Fluff WWYD - Kids forgetting things

They very rarely called me for anything because they knew they'd be waking me up, so it better be important.

I would help them set up scaffolding to support learning adaptive coping mechanisms. I think this is especially important if the kid is neurodivergent as they may encounter similar challenges throughout their life.

I’d start with a conversation about what’s happening and ask leading questions until they vocalize “the challenge”. In this case it’s: I forget my lunch and then I have nothing to eat.

Then I’d ask them “What can we do about that?, followed by more leading questions. This way they know the challenge is not insurmountable and you’re on their team of challenge busters. Ideally, this leads to some type of routine building(ex: evening/morning checklists, reminder alarm to grab lunch, etc.).

Depending on the age of the child you can stop here as not to overwhelm them. If it’s an older child you can ask probing questions about their plan if that fails. The idea is to implement scaffolding skills little by little so the child eventually develops a mindset of flexibility and has more than one failsafe available in times of stress (ex: everyone’s running late) when plans tend to fall short.

Then you help them implement the plan. As part of the “scaffolding” you can bring their lunch occasionally if it fits into your schedule, but you don’t necessarily want them relying on you. I would also implement my own incognito scaffolding depending on the age of the child to prevent them from not having a meal for lunch.

When I had an adhd kid in the house I put money on a lunch card without his knowledge. I had the Dr write a note and they put it with his emergency meds (for a different condition) in the nurses office as it was open during lunch. He rarely used it because we had other measures in place and once he knew about it I made it clear it may not always be available (medical emergency, etc.). I imagine these cards may be virtual now. You may have to come up with a workaround if you go this route.

This is a BIG thing in my house as 3 of the 4 of us have ADHD. 

In general, I'm more willing to help acquire a forgotten item if it's school-related or health-related. This usually happens when the kids are traveling between houses. My oldest is notorious for forgetting their medication at the other house while my youngest is notorious for forgetting less important things (his Nintendo Switch, video games, etc.). Baseball season gets tricky as he has practices & games on different nights so his uniform and baseball bag need to travel back & forth and I've had to run over to the other house to pick that up before a game. The kids know that I am much less likely, if at all, willing to entertain going to the other house to pick up other items. Sometimes they can talk their dad into doing that for them, and sometimes they can't.

I don't know that either of my kids have ever forgotten something that they needed for school. I work from home and we live 10 minutes away from both of their schools so I could run something by but I can't think of what that would be. The oldest is in high school and has all of their homework online while the youngest doesn't have homework, and both have a cafeteria account so if the youngest was to forget his lunch, he could just buy one at school. 

We talk a lot about setting up no/low fail environments for ourselves so we have a very specific school morning routine and specific places where important things go that helps with the forgetfulness. 

I was a sahm for 10 years. I know I bailed my kids out, but I think it was rarely. I don't remember having to bring things to school very often. I would bail them out if it was only a few times. I wouldn't do it if it was chronic. They usually got stuff together the night before and my 3 older ones always ate school lunch. My youngest never forgot his lunch because he hated school lunch. I was a "mean mom" and made him pack his own lunch starting in 1st grade. (uncrustable, chips, and treat).

Apparently my DH rescued my 13 yo today by taking her math HW to her. I told her that she owes her dad big.

She’s undiagnosed ADD and a spectrumy kid so we cut her a little slack but I fully expect her to accept consequences. I know her math was done because I helped her do it. In class the teacher was working problems that were on it that they were told to skip and since she and I had done them she knew how to do it and was able to teach the class. The teacher knew it was done at that point and accepted it at the end of class no consequence.

My kids were usually pretty good about remembering their stuff so it wasn't a major issue, but I think they both forgot their lunch once and I took it to them. I work part time, so I was usually able to help them out if needed. Now, if it were an all the time thing, I would have implemented 1 time per semester as some of you mentioned. They do need to learn to be responsible and if we always bail them out, they don't learn!