My dd who is in the 4th grade this year is having an AWFUL time remembering to bring everything home at night that she needs to. She will either forget homework or forget her assignment book that has to be signed or something. It has gotten to be where it happens almost 2 or 3 times a week. At the first of the year, my dh or I would walk her back over the school - we live across the street - to get whatever it was she forgot, I didn't want her getting bad grades on test or check marks on her conduct folder. Her teacher feels as if it will help her to remember things if she is not allowed to come back to the class and get whatever it is she has forgotten. At first I didn't like that idea, however as time goes on I'm beginning to think she is right. Yesterday we took her tv privs away for 2 weeks.

What can we as parents do, to help our children learn some responsibility? I feel like that after 6 weeks of school, she should know better by now.

By Eve on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 11:20 am:

It sounds like the teacher has a good idea. It's not an issue if your DD forgets, because she knows you will just walk her back to get whatever she needs. I say, don't remind her for a bit and let her deal with the consequences of her actions. Good luck! I hope it gets better!

By Melanie on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 12:07 pm:

I agree with Eve completely. It's so hard to do this, but it is the only way the lesson will be driven home. This is her homework, not yours. It's her job to remember it, not yours. It sounds like the teacher is fully prepared to let her suffer the consequences in a loving way. Give the teacher the support she needs to do this.

Last week my oldest forgot his homework at school. I said to him, "Oh gosh, that's so sad! What are you going to do?" He says, "I don't know. Maybe I will have time to finish it at school tomorrow." I said, "I sure hope that works out for you." Meanwhile, he still had his nightly 20 minutes of work to do regardless. I tested him on his spelling words, had him read in his book and gave him math work I have here. He did not get out of his routine of doing work. But he also was not punished or lectured.

The next day he went to school and told his teacher he had forgotten it. She handled it the way she saw fit (he did end up having time to finish it there) and moved on. He hasn't forgotten it again.

I don't know that it is necessary to take away tv privileges for this. When you do that she is spending time being angry at you instead of figuring out how she will handle it. We all make mistakes and we all learn from our mistakes. But we can't learn if we are angry at someone else. Let her know in a loving way this is her problem to deal with. You can offer suggestions if she is at a loss for how to deal with it, but ultimately she has to decide what she is going to do about it.

Good luck. I hope she can overcome this one quickly!

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 12:16 pm:

If my kids forgot something at school and it was right after school, I usually drove over there to get it (school was 2 miles away). If it was after supper when they realized it, then they just had to deal with it, since we couldn't go back to the school, then. It really didn't happen too often, though.

By Susan10 on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 02:17 pm:

I am against not letting her go back to school to get her homework. Do you ever forget things? I do. I always figure, what if your DH went to work and found he forgot his briefcase, so you tell him, sorry, you can't come get it because you need to learn a lesson. I think the way to remember things is to make it a habit to constantly ask yourself, "What am I forgetting." The way something becomes a habit is to do it over and over. As soon as your daughter walks out the door to school, or in the door home, you ask, "Do you have everything? What did you forget?" This method has worked for my forgetful daughter and has worked for me personally.

By Annie2871 on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 04:16 pm:

Susan, I am not the one that enforced the rule of not letting her go back to school and get what she forgot, that was her teacher's doing - and there's a long story there on how I feel about it.

By Marg on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 04:37 pm:

The teacher has a good idea, but my 2nd child was the same way. They go to a small private school and I would often run back for things or the teacher would run them to our house So that wasn't the answer.

What helped dd was I made a list for her to look at before she leaves school. I know this sounds a little strange (for her it was a picture list, in the beginning). I laminated dd so she wouldn't ruin it! She loved her list, and she was the only one with the list (she was in kinder). I made the list kid friendly I even put lipstick on and kissed the paper and wrote I Love You on it. I also had a list identical to hers. After the list I told her she had to rely on the list to bring stuff home (we home school on Fridays)and I wouldn't run back to school and the teacher wouldn't bring in to our house. She learned quickly, but still held unto the list.

