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Happens to older kids too! My youngest daughter loves rummage sales, and she took off her brand new fall jacket while "rummaging", laid it down on the table she was picking over, forgot about it, and moved on to the next table... You guessed it - somebody else picked up a bargain.
Happens to older kids too! My youngest daughter loves rummage sales, and she took off her brand new fall jacket while "rummaging", laid it down on the table she was picking over, forgot about it, and moved on to the next table... You guessed it - somebody else picked up a bargain.
She was 20 at the time. An expensive lesson.
I wonder if they would have wanted to charge her for it if she had gone back and picked it up??
We bought our son a relatively expensive hooded sweat shirt in our local college colors last year and he wore it to school at about tis time of year where it's cold in the morning but warms up in the afternoon. We told him not to take it off and lay it down while playing at recess, but to instead tie it around his waist. Sure enough, he took it off, laid it down and never saw it again. Wore it half of one school day.
Two weeks later we were back at the store in the boy's department looking for socks where we had bought it and he actually said, "We need to replace my..." And both my wife and I said, "NO!!!" before he finished the sentence.
This is why I have sharpies everywhere. I label my son's stuff compulsively. Helps with locating lost items in the lost and found box.
If he lost something big/spendy, like a coat, I'd replace it but make him pay for it (yes, I'm mean). At 8 years old he should know better than to leave his things behind. It's a good lesson in consequences. Haven't had to do it yet, but I will if the time comes.
I don't understand how kids could leave the school in 30 degree weather with no jacket. Someone has to be watching these kids leave the building????
Due to safety and security reasons all of our elementary students leave out of the front doors of the school building. So, we have 450 students walking out of the same doors within a 5 to 8 minute period.
You may be wondering, who actually walks the students out the front door? Well, we have students going to 8 large school buses, 5 small school buses, 4 private "student taxi" services vans, 6 to 8 day care vans, and over 100 private cars plus students who walk or ride bikes to or from school. Wow!
It is a very complicated system of every single staff member (including every teacher, every aide, therapists, principal) having responsibility for a specific bus duty or a specific group of students. We also have responsible 5th graders ("safety patrol") walking a very small group of K-4, K and 1st graders to their bus or van.
So, at least at my school, it can be a very, very busy, hectic time of day. However, as I pointed out in a previous post, it is really very unusual for a younger student to ever leave without their coat. That is primarily due to the fact that our school strongly encourages students to have personal responsibility and accountably for their actions but everyone (from teachers, to fellow students, to the janitor) would also ask a student about their "absent coat" as we also teach caring for our fellow human beings.
I know that you really didn't ask about dismissal procedures but, I wanted to point out to C-D readers that there is a huge difference between dismissal when we were kids and today. In fact, there is a huge difference between dismissal time now and even 5 or 10 years ago in the same school building. If someone would have told me in 2003 that our school would have 8 large buses, 5 small buses, 10 to 12 vans plus over 100 private cars transporting students home at the end of the day I would have laughed out loud at how ridiculous it sounded. In 2003, we still had about 8 large buses, but only had 3 small buses, 2 day care vans and only a small amount of parents who drove their children home each day.
Sorry don't have time now to read other responses but I can relate. One DD has trouble emptying her backpack and lunch box. Somes I find dead bananas, lots of little plastic containers and spoons ('m always looking for those things) and important notes from the teacher. She also has problems giving the teacher notes from us.
Allowance docking is in order but also NO SCREEN TIME IS OUR GO TO PUNISHMENT. No computer, no TV, no WII---nothing with a screen at all and she has to be reading a book or doing something productive.
I would never keep buying coats and scarves, boots, etc if they are not being taken care of.Had a friend who got so sick and tired of her kid leaving and losing outerwear she told him if he got sick she was going to take him to the doctor and make him pay for it out of his allowance AND SHE DID. He screamed and hollered and said he would have gotten sick anyway even if he did wear his coat but she stuck to her guns. It worked--he never lost another coat again. You have to hit em where it hurts.
I may be mean but we have a firm replacement policy at home. It's applied for everything. If it's an electronics/toy, it isn't replaced. Period.
If it's glasses, jackets and lunchboxes etc? I buy really ugly replacements. Sturdy but ugly. And they know if they lose their "pretty" jackets or lunch boxes or glasses, they have to wear/take the ugly ones to school. And if they lose those, they will be uglier but we have never reached the ugliest stage.
Kid did have to wear an ugly jacket till she found her original one and never again did she forget it.
Mean Mother = best mother. So don't let the child guilt you with that. I used to pretend to cry if my boys didn't call me the meanest mother because that meant I was not doing my job.
I like the marble method. Get a jar and put marbles in it, and the marbles are like money. They get marbles for doing good things, and spend marbles for bad things, or to do fun stuff. Walk the dog=get a marble, 1 hour of tv=lose a marble, lose a jacket=lose 50 marbles, etc.
I wonder if they would have wanted to charge her for it if she had gone back and picked it up??
It would have been far cheaper for her to just say nothing and buy it back (it was a "fill a bag for $2.00" sale) than it was for her to replace it. Had it still been there. Oh well, live and learn.
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I wonder if they would have wanted to charge her for it if she had gone back and picked it up??
