To stop taking my DD’s forgotten school things in to her?

[AmpleLemonReader]

I know 12 isn’t 5 but I am getting to the point where I feel like I am DDs school bag, if that makes sense. She has always been forgetful, PE kit, maths book, reading book, jumper, lunch, occasionally her phone. School is only about 8 minutes away so until recently I would just take whatever it was in. It has become a habit really. She will sometimes shout from upstairs asking where something is instead of looking herself, and I realise I have probably trained her into that as well.

I have recently changed jobs and I have to be in for 8.30 now. I have already been late twice because DD has rung me from school wanting something brought in. I can’t keep leaving work or turning round when I am meant to be starting. There have been mornings where she is still getting dressed while I am making lunches and checking my own things for work, then she suddenly says she needs something for school when I am literally walking out the door. This morning she left her science homework folder on the kitchen table and rang at about 8.05 saying she needed it and that the teacher had said she would get a detention.

I said no, I wasn’t bringing it. She got really upset and said “you’ll get me in trouble” and that I was setting her up to get in trouble. I asked her afterwards exactly what happens if she forgets something and apparently there is a consequence, but it isn’t a big detention for one forgotten folder. More a lunchtime catch up or being told off and having to sort it out. So I do think she has made it sound worse because she knows I usually rescue her. I don’t want her sitting there terrified all day over one folder, but I also don’t think every uncomfortable consequence needs to be removed by me.

And yes, I know I have created some of this myself. Every time she has forgotten something I have taken it in, partly because it is easier than listening to the panic and partly because I can’t stand the thought of her being embarrassed. But now she expects it. She doesn’t even seem to check her bag properly because she knows if something is missing I will bring it. Looking back, I think I have confused being a helpful mum with preventing any consequences for her. She knows I hate seeing her upset, and she has learned that ringing me normally fixes it. I honestly don’t know where the line is between helping and making her incapable of doing basic things herself.

DH thinks im being ridiculous and says she is only 12 and it takes five minutes. His view is that if I can take it then why wouldn’t I, especially if she is going to get a sanction. But I am not just sitting at home with nothing to do anymore. I am meant to be at work, and it is not five minutes when I have to turn round, park, go into reception and then get back. DH says I am making a mountain out of something small and that school is already stressful enough without me refusing to help. I can see that side of it, but I also need to get to work on time and keep my job. Also I’m not saying she has to be perfect.

DS is 9 and somehow manages his own bag. He has packed it himself since Year 3 and will check for his reading book and PE kit without being asked. I know children are different and I am not comparing them to make DD feel bad, but honestly it does wind me up when DS is more independent and I am still checking DD has remembered everything. I have tried checklists on the front door and putting PE days on the fridge. Sometimes she uses them and sometimes she just walks straight past them. She is perfectly capable of remembering things she really cares about, which is probably why I get so frustrated. Maybe I have got too used to doing it for her.

The PE thing has annoyed me most. Last week she deliberately left her PE kit by the front door because she didn’t want PE. Then she texted me from school saying “they’ll phone you” and asking me to bring it. I didn’t. They didn’t phone. She had to sit out and apparently got a minor sanction for not having kit. That felt different from genuinely forgetting because she had actually made a decision not to take it. She came home afterwards absolutely fine, by the way. She wasn’t traumatised or anything, which made me wonder if I have been worrying about the consequences more than she actually needs me to.

There are exceptions though. If she forgot something genuinely important I would obviously take it. Medication, something needed for a medical reason, or something that would cause a serious problem rather than just embarrassment or a small school sanction. If it was her inhaler, glasses, medication, something needed for a disability or anything where not having it could actually put her at risk, obviously I would go. I don’t want people thinking I would leave her without something important just to make a lesson out of it. I am not trying to punish her or make school harder. I just think she needs to learn to check her bag and deal with the consequences when she doesn’t.

So AIBU to stop taking her forgotten things in? I keep going backwards and forwards because part of me thinks this is exactly how you teach independence, but another part thinks I am making her school life harder just to prove a point. DH says I am being unnecessarily strict and should just help her. I honestly can’t tell anymore if refusing to rescue her is reasonable parenting or if I am being stubborn. I don’t want to turn this into some battle of wills. I want her to manage school herself, but I also don’t want to look back and think I should have helped her when I could have.

