Mom, I lost my mittens again: the General Store's Lost and Found department
20 December, 2018
January has barely begun, and Laurier has already lost two mittens (from the same hand), two neck warmers and the lovely little reusable juice box I'd bought him to be greener and save money. Every time, I ask him to go take a look in the school's lost and found. I tell myself that thanks to the labels I so carefully stuck on every one of his things, he'll surely find whatever he's misplaced. Almost every time, he forgets, and I have to go myself and dig through that famous box in search of the missing item. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't. It drives me crazy! My mother tells me it's normal at his age, and that she went through the same thing with me when I was little. As for me, I just can't resign myself to waiting for maturity to hit him all at once and suddenly make him responsible. So, in my mother-who-tells-herself-there's-always-something-that-can-be-done head, in my mom-who-refuses-to-give-in-to-my-kids'-bad-habits brain, I came up with a solution and tested it. If it worked for us, maybe it will work just as well with your little daydreamers. It's worth a try!
For several years now, we've been using the General Store at home, our positive reinforcement system designed to encourage good behaviour in children: the kids do their chores and/or show a good attitude, and in exchange, we give them tokens. Depending on how many tokens they've saved up, they can then “buy” themselves rewards or privilege coupons, which are kept in the General Store box. After careful thought, I came to the conclusion that getting a new toque, new mittens or a new lunch box to replace the ones they'd lost was a privilege in itself. So we added a “Lost and Found” department to the 20-token section of our store, a printable you can download, print and stick on the inside wall of the store. I announced to my brood that from now on, they'd have to pay 20 tokens to chip in on a replacement whenever they lost or damaged something.
The idea behind all this is to help them understand the value of things. Even as adults, when we have to spend money replacing a necessity, we sometimes, unfortunately, can't afford the little extras anymore. That's life! After having to hand over 20 tokens for new mittens, my son realized he no longer had enough tokens for the two tubs of playdough he'd been eyeing. I swear, that time I didn't have to remind him to go dig through the school's lost and found box. He went all on his own!
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