To be raging that my DD6 just lost her brand new jazz shoe

[ElfinsMum]

I bought them for her 2 days ago. Forty quid for a tiny (ugly) pair of shoes. She did one class in them. Will have to replace immediately because we are two weeks from the big annual concert.

I actually cried in the middle of the reception area at the dance studio out of the sheer frustration. The teenage dance teacher couldn't have given fewer fucks.

Go on: hit me up with your best tales of stuff your kids have lost!!

I also just re read that the dance teacher is a teenager- is she the principal / studio owner? Why is a teenager teaching your child’s class (or is she the class assistant to the qualified teacher?)

40 quid for a pair of jazz shoes for a 6 year old!! Get on Ebay and order a £10 replacement. I'm guessing at 6 she just needs generic jazz shoes and not Bloch neox flex split soles.

When my dd was about seven I bought her a new wrap top for ballet . The top was expensive as you could only get it from a particular shop.
I labelled the top and told dd not to take it off as I did not want the top to go missing . Well, dd ignored my request and returned home sans wrap top. It was obviously taken by another child and the parents obviously chose not to return it
Dd is 22 but I am still pissed off about that bloody top

At dd's dance concert rehearsal this morning - which is a nightmare as it's the entire school at the studio at once - they had a table with the lost property hoping it would be claimed. So many expensive shoes and water bottles, school branded jackets etc. There's daily posts from parents looking for lost shoes on the FB page, so it's common. The kids don't care because there's no consequences as parents immediately buy another pair because they have to have them.

DD lost her ballet shoes last year, night before the full dress rehearsal at the venue then concert following day! Found them in her cupboard shoved into another bag. I won't lie. I cried with a mix of relief and anger.

This happened at nursery when someone took DDs nice winter coat. I’m sure they sold it on Vinted.

Our theatre school has a box of them (not new but close) which we can have for free. Also we have brilliant teen teachers.

Hopefully it turns up OP but I would definitely be setting up some sort of a system where people can donate shoes they've grown out of for others to use. It's literally just a box that's required.

Dance parent here - my son has 5 different pairs of dance shoes, most worth well
more than £40….. he has extremely high arches so only the super expensive jazz shoes fit, etc
Get the small laundry bags for delicates. label them with name and type of shoe. Drum into her to put the shoes in the little bag after use. Tell her off if the shoes come home loose in the big bag. Much harder to loose a shoe if they are bundled together, super easy if they are just flying around

Lots of teen teachers at my DD's dance school. All are qualified, and supervised if needed. Some are uni students. A few are teaching assistants. One is now in her 20's & a part partner in the business!

Pray to St Antony. Obviously there's no St Antony to listen or hear but it clears and focus es your mind and the safe place you put the ring should just pop into your head in the next few days fingers crossed 🤞

It will turn up when you least expect it.

When my DS was a toddler, we were skint. As in, no carpet upstairs skint as we literally didn’t have the money. My lovely auntie treated him to his first pair of shoes from Clarkes and I was so, so grateful.

Took him for a little walk (in and out of his pram as toddlers are) and when we got home I realised a shoe was missing. He’d had them one whole day. It must have slipped off between the park and home. I walked up and down that route for hours trying to find it but it was gone. I sobbed about that.

DS (aged 7) lost a trainer after school sports in week 1. Not in lost property so I bought another pair. End of term one of the other mums brought the lost one to me really embarrassed: she had twins so every time she'd found 3 trainers in a games bag she just assumed it was her other child's and put it into the other bag. It was only when she emptied both bags at the same time that she realised they had 5 trainers between them!😂

That is kids, my son lost his PE kit and his spare PE Kit, then borrowed his brothers and lost that in the same week!

Ive put my mobile number on the name sticker on dc's things and it works. Ive had texts/calls when someone has found a missing shoe/jumper. It also doubles up as a way to contact me if dc get lost.

Doenst help you now but maybe something for the future. Hope you find the shoe!

I was a single mum years ago

We had very little money (every penny was accounted for) but ds would leave the house and lose whatever he had with him-everything from shoes to his coat

He once lost his school trousers-the expensive branded school trousers (I could only afford one pair and he'd lost them)

He came home in his boxers

Another time he came home with his locked bike in his shoulder as he'd lost the key and only had one shoe-he'd only gone to the park

I've cried more tears of frustration over him over the years than I have anything else

About a month after a year of braces, my DS lost his first set of retainers. We then bought a set of 3 more at a cost of approx £500. Within a week he’d already lost one of those!

Three months on and, miraculously, he still has the other two.

This is 100% the sort of thing that pops up in our dance school WhatsApp every other day. I have the only boy in the class and he still managed to bring a lovely lilac leotard home when his is black and white!

My ex once took the one year old baby out in the buggy and managed to lose one of the shoes on his feet, and one of the spare shoes that I’d left in the bottom of the buggy, handing baby back with no shoes on and one of each left in the bottom of the buggy. Both 30-40£ Clark’s.
as is typical for him, he managed to tell me this was my fault for packing the buggy badly and he’d only replace one not both pairs!

Great idea I might do this next time I order name labels

I’ve already told our oldest if he loses his retainers I’ll glue in the second set 🤣

I am just off out to buy new jazz shoes this morning. I hate how expensive they are, I need to buy two colours as she needs black for a comp! Luckily we don’t need them until kids are a little bit older at our school, I think they just wear their ballet shoes for the first few years.

Good tip above about keeping them all in a little bag. This is what has worked (eventually) for my DD10s dance shoes. We use a mesh zip thing which actually came with one of those heatless curls sets. It’s the perfect size to fit ballet shoes, jazz shoes and foot thongs in and it’s mesh so she can see without opening what’s in there. We drummed in the routine of always putting shoes straight back in and zipping it up, and it’s finally working.

Yabu. She is 6. It is chaos in a dance studio full of small kids, it will have got caught up in someone else's stuff.

If as you say it is named it will appear.

Message the parents whatsapp/social media page and ask

i Hope it turns up. Please set consequences for your child though. I always bought my children one of what they needed, and I would replace if was worn out or out grown. If they lost it they paid to replace it. They either paid with pocket/birthday money or they paid in chores. Always chores and not something like lost screen time. They had to work to replace it. It wasn’t a punishment but a reality check on the value of things.

in year 2 my son came out of an after school football club with 2 shoes of different sizes - one was his brand new shoe and the other was 2 sizes smaller and scruffy and very old

I asked the teachers and the class WhatsApp - there was a mixed age club
surely someone else had the other mixed up shoe pairing ? Apparently not
hes 20 now I still think about it
and looking at the surviving shoe is very upsetting !

Consequences for another child walking off with her shoe? I get it’s really infuriating but it’s unlikely to be something she’s got much if any control over.