Perhaps you need to say “No phone/TV/whatever in the morning until you show me you have got everything ready for school, dd”, @AmpleLemonReader?

And tell her that you won’t be taking forgotten stuff in, so, if she forgets things, on her own head be it.

I went through this with ds1 when he started secondary school - he’d ring up in a panic over something he’d forgotten, and I was close to the school so I’d drop it into the office for him to pick up. The third time I did this, he met me outside the office, and one of the office ladies came out and told me, quite sternly, that I wasn’t allowed on school grounds during school hours, and must stop dropping stuff off for ds1. When he had taken whatever it was he’d forgotten, and went off, she said she was only being mock-stern, and actually I wasn’t forbidden to come to the school - she was giving me a good excuse to refuse any further requests from ds1. “I’m sure you have better things to do than running around after a forgetful boy”, she said!

Ds2 was initially forgetful, so I made him pack his bag in front of me each evening - he hated that, and quickly learned to do it independently.

She got really upset and said “you’ll get me in trouble” and that I was setting her up to get in trouble
Does your husband really want his child to grow up with this thinking mindset? If so, he is doing her a very bad disservice.

You are absolutely right to nip this in the bud now.

I'm getting a lot of anxiety about letting her down coming from your post. You are not letting her down by refusing to keep bailing her out. Also does she have an understanding that you are a person with other commitments? At that age I'd have understood that I was inconveniencing someone if they had to drop my stuff into school for me.

I think it's time to sit her down and say you're 12, this is secondary school, it's time for you to take responsibility. What strategies can she come up with to help her remember things? Then support her to implement those. So remind her to check her checklist, but don't remind her about every individual thing etc.

Love this advice. Very apt.

I work in a school office and honestly the amount of items parents bring in for their children is unbelievable! I always tell them we don’t deliver items to classrooms that students need to collect it themselves and the parents start panicking and begging as their children us terrified of detentions. Now I’ll say my youngest was exactly the same, very quiet, very sensitive etc and I pandered to her more than I’d like to admit. However once you leave the responsibility with them and they have the consequence (behaviour points or detentions) they are then less likely to forget in the future. Currently she has no need to remember as you always save the day. If you don’t want to be the bad guy you could tell her you’re no longer at home when she calls you so you can’t help. A checklist the previous evening that you help her with may help her to get into a routine of being more organised.

Your DD needs to grow up and take responsibility.
Your DH needs to start supporting you, not undermining you.

And you need to question the school's PE department about their inclusion policy. She didn't have kit so SHE SAT OUT?! Absolutely unacceptable - PE is a mandatory subject but already squeezed well below the recommended 2 hours per week in many secondaries because of timetable pressure; it's essential that students take part unless they are ill or injured. And even then there are roles they can do to ensure they participate in the lesson such as scoring, time-keeping, coaching, team-managing, match report-writing...

OP, you sound like you know what needs to be done about her lack of organisation, but you also need to address her attitude (and yours?) to the one subject that gives students opportunity to support their physical and mental health whilst teaching crucial life skills including teamwork, communication, confidence, leadership, conflict resolution, fairness and resilience. She deliberately left her kit at home - would you be happy if she deliberately left her calculator or pen at home as a means of 'getting out of' an academic subject?

Rant over 😁

I hadn’t actually thought of the interested in things / boring things being part of ADHD, I just assumed that was normal teenager behaviour tbh. I’m not saying she has ADHD though as we have never had her assessed. The phone is probably a fair point because “in a minute” is very often 20 minutes later and then she’s rushing. I don’t really want to turn our house into a military operation either 😂 but I can see that me calling everything out and then rescuing her isn’t teaching her much. As for DH, yes I am getting a bit fed up with him saying what I should do when he’s not the one having to leave work to take things in. He thinks he’s helping by saying it’s only five minutes but it doesn’t feel like help when I’m the one getting the grief at work.

