We all lose things from time to time and children are no different. They’ll do their best to look after their belongings, but you will often find that during the school year you will be replacing everything from hats to book bags and lunch boxes. You might have attached the classroom name tags to every piece of their belongings but it doesn’t always stop them from losing things. 

The name tags don’t stop things from being last, they just help things to be found again, and if you are trying to make sure that your children stop losing all of their things then you need to have something a little bit more robust in place. Sending your children to school is an expensive venture. You have a lot of things that you have to buy to make sure that they are going to be comfortable in the schoolyard and equipped for their lessons. It’s frustrating then, when they come home and tell you that they have lost their new book bag or they need to replace their hat. 

These things don’t come cheap and you need to be able to help your children to stop losing their things as much as possible so that you can save your money and your sanity all at the same time. With this in mind, we’ve got some tips to help you to stop your children from losing everything.

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  • Ask detailed questions. Every single morning when you speak to your children before they go to school make sure that they have all of their belongings. Better than that, when you pick them up from school make sure they have everything with them. If they don’t, don’t leave the school grounds until they’ve gone back in to have a look for what they have last. It may mean taking a trip over to the lost and found basket, but at least this way you’ll know what’s missing before you get home and discover it.
  • Check the last property. Speaking of lost property in a school, go in yourself and check the last property boxes because you’re going to know whether or not something is in your child’s name especially if they can’t get read. Checking the last property is often the first port of call because each school has their process for the last property that gets handed in. Some will have baskets in the classroom where others will have a main basket near the reception desk. As long as you are familiar as to where it is, things are not going to go missing.
  • Label absolutely everything. We talked about classroom name tags already, but it’s still important that you know that you should be making sure that you label absolutely everything. From pencil mark pencil cases down to coats, gloves and hats, everything that your child owns needs to have their name on it so that if they do lose it it’s much more easily found.
  • Keep a list of what they need. Children shouldn’t be bringing the kitchen sink to school with them, they only need to bring what they need to bring for that specific day. So it may feel tempting to let your children leave their PE kits and their lunch bags at school, but it’s often better for everybody if you just make sure they come home with them at the end of the day. Doing this will ensure that you and your children are going to be comfortable and much less stressed because you’ll know where everything is that you’ve paid for. As we said earlier, school things are not always cheap.