my child being careless.

My son kept losing his jumpers and I took him to Asda with his pocket money and made him buy some more. From that day no more went missing.

Some kids lose more than others, but this sounds extreme. Labelled items also should find their way back if they are left in the playground, gym or wherever. We kept being given back old jumpers of DS because we gave them to a scatty kid; I removed his labels eventually even though they weren't re-labelled, because it was annoying. Once the mum had to search for them in lost property, she labelled them herself. I think in this case it sounds more like someone is taking your boy's stuff, which is easier to do if he's a bit scatty.

Whoever is picking him up from school ought to be checking he has everything he went in with, and helping him to get them back. At 7, I would also ask the teacher to prompt him and just to check they are aware, they might already know if a particular kid nicks items regularly.

I haven’t RTFT, but asda sell plain water bottles for £1 each and you can buy permanent vinyl decals from Etsy to stick on and personalise them
That’s what I used to do with DD and it made them less likely to lose (and if you get a nice decal, he may be more inclined to keep hold of them!)

My DS2 was like this, he once even lost his shoelaces.

Turns out he's dyspraxic with an executive function disorder.

He's got better as an adult and being more aware of the issue and using various strategies.

Use disposable bottles, arguably no worse for the envirment than lots of lost more substantial ones.

How big is the school? Realistically the items can only be in his classroom, cloakroom, hall, playground or dining area. Unless someone is stealing or hiding them. I'd enlist the teacher or TA to help him look / keep them somewhere sensible. And make sure his name is clearly written on everything.

My dds were both prone to losing things but it got far worse with one in secondary where she was unpopular and bullying was definitely a factor. After many months we got given back a huge bag of her missing PE items etc.

My friend had a similar problem with her son (now a fully-functioning adult!) and she came up with a plan to help him focus. Rather than asking him to replace items with his pocket money she had a glass jar on the shelf in the kitchen and put a pound coin in it every Friday if he hadn't lost anything that week. If something was lost then the money in the jar was used to replace it. If, at the end of each term, there was any money in the jar then he got to keep it. The visual prompt of the jar getting fuller seemed to really help him to focus and it didn't take long until he was much more responsible and the prompts were no longer needed.

Also other parents aren't necessarily honest - a nice new jumper could well be accepted instead of their child's scruffy one. Once it's gone home and any name label removed, you have lost it.

Is he being bullied and the stuff being stolen from him?

Something’s not right here. If the jumpers have his name in they should be coming back to him. I’d instigate a discussion with the school about it. My DD had seven school cardigans going into reception year due to me buying some and then getting hand me downs from a friend. We were down to one at one point. In her first year of school we hardly had any days of her actually coming home from school with the cardigan she had gone to school in that day, it was either none or any number that had been lost on previous days and been sorted out in lost property and given back to her. Young kids can be a bit of a nightmare with losing stuff, but a school full of young kids should be well aware of this situation and have an efficient system for handling it. In the situation you describe I’d be suspicious that someone is deliberately taking his stuff.

I would stop allowing him school jumpers. No more. Just buy the cheap, plain supermarket ones the same colour and explain to the school why he’ll be the only one wearing non-uniform jumpers. They’ll understand. I’m sure a few days of being different to everyone else, will spur him on to being a bit more careful in future, even at 7 yrs old.
Also, I’m a bit suspicious of the school in all this. Surely they’ve come across all these jumpers? Unless they’ve a secret black hole. Sounds like someone is removing his name somehow and keeping (or donating to the next pre-loved uniform sale) these nice, new, barely worn jumpers…. Any teachers with a child at the school who’s roughly the same size as your DS?!

Why not?

I think the problem is immediately jumping to assuming the worst of children to be honest. He's not doing it deliberately.

My daughter could 'insist' on a teacher helping her find something til she's blue in the face and she'll get the same 'check lost property at the end of the week' answer they all get.

No, if my 6 year old was losing things to that degree I'd be trying to figure out why. I have ADHD though so it might be because he reminds me of me as a child.

In the meantime, I'd probably send him with really cheap bottles.

At 6 it's unlikely anyone could say for certain whether SEN is a factor. For the rate he's losing things, it seems likely that there is a reason beyond 'normal' carelessness (whether that's SEN, bullying, or even something worrying him that's preventing him thinking about everyday things/. Causing him to act out).

I was a clever kid who nobody considered could have SEN (people in the 90's didn't do a great job of recognising ADHD in girls). I was told off constantly for losing things. I had a million punishments and consequences. Nothing worked until my mum and dad accepted it wasn't something 'naughty' and helped me find coping strategies.

I have seen posts on here, from teachers who have a pupil who can sniff any item of clothing, and tell them who it belongs to! Sadly I don’t think every classroom has one.

I think you need a triple pronged approach here;

1. Bit of training and assistance when leaving school and home - help to pack his own bags, create a checklist (laminated maybe, with a whiteboard pen?) of what he needs for school, and what needs to come home - jumper, water bottle, school bag, coat, homework, sun hat etc.
2. Carrot - some kind of rewards chart to keep track of when he does bring everything home. After a set amount of times when he manages this, he gets a treat/ special trip.
3. Stick - having to pay for his own stuff if it's lost, I'd maybe get some cheap non-logo jumpers and plain cheap water bottles, and that is all you'll buy until he proves he can look after stuff (probably for next school year now). If he wants nicer ones, then he needs to use his pocket money for them. Or perhaps if he looses the next one you buy he has to pay for the next one.

I also think you need to take him into school to look properly through the lost property box. Speak to his teacher about him loosing stuff (and what you're putting in place to try to improve this, if they're able to support), and check he's not being bullied or having stuff stolen. Also worth checking that he's not giving his stuff away or lending it out to his friends, who might have less.

As a matter of interest, do you just fill the bottle with water each day, or use Milton sterilising solution in between, or just rinse it?

Your two paragraphs totally contradict each other. Which do you think is right? I mean if your suspicions in your second paragraph are correct (and I share them), then what you suggest in your first paragraph is just a cruel punishment for something that isn’t the child’s fault.

This isn't normal. Named items of clothing do get lost temporarily but not like this. They usually turn up within a few weeks. My kid had their coat taken. I'd just bought another one and the old one appeared in a corner of the school field... I do suspect other students are just taking people's jumpers and your DS will be a target because he has nice new ones. Water bottles are the same. Invest in a permanent method of labelling items and don't make him buy his own things!

I'd be talking to the class teacher why so many things are going walkabout. I also agree with the bullying theory.