But it’s not just 5 minutes away, is it? You’ve said it’s 8 minutes. Add in the time to find her missing item, time to park the car, drop it in at the office, it all adds up. So you’ve probably been 20+ mins late twice already this month. You’re going to quickly get into disciplinary territory at work if you’re going to be repeatedly late to work for something that’s unnecessary

I can't believe there are 5 pages of this, OP it's really not complicated at all. This should have stopped on your FIRST DAY of your new job.

This evening, tell your daughter very firmly and clearly: "look, I CANNOT bring you your stuff anymore. I'm going to lose my job if you keep this up. It's all your responsibility to remember your stuff."

She might get a few detentions in the first couple of weeks, but by week 3 she'll have the hang of it. And if she hasn't, well... a detention at school is a lot less serious than a disciplinary at work! I say this as someone who was quite a forgetful child myself. Yeah, I had a few detentions, so what?

Also, "Only 8 minutes away" is deceptive. That's 8 minutes there, 8 minutes back, 3 or 4 minutes of getting your shoes and handbag/getting in and out the car/finding a parking space/waiting around at reception [delete as applicable], that's at least 20 minutes out of your day, that's more than enough time to make you late/put you on the wrong footing for the morning. There should be no argument about this. Ask your husband if he's prepared to get a second job if you lose yours.

It’s an ADHD trait to forget stuff

Tell your DD to phone her dad, as he does not see it as an issue someone missing work to take her things

once your DH has trained her to pack her resources before school

Your husband is the problem. In most cases, children can pack their school bags/have a list of things they need from the time they start school. Even at nursery, they have lists they put stickers on to check they have their water etc. It doesn't matter if you were only watching TV all day, or whether you need to get to work, the point is she needs to learn to get organised. Blaming you for getting her in trouble is going to cause issues-there are some adults who blame their partner for not organising them, and failure to take responsibility starts young. Many people mention ADHD, but the majority of people can benefit from some of the techniques people are taught for this, eg always putting her school stuff in the same place, and having something like a whiteboard next to it to write PE kit/ Maths set/ FT homework on. When she's older she could use a smartphone, but I respect a lot of parents don't like their kids to have one, so a white board/post its will work.

I work with yr6 and one of the unrecognised big changes about secondary school is the expectation that they are responsible for themselves. One of our key points to parents is that secondary school is basically preparation for adulthood - they go in as child and come out ready for the world of work. So a parents job is to teach / scaffold / support their child to be ready for that.

Some children need more help than others! You need to start thinking long term about how you (and your DH!) are preparing her to be independent? Start with talking about it with her - help her, give suggestions, model it, he alongside at first, but don't do it for her. That may be checklists, it may be alarms on her phone before school, it may be packing the night before. There are plenty of websites to find ideas - but push the responsibility on to her. I am constantly reminding my teenagers they are perfectly capable of doing the research for homework tasks and the same applies to life skills!

it doesn’t feel like help when I’m the one getting the grief at work.

So you are already getting grief about it. It should've stopped YESTERDAY. (Well, really it shouldn't have even started). Please, please come back and promise us you won't do it again. You'll lose your job for goodness sake!

So She’s in Year 8? You’ve created a massive problem for yourself. Year 7 is a good time to go over routines and then step back. Now you need to go back a step and get her into good routines.

A few consequences are required. I have ADHD and was only diagnosed a few years ago. I’m 47 and there would have been zero chance of getting a parent to bring anything non urgent to school (they both worked miles away and there were no mobiles). I had my school timetable pinned above my desk at home and every night I would look out all the books and kit. It was down to me. I usually wfh but today I am in the office and yesterday packed my bag. Glad I did as I couldn’t remember where my keys were and would have run around in a panic this morning.

Yes it is definitely more than 5 minutes, which I have tried explaining to DH. It is 8 minutes there on a good run, then parking, going into reception and getting back out again, so by the time I am back at work it can easily be 20 minutes. I have already had a word at work because I was late twice and I really don’t want this becoming a bigger issue. On the PE thing, I was more focused on the fact she deliberately left the kit because she didn’t want to do PE. I assumed sitting out was the school’s normal consequence but I will ask what their policy is rather than just accepting it. And no, I wouldn’t be happy if she deliberately left her calculator at home to get out of maths, so fair point there. I think I have probably been too focused on getting her through the morning without an argument and not enough on the bigger picture.

