I keep seeing this thread pop up in my email notification and list of subscribed threads. Despite having read it and posted in it, I continue to read it at first glance as “7 y.o stepson keeps losing cats.”
Wait, you live in San Francisco area? Then I agree with the idea that he just doesn’t feel he needs a jacket. Hypothermia is not going to be a problem in 60-70 degree weather. Kids generally keep warmer than adults because they are so active. He likely gets hot, takes his coat off, and then forgets about it.
Seriously, ask him if he ever gets cold when he’s forgotten his jacket. If he says no, then chances are he just doesn’t need one right now. I mean, it’s spring–people are already not wearing jackets here in Arkansas.
Heh. The cat, unlike the coats, stays indoors. If we can’t find her we just look to the sunny spots or any pile of clean laundry.
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Or, he’s getting bullied at school, & they’re taking his coat.
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Seriously doubt this is the case - on the few occasions when he’s had some kind of problem like that he’s told us. If someone stole something from him he’d let us know or at least crack under questioning.
At 7, he should be more careful with his belongings. That being said, I don’t think a 7 yo can be expected to be on the ball all the time. Don’t you or your wife notice his coat missing when he shows up without it? If he gets off the school bus with no coat, call school in the morning and ask his teacher “Hey, did Jimmy leave his coat in school yesterday? Oh, he did? Well, can you please see that he brings it home today? Thank you so much, I appreciate it.” I would not suggest this for, say a lost pencil, but a winter coat I think is worth asking about.
As far as replacing it, I don’t think I would demand that one of mine paid for the replacement. It doesn’t seem like a kid would lose it maliciously, that is, as something that should be punished. You may feel differently, though. If you do insist that he pays for the replacement, I think it is better to get him one from a thrift store. Why make him pay for a brand new one?
But mostly, he’s seven, and still requires a lot of supervision. I think asking why he doesn’t have his coat when he appears without it is the best bet. I mean, he’s not going out on the town and showing up hours later with no coat and not saying where he’s been, right?
Someone else upthread mentioned picking your battles. I wouldn’t pick this as one. YMMV, of course.
Find a way to remind him he wore a coat that day, like maybe putting a luggage tag on a bookbag or something like that. Keep reminding him, every time you go somewhere. Put a big sign in your car: “Do you have your coat??” When he loses a coat, replace it with the ugliest one you can find from the thrift store. (Try to avoid Hello Kitty or Barbie-themed jackets–that might be going a little bit too far)
…running late and didn’t read the thread so maybe this has been mentioned, but make him find the coat. That will likely require your assistance, and some time, but do not replace it without looking for the old one.
Suspension of existing privileges is dependent on finding the coat: find it-- one week with no privs; don’t find it-- two weeks with no privs and the first week is early bedtime to boot (for example, make sure you can follow through with your punishments). The main idea is that he can mitigate the damage.
Also, make it clear that earning 8 y.o. privileges (later bedtime, more computer time, more phone time, more he-decides-time) is dependent on his addressing the problem.
With my son, I never made him buy clothes or other necessities. I knew that it was something I wanted for him, and felt that it was my responsibility to provide those things. But if he lost winter clothes (or even left them at school or a friends house) no computer, TV off at 9 (I knew I would want to watch TV and so didn’t threaten to turn it off earlier) bedtime at 9 and I would go with him to school to “help” clean out his locker.
Arkansas? Hell, people haven’t been wearing coats in New England for a month! I’ve heard that Californians are wussy about the cold (there aren’t eyerolls enough for someone claiming it’s “cold” at 70F. NH’s daily high temps are that warm 3 months of the year) but can it really be cold enough for a coat rather than a hoodie or sweater even for wusses there this time of year?
He’s losing his coats because it’s too hot for coats. Cold people rarely lose coats - coats get lost when it’s too warm for them after all and you take them off.
After some time to reflect and read the thread, I think the above is the key. It’s easy to say that kids are forgetful, but really, they haven’t learned the habits of remembering.
At the SwordS household, we had a bedtime routine that included a five point check list; going through the checklist–five items for five fingers–became a pleasure and there was generally a reward, although it was really just making a routine seem like a big deal. One of the items missing?
Bedtime!
Since this generally happened around bedtime anyway, it wasn’t a smack-down, but the little DaggeR wanted to have his things.
He has since developed a great habit and when his things go missing, he’s just cold for that day and he takes responsibility find getting them back. Of course he’s 27 and lives in the garage… j/k:p
Seriously, though, I believe kids want to have more say in their own lives and giving huge rewards --(emotionally, not financially… think dog)-- for taking care of their own things helps teach that it’s not a bad thing to have to take care of yourself and your things.
A few years ago I realised my kids had way too many clothes when I found 5 sweaters in the school lost and found and none of us had noticed they were missing! Didn’t go shopping for a long time after that.
Last term, they put all the lost and found stuff out on racks during parent -teacher conferences for parents to rifle through. I found my own raincoat on the rack. One of my kids had pilfered and lost it! Rotten kid.