By Susan10 on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 05:05 pm:

Annie, I think your daughter's teacher is wrong, and is inflicting her opinion of how to parent on you. Unfortunately, there's probably nothing you can do about it. (It sounds like you've obviously been through this with her.) I'm not advocating going back to school every day. But sometimes it happens. I like Marg's idea of the laminated list. We're trying to teach our kids good habits. We wouldn't let them get into a car and crash around until the figure out how to drive. Or eat a bunch of crap till they got fat and had rotten teeth so they'd learn it was a bad idea. Obviously I'm exaggerating, because saftey and health are big issues. But in my opinion, after safety and health comes HOMEWORK. It's that important. You wouldn't let them screw up until the quarter report card comes out for them to figure it out themselves. And if you let them miss one or two assignments they might think it doesn't matter because it doesn't really affect their grade unless it happens a lot. But she should know you are very concerned about her turning every assignment in. If you are constantly talking and thinking about homework, so will she.

Do I sound like a nut? Sorry. I get all worked up about this. I know you can't change the teacher, anyway (and probably shouldn't try).

By Marg on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 05:26 pm:

Susan, it just sounds like you are a caring mom.

My oldest daughter (now 11) did not speak until she was 3 1/2. She was very intelligent, yet she wouldn't talk. We did all of the tests and she had a speech/language delayment. She is a visual learner which was difficult in public schools. By the end of 2nd grade, she came out of school crying said they were going to pass her for the sake of passing her. (I now know this because public schools do this to meet their quota and make the school system look good, my husband works as a behavior specialist and you should hear the stories). That's when we sent her to a private school (only less than 20 kids). She loves it and is almost caught up. She is constantly on the honor roll and understands what she learns. In this private school she works at her own pace, corrects her own grade books, has her books reviewed by teachers (so no cheating). They are taught a lot of responsibility and dependent/independent work. I am really impressed how far dd has come.

So by all means,use your own judgement. Just because they are teachers nowadays, does not mean all of them are "good, caring teachers." I am not criticizing teachers, but I've been there with my daughter and I watched how she was treated, it was not a pretty sight!

Help your dd become a responsible student. Sit down and talk to her, maybe something else is on her mind that she forgets things. Anxiety and peer pressure run at a very young age in school these days!

Just keep your chin up and guide her into her own independence.

By Melanie on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 06:13 pm:

Susan, you and I clearly do not agree on this topic. Each time this has come up, I have said my view and you have said yours. Never once have I given exaggerated examples to prove that your way is wrong. You clearly do not understand what I mean when I talk of natural consequences doing the teaching. It is not a hands-off approach where my children are left floundering to find their own way. On the contrary, it is a style of parenting that is very time consuming and involved. It is much more difficult to follow through with the steps allowing your child to solve their own problems and consequences of those decisions than to rush in and solve problems for them. When I allow my children to handle their problems I am telling them they are smart enough and capable enough to handle it. When they mess up, I am there with an empathetic hug and a variety of ideas if they want to hear them. But I do not make decisions for them. They like to do well and to be recognized when they succeed. And the confidence they gain for solving their own problems is incredible. I tell my children all the time, "The solution to every problem lies with the person who owns it." My kids problems at this point are small and managable. The price they pay for messing up now is small. I'd like for them to learn how to solve these problems now so that as they grow and the price tag for messing up gets bigger, they become pros at thinking about how their decisions will work for them.

Obviously, Susan, this style of parenting does not suit you. And that's fine. There are many different ways to raise happy, productive children. I will not try to convince you that my way is the best way. It's the best way for me and my family. I have seen the results with my children and they are quite positive. But if it doesn't work with your personality or the personality of your children, no problem, there are other approaches.

Annie came here asking for opinions. I gave mine. I'd appreciate it if you didn't twist my suggestion into something I did not say.

By Susan10 on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 06:23 pm:

Sorry, I definitely get carried away on this subject. At least we both agree that the taking away TV privileges isn't necessary, and actually probably about other things, too. Sorry if I twisted what you said. Didn't mean to refer to or twist your words.

By Eve on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 08:00 pm:

Certainly no good parent would advocate letting their children eat "crap" until their teeth rot. We all want the best for our children.(Geez, I've even been worrying about Trans Fats in Goldfish crackers! LOL!) I think we all do our best, and that best is just different for all of us.

Homework, that was the topic, right? Marg made some great comments. I think talking to your DD would be helpful. Maybe she can come up with some good ideas on how to solve this problem!

I found this is one of my favorite books: Maybe it will help.

