Forgetful Tom

So, we have been trying to make Tom a little more responsible for his actions.  It frustrates both of us that he seems to be completely and utterly forgetful when it comes to personal property.  The amount of school PE uniform he has lost in his time at school is ridiculous (it all has his name on it!).  I don't mind this as such as it is cheap and you have to buy it in multiples anyway, but when he looses his Clarks trainers it gets to me.  Also he NEVER tells me when he has lost anything.  Turns out last year he did at least half a term of sports (maybe more) in his school shoes as he lost his trainers and didn't tell anyone.  We only found out because we came to school to see the fun run - who was the only child doing it in his school shoes and school shorts?  Yep, that will be Tom. 

I replenished him with new equipment, came to see him in Sports Day the following week to find that he had already lost his PE shorts and T-shirt again!!!!!!  How?  What does he do to them?  Why is it always only him in his class who does this?  Luckily we are friends with the caretaker.  He found his trainers - in the Year 6 cloakroom (we have no idea how they got there as the Year 6 class is completely apart from the rest of the school).  They had been completely trashed.  They had his name in them, no-one had bothered to look!!!!!!  He has also lost many jumpers - until I wrote in big capitals in marker pen his name on waist.  Funny, since then they haven't gone walk about.  This year I have used huge letters with a marker pen with his trainers and school shoes in the hope they don't go missing.

This year we have tried to impress on him how important it is to look after his belongings.  Also that he needs to remember to bring things home.  What should he bring home:

+ His school reading book

+ His Big Maths - so we can see what they are doing in maths

+ Any letters

Yesterday - we discovered no reading book, still no big maths (we haven't one sheet yet - almost a month after starting school - he says the teacher doesn't tell them to bring it home so he doesn't.  On asking lots of children have been bringing their maths work home), and then when I suggested he did guitar practise instead of reading we discovered his guitar book was missing too.  When Matt went to pick him up from school yesterday he discovered 2 pairs of wellies outside in the garden area - guess who's?  Yes, Tom's!  When we asked him, he said that the teacher didn't say to take them inside!  Sometimes I think he has no common sense, how come all other children managed to take their's inside?!

We have also been asking him to do jobs at home.  He's had these jobs since we introduced pocket money, but he seems to have stopped doing them: emptying the cutlery drawer of the dishwasher, doing the recycling and putting his clothes away.  It's not much, but I have to ask him every day to do them, he basically waits for me to say something to do it, he just can't seem to think to do anything himself.  It's been driving us nuts, we are especially worried that with high school looming, he is going to have to fend for himself and think for himself.  If he carries on like this, he's going to spend most of his first year in detention for forgotten equipment, books and homework!

Oh hum.  We always get a blank expression from him when we ask him to sort himself out.  We are at a loss as to what to do.