How to help my 6yr old look after things??

[hillyhilly]

It's getting beyond a joke, my 6 yr old has lost a hat, an entire pe kit, a coat, the lid of his lunchbox and several gloves this year already.
Today, I came up the stairs at school to discover his coat strewn on the floor, with the gloves half way up the sleeves, his lunch bag nowhere to be seen (thankfully it was in the lost property cupboard this time), he then rolled down the grassy slope coating himself entirely in mud, we got home and he's lost yet another lunch box lid.
I love him dearly but am getting really cross with him to which I get a very contrite "sorry mummy" but no more care taken with his stuff.
I know it doesn't come easy, I'm not great myself but how do I instil some attention to his things in him?
Any help gratefully received, if he can lose this much when relatively closely supervised in infant school what will junior and secondary be like?

Easier said than done but I think you have to stop replacing things - make the fact that it's missing hard on him not just you iyswim.

Send his lunch in a carrier bag, he can manage without gloves, will have to do PE in not quite the right kit etc.

OTOH I think a 6yo's coat should be covered in mud. Something wrong with a spotless 6yo IMO

Does he get pocket money? Tell him no pocket money / sweeties / outings for x days / weeks as we need the money to replace your lunch box / socks / whatever. Not sure if it will work... my dd is 11 and still losing stuff.

I made my 7yr old DD pay towards replacing a brand new school hoodie. She paid half. She's got better since then but we still lost a coat recently.

Are you sure it is him who is actually losing his things and not other children moving them? Both my DDs lost coats at school (actually one was a cloak which outerwear at her prep school). Both were expensive and I was not about to replace them without a good search. The cloak turned up stuffed behind a cupboard in a music practice room (not used by DD2) and the coat turned up in the upper school cloakroom, stuffed into a shoe locker. DD1 had no access to this cloakroom as she was in the lower school at the time and would not have stuffed her own coat into the locker. A child definitely took the cloak. It took 3 weeks to find! The coat was probably taken in error but it did have her name tape on it and why was it just not returned to her? Also parents never looked at the clothes so half the time did not know if it is their child's coat/cloak, PE kit, shirt or not! Even when they are fully labelled. They just get bunged into the washing machine!
I would go along with not replacing things quickly. I agree it is very annoying though.