"Five Steps for Helping Kids Own and Solve Their Problems:

1. Lock in the empathy.

2. Ask your child, "What are you going to do?"

3. When your child says, "I don't know," ask, "Would you like to hear some ideas?"

4. Offer no more than three possible solutions. After each one ask, "How would that work for you?"

5. Allow your child to choose--and learn from the choice and your empathy."

By Kay on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 08:22 pm:

Just to throw in my two cents - my oldest ds(now 19) and my youngest dd(almost 13)were the 'forgetters' of our family. Yes, I ran up to school time and time again to get forgotten items...I truly feel that I did them a disservice when I did this, in hindsight. I was taking responsibility away from them. What I should have done was to give them some tools to help them learn to become a bit more organized. A note in the car in their seat that listed subjects in which they have homework.

By Ginny~moderator on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 09:13 pm:

I agree with those who say it is time for your daughter to learn responsibility, and I suggest it is easier and has fewer serious consequences in 4th grade. I would not take away TV or other privileges - she will get consequences at school, and I kinda feel it isn't fair to add home consequences on top of whatever the teacher does. If it were me, I'd leave it between the teacher and your daughter, except I agree with those who suggest sitting down with her and helping her to try to think of ways she will learn to remember important things.

Yes, we all forget things occasionally - I have actually walked out of the house and gotten into the car without my purse, realizing it when I got to the train station Not having anyone at home to bring it to me, I had to go back and get it, and haven't forgotten in a long time.

I think her forgetting two or three times a week is a bit much, and I think she has been relying on you to get her out of her problem by letting her go back to school to get whatever she forgot.

That's my two cents.

By Annie2871 on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 09:17 am:

Thank you all for your responses. I will be discussing with my dh the tv privs. He wants to send a note to the teacher have her hold dd inside from recess each time she gets in trouble for forgetting something, but I don't feel like that is right. Now, she gets a check mark on her conduct folder, plus making bad on the grade she didn't get done. She knows that if she has a B in conduct (that is one area that I will not accept anything less than an A in, conduct is too important), she will be disciplined here at home. And if she has bad grades, her daddy and I discuss them with her teacher and if it's simply because she doesn't try or forgets to bring home homework, then there will consequences here at home. So maybe taking away privs isn't right at this moment. I asked her last night what she thought about me making a list for her to tape to her desk and then go through that list every afternoon before she left for home and she felt like that may help her. Overall, she is a good kid and always gets good grades, so maybe I'm making too much out of it. I mean afterall, there are A LOT more things that she could be doing wrong. Hopefully this is just something that she will grow out of.

Thank you all again for your repsonses.

By Melanie on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 10:45 am:

Last year, Annie, my oldest ds had an issue at school. He would constantly try to make one of the little girl's laugh. Unfortunately, he did this at inappropriate times. The teacher mentioned this during our parent conferences and, like you, I knew we needed to step in do something.

At home when my kids are whining, fighting, demanding, etc. I tell them they are draining my energy. And when they drain my energy, they need to replace it. The way they replace it is through working around the house.

So we tried delayed consequences. When he returned home from school each day I asked him if he drained his teacher's energy that day. He would say "Yes, three times...1 time..." etc. He then had to do the necessary chorses at home to replace that energy. If he told me he couldn't remember I asked him if he thought his teacher would remember and should I give her a call? The answer always came to him very quickly.

I think it's important to note the tone of these conversations. I didn't give him "that look" and sternly ask if he drained her energy. We would be snuggled up on the couch discussing his day and I would ask. When he said yes, I always gave a sympathetic, "Oh, bummer!" followed by, "How are you going to replace that energy?"

This worked like a charm. It didn't take long for his daily answer to be "Zero energy drains". His teacher was amazed that she no longer had to speak to him.

This school year, he had two energy drains each of the first two days. He hasn't had one since.

By Vicki on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 09:09 pm:

I tend to agree with the others that I would put a stop to going back to get it. I could accept that she really forgot it if it only happened once in awhile, but 2 to 3 times a week after 6 weeks of school is a bit much in my opinion. I too think I would step aside and let the teacher give the lead on this one.

By Conni on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 09:28 am:

Annie2871, how is your dd doing in school now? Did you figure out a way to help her remember everything?

My 4th grader is doing a little better remembering everything. The first few weeks of school were pretty bad. I dont think his grades are going to be good at all tho. He has always made all A's (with 1 or 2 B's). As of yesterday he has all B's and 1 C !!!! I just cant believe how this yr is going for him. This has been a tough few weeks of school. He has never had this much homework either. He gets home at 3:20 and is still doing homework at 5:30!!! Thats more homework than I had in high school. lol

I was just curious if its getting better for your DD.