I agree that you need to step back but having enabled this for so long you can't just tell her you won't do it any more. That's where the guilt would kick in as you'd be leaving her to fail until she worked it out. You need to work it in stages. You're right that just calling out items on the checklist won't work. She needs to have a routine at some point in the evening so the morning isn't stressed.
We always had the rule of no screens from sitting down to eat until everything was prepared for the next day including any homework that had to be done. We followed the same rule ourselves so after dinner, we all spent a bit of time sorting things out together.
Start by setting her off to organise the things she needs for the next day, putting them all out on a table is a good idea. Once she thinks she has everything, you can go through the list together, not you ticking it off but her checking it with your support. That check can include homework completion and everything being put in her bag. It will take a while to bed in but once she is consistently doing this without missing things, you can step back to a quick check of homework and confirmation that she has everything without needing to go through the whole routine with her.
If you're doing the same as her, sorting lunches or your clothes for the next day it will model what to do.

I 100% agree with this.
in year 7 at my DD's school there was a 30 min detention that night for anything forgotten. This meant her travelling on the tube home alone so it was scary for her. I had work and just couldnt go back and get stuff. We had a night before checklist and went over the whole backpack together against her timetable for the following day..

By January of year 7 i could really step back. I did really handhold in thatfirst term though but never took anything in.

It's also a lazy teenager trait.

As long as you’ve told her, I don’t see the problem. DH can do it if he’s that bothered. Bet he won’t come out of work for it.

i use the mantra “lack of planning on your part, does not make it an emergency for my part”.

She will only forget so many times. People saying do her list are ridiculous! She’s 12 not 3. She can do her own list. Stop being a helicopter and let her learn these lessons in a safe environment. When she’s older they will cut her less slack.

She needs a system. She may not be 5 but she’s not taught how to do this. Have her make the lists. Then you check the list. She then gives each item on the list a ‘home’ so she knows where to look for it and return it to. The night before set a time say 8pm when she packs her things. Do not accept it any excuses. No I’ll do it in a minute. It’s at 8. You need routines. If she refuses she needs to understand the consequence is solely hers. Your job is to make her independent.

Wow you must have loads of time on your hands and be very patient - I never took stuff into school or ran around after them at home either…… but then I worked full time so was never asked (or shouted at) !!

Yes, she is in Year 8 and I think that is probably why I am feeling particularly stupid about it now 😂 I should have stepped back much sooner instead of carrying on doing everything because it was easier in the moment. Year 7 was actually fairly chaotic with her starting secondary and I think I got into the habit of checking everything and then never really stopped. So yes, I probably do need to go back a step and get the routine properly established again. I don’t think she is incapable of doing it, she just knows I have always been there to sort it when she doesn’t.

Some people find it harder to remember than others, she probably isn't doing it on purpose. She's only 12- help to to help herself remember, whether it's packing the bag the night before, making a list, setting reminders on a phone, using apps etc.

And as for preparing them, DD2 was fully able to do this independently at primary school (and manage homework) and was probably better than DD1 who found this fairly easy at secondary school. But secondary school completely broke her, it was just too much and she was diagnosed with ASD and ADHD. I think her school made it harder than DD1's. In four school years between them it had gone from everything being written down and in a diary that the school provided at DD1's school to having to manage apps and devices at secondary school and so much more homework. Meaning that parents absolutely had to help- there was no homework on apps at primary school then suddenly everything done that way at secondary school. After full time jobs we would sit down with DD2 and try and work out what her homework was, what she had to log on to to it, where the password was- because of GDPR not always shared with parents. Bloody nightmare and we are fully IT literate, DH built a PC for each DD. And then it would take fucking hours - just too much. Big part of the reason she could not engage with secondary school and became very anxious from day 1. Goes from 11 year olds having their hand held to suddenly starting a job in IT. Ridiculous.