The school gives all the leftover stuff to charity, Oxfam or some such at the end of each term
My suggestion is that if this is an issue you want to take on now, do a bit of parental ju-jitsu. Tell him he’s getting an allowance at a much younger age than most kids (privilege!) but if he loses his coat he’ll have to buy a replacement from the thrift shop with his own money (consequence). Tell him you recognize he won’t have enough money to buy a new coat as a replacement, and that’s OK with you. You’ll have to follow through on all this, but it’s positive reinforcement.
I also like the idea of letting him be cold - it’s SF he won’t freeze to death, unless he’ll be put for a long hike or something. There may be times when he wishes he had a coat in the Bay Area, but remind him that you’ll be inside soon.
I think it depends on the goal. If the goal is to teach the kid not to lose things so much, then letting him get cold may backfire if he doesn’t actually get cold. But if the goal is just to make sure he doesn’t lose his coat, then it doesn’t matter whether he gets cold and learns a lesson or just doesn’t wear coats to school.
I’d only go with the first goal if he loses other things, too. But, then again, you might be able to do a better job if you decided to use those other things as a lesson rather than a coat he may only want because it pleases his parents.
I had this problem. After he lost his coat, we went to the second hand store and bought a few more, the cheapest I could find (and ugliest). He hated this. I said, “Sorry, you used up your coat budget, this is your only choice.” He tried not wearing them until he couldn’t stand it, then put on his big boy under-roos and wore them. When he got a new coat for his birthday, he kept good track of that one. He knew if he lost it, it was back to ugly secondhand coats.
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.
Sure enough, the day I came home missing my favorite sweater, she marched me into my room and made me strip down. As I crawled into bed, I watched as she bagged up everything from my undies to my outerwear. I started crying and asked her how I was going to go to school if I didn’t have any clothes.
“Well,” she replied, “I guess you can’t go to school then.”
I cried myself to sleep, and when I woke up, everything was back where it belonged. I never lost a piece of clothing again.
“Then, after I graduated highschool and moved away, I began killing women I’d pick up in bars, keepin an article of clothing from each. I’ll soon have an entire wardrobe.”
Our family therapist is fond of the “let 'em suffer” approach - if they lose their coats, they have to be cold. Within reason, obviously - if it’s cold enough, you obviously have to make sure he doesn’t get hypothermia. And from there, they can spend their own money to buy a replacement. Don’t like what the thrift store has? Too bad. Go cold. or live with it until you save up enough money to buy something you like better.
Well my wife and I spent several trips looking for his coat at school and at his afterschool program, no dice. Checked the playgrounds, classrooms, lost & found, etc. So it’s gone to the great Coat Closet In The Sky which is what we expected at this point.
We bought him a new windbreaker at Target yesterday. For better or worse they’re light on jackets for kids right now so it’s neon lime - great when he’s riding his bike I guess 
We also told him that if he loses it, he’s got to buy the next one and I made sure that he understands that that money is coming out of HIS pocket, that’s one less Nintendo game/Lego set/whatever that he can buy.
I also packed a note along with his lunch saying “Remember your jacket! Love, stepdad” and we’ll stick something in his cubbyhole at school and I’m going to get a luggage tag, put it on his backpack and write something like “Jacket” on it.
We’ll see how it goes. At least the lime green windbreaker will be easier to spot from a distance.
I can hear the conversation now: “How could you lose that coat!? They could see it from the International Space Station!!” 
I’m also in the “let him be cold” school. Currently the consequence for losing his coat isn’t really a consequence clear to kids: money is abstract, scolding happens all the time (well, not all the time, but you know what I mean), and the future when he’ll need to buy a new coat may as well be a million years away.
But if he leaves his coat at school, and you don’t make any big deal out of it, he’ll be a little confused. Then the next morning, when he doesn’t have a coat and has to shiver, he suddenly gets a very clear, natural consequence for leaving his coat, and he’ll have an epiphany: coats are important. They keep me warm.
If you go this route, I’d send the teacher an email letting him or her know why your kid doesn’t have a coat that day, and explaining that you’ll come to help him look in lost-and-found. But yeah, a bit of the discomfort that comes from forgetting a coat might do wonders to convince him to not forget a coat.
We have this problem, not with coats, but with hats, mittens, homework and their agendas (the book where they write down what the homework is and any information we need to know).
It’s a lot easier for hats and mittens. They were each provided two pairs of mitts and two hats when it got cold enough to need one. Within a week, they had BOTH lost BOTH sets of mittens and BOTH hats. I, foolishly, went out and bought another (cheap) set for each of them explaining that they needed to find the other ones. They, of course, didn’t. And lost the new set that same day. <sigh>
So, the next day they went to school <gasp> hatless and mittless with the explanation that if they didn’t come home with a hat and a pair of mittens each, they would be using their allowance to buy new ones. As always, they tested this theory (and whined about the snow being so cold) so off we went to buy new ones with THEIR money.
Now, of course, they lost a few more here and there but the rate went down significantly once THEY were incurring a cost (both in allowance and play time being stuck at the store).
As for homework and their agendas, we go old school. We ask what the homework was and make up our own work (much harder, of course). They also must write lines (good for penmanship!).
This is what makes the difference. Kids don’t realize how much things really cost, until it comes from THEIR money (and time). Especially if they have to do chores to earn the money. I also like the idea of getting thrift store coats, instead of the newest styles.
I know adults who are constantly losing things, because they never had to face consequences when they were kids.