# 7 y.o. stepson keeps losing coats **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 20, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-y-o-stepson-keeps-losing-coats/619373 "2012-04-20T04:23:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-y-o-stepson-keeps-losing-coats/619373/61 "2012-04-24T04:09:08Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > I also wonder about ADD, based on my own childhood experience. I could put my schoolbag down to tie a shoelace, get back up and walk the rest of the way home without my schoolbag. Luckily I only lived a couple of blocks from my school! I also regularly lost clothing, the funniest instance was possibly the day I realised after swimming that I had lost my knickers, forcing a search of the girls’ changing room to no avail. Turned out I had forgotten to put knickers on in the first place, they were still on my bed at home…:smack: My kid did that the other day - went to her swimming lesson in a SKIRT with no knickers :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Corcaigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Corcaigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corcaigh)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-y-o-stepson-keeps-losing-coats/619373/62 "2012-04-25T16:16:47Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Have HIM choose the coat (within reason—maybe pre-choose three or four) Would seem to me to be the best option, but I’m not a parent. I was the child of a toxic parent though who thought it perfectly fine to send me to school in a hand-me-down from one of my brothers. This was in the days when clothes were gender specific, and resulted in my being bullied badly at school for being a boy pretending to be a girl. Not that my mother gave a damn about such things. I ‘accidentally’ lost the coat one day. My mother was about to skin me alive, but my father talked her down and somehow I became the owner of a much nicer girl’s coat that never left my sight, because it was _mine_ I chose it and it belonged to me and not someone else. Not that I’m suggesting the OP is a horrible parent… > [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > If they forget a coat, then they don’t have a coat for a while. Yes, they get cold, but cold isn’t fatal. > > They learn quickly to remember their things. Mommie, is that you? > [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Or, he’s getting bullied at school, & they’re taking his coat. This is also true. Or someone else owns a coat that looks like his and they took it by mistake. Or, as was the case with a kid I knew, he swapped it for a gameboy game. > [@LoonyMoon](#): > > So your kiddo keeps losing his coats? I did the same thing when I was a bit younger than he is now. I indiscriminately left coats, sweaters, shoes, all over the place and of course couldn’t find them again. This was the '50s, and mom was a homemaker and my dad was a teacher with a very small salary. There was no extra money for lost coats, etc. My mother warned me that, if I kept losing things, she would call the ragman to come take ALL my clothes away. My mother tried a similar tactic (given that we lived in an area where being sent to school sans coat could result in hypothermia) but when she realised it meant I’d not be able to attend school, she back tracked. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-y-o-stepson-keeps-losing-coats/619373.md?page=3)