God, I would have been SO EMBARRASSED if my mom brought me lunch at school. I’d much rather have starved. Make sure they get on the intercom and say “Autz-Son, please come to the office. Your mommy has brought your lunch.”
I love this answer! Unfortunately, I’m all out of leisure suits… I could change into my Halloween costume from last year (Marie Antoinette, complete with tall wig)
I say give him this one freebie and let him know there will be no others (and stick to it). A kid deserves one chance.
If he turns out to be a serial forgetter like me, there’s nothing you can do to change that behavior. Don’t do what my mom did, which is bring the stuff anyway and then deliver a withering guilt trip. It teaches nothing except how to ignore inconsequential guilt trips. Just stop bringing the stuff and let him deal with the consequences on his own.
Depends on the kid, really. For Eldest I would…well in principle I would bring his lunch, but he never forgets or loses anything so it isn’t going to come up. If it did it would be such an outlier that I wouldn’t even mention it. He never even lost his gloves.
For Youngest I would have to look into what of the preparation for school to avoid forgetting things fell through, as he is so absent minded that he would forget his head were it not attached.
Though in neither case would they call me as they have no way to do it without asking at school, in which case the school would handle it.
If this is the first time it’s happened, I’d definitely take him his lunch. As has been pointed out already, punishing a child for an innocent mistake sends them a bad/confusing message, and it’s important that children feel as though they can “count on” their parents.
I don’t teach lessons. Life teaches lessons. Not having your lunch because you didn’t bring you lunch isn’t a punishment, it’s logic, as **Foxy40 **can tell you.
You, sir, are evil. I like that about you!
Exactly. Good things to thing about.
The point of teaching via consequence is to teach the kid problem solving. He did find one way of solving his problem: he called you. Fair enough. And if you’re available and willing to do it, great. I always tell my kids, “When you’re figuring out how to handle this, remember that “ask Mom for advice” is always one option.”
Whether or not you chose to bring him his lunch, maybe a conversation in two parts would be useful tonight. First: what’s he going to do so he doesn’t make a habit of forgetting his lunch? and second: how would he have handled it if you hadn’t been able to bring it to him? See if he’s stumped there, or if he has other answers. “Well, Tina said I could have half her sandwich and John said I could share his Hi-C…” shows that he’s thinking about several options and chose one. A blank stare indicates that, at 11, he’s only got one strategy, and that’s “Call Mom.” That’s not so good.
So don’t borrow trouble, but just see where he’s at and if he’s learning from his mistakes and you’re his safety net (fine) or he’s utterly reliant on you (not so fine.)
I think it just teaches you that life sucks if you’re a kid. Think about it–if you’re an adult and you forget your lunch, you can usually just go buy something. Kids don’t have that option. They’re just kind of stuck.
Zsofia–what is so embarrassing about having a parent bring you lunch? I don’t get it. Is it also embarrassing for your parents to pick you up/drop you off?
The kid is 11 years old. That’s what, 6th grade? Unless this is some kind of a habit for him, there’s no need to make everything into a “teachable moment”. Bring his lunch for him if it isn’t a big inconvenience, and just forget about it.
If he starts forgetting it on a regular basis, then that’s a problem. Like, more than once every few months, or something. But other than that…you’re not launching space shuttles here. It’s kind of ridiculous to set this expectation that your kids will never forget or overlook anything, ever.
As an adult, if I accidentally forgot something at home that I really needed, and there was someone who could easily bring it to me but refused, I’d learn that they’re lazy and I can’t count on them to help me when I make a mistake. At 11, I would probably have learned the same lesson. I was a pretty precocious kid though.
I should say, I don’t mean to suggest autz is lazy. I’m just saying that’s what I would have taken away from it as a kid… or as an adult; except that I know autz has some child rearing motive so I know it’s not laziness.
Of course, I don’t mean that you can’t complain about doing it - you’re not his slave, after all. Make him realize you’re doing him a favor, and if he whines about not wanting to clean his room / wash dishes / whatever later, you can point out that since you did something for him…
This is the approach my parents used. It was stupid when they said “We give you food, and a roof over your head, and cable TV!” because I’d just think “Well, the police would be all over your ass otherwise, and you guys watch the TV too…” - but I have to grudgingly concede whenever they brought up some actual nice thing they did for me.
Update: I brought him his lunch.
Your kid called you? How?
Did he have money? A cell phone?
Take them away! You don’t need to be bothered by such moral dilemmas.
I take it your schools didn’t have a humiliating PA system?
No, we didn’t have any kind of PA system. I figured they might just come to the classroom or have the kid go to the office or something. But even if there was a PA system, what is so humiliating about it?
I second Harriet’s suggestion. Bring him his lunch but make him do some extra chore around the house to make up for it. He forgot and there should be some consequence. Plus he made you do some extra work so he should have to do something extra in exchange.
I disagree with the idea of embarassing your son as a punishment. It’s a generally bad idea in that it equates your presense with punishment.
Why?
As Fuzzy Dunlop elegantly put it:
Imagine if you are at work and can’t get away, so you ring a friend and ask if they can bring you something you really need. Your friend either refuses, telling you that you “need to learn a lesson”, or agrees to do it, but decides that you have to learn a lesson about not forgetting things, so they make you promise to do them some sort of special favour in return.
I’d view that as pig-headed arrogance, and no longer view that “friend” as reliable.
Yes, but how many times can you do this before the friend is justified in saying, “Dude, I’m tired of making special trips to bring you stuff that you should have remembered to take with you.”
FWIW, my answer to the OP’s question is, Take the kid his lunch unless it would be a major inconvenience for you to do so, and then, when he gets home, discuss things he could do to make sure he remembers it in the future. (i.e. What Cheesesteak said.) My answer would be different if he had the option of buying lunch at school.
Parents aren’t friends or a kid’s equals and it’s up to them to teach their kids these lessons–it’s part of their role. Your friend probably didn’t teach you how to use the toilet, or about where babies come from either.
Yes, if it’s happening multiple times, that’s a different situation.
Nobody said anything about kids and parents being equals. I’m a bit of a hard-ass when it comes to parenting, but even I would certainly take my 11 year old lunch if it was the first time he forgot it, and if he was already in the habit of preparing it himself. Not every mistake has to have severe consequences.
** stragger** is correct in asserting that some actions by parents cross the line into assholery.