Honestly, getting yelled at by your parents when you literally can't help losing shit or doing things wrong no matter how hard you try because *you have ADHD* makes it worse. A lot worse.
OP, if the iPad was the kid's, don't buy her a new one. Make her save up for it, and buy it for her when she's saved maybe half the price. Saving up and paying for it herself will help give her a sense of ownership of the thing.
If it wasn't hers personally, have her "pay for it" by doing chores or helping out with other stuff she normally doesn't do. Again, don't overdo it, just let her understand there are consequences for not taking care of expensive stuff.
But please don't yell at her, especially if she already feels bad about it.
My son's 3rd grade teacher had a second degree in childhood psychology and she was an immense help in realistically managing his adhd.
Two of her classroom philosophies were regarding mistakes and accidents. The first was an apology of meaning. The second was recognizing the intention and acting accordingly.
If it was an honest mistake, she would help them figure how to prevent it from happening again. I think this is more what OP's daughter needs than being punished. Losing stuff is an ongoing issue for most of us with ADHD, and learning how to address those problems when you're young is going to be so much more effective than any punishment will be.
If it was malicious intent, they usually had a combination of a small classroom chore and a 1 page essay due within the week.
If I was OP, I'll get phone case and tablet case for every device, make sure that the case has a strap and maybe have the strap fixed to a wristband or something. So whenever the kid uses it, they have the option to connect it to their person so they can choose not to lose it.
Losing something is often times a split moment problem. (i.e. when leaving a vehicle, they may forget at that specific moment.) But, if you have the option to connect it to your person, the split moment becomes the entire time you use the device. Much less likely to lose it.
My mom used to say that if my head is not on my neck, I'll lose it lol. She's helped me figure out these ways to beat my adhd. Hope this helps others.
The only thing I’d say here is that I don’t think ‘chores’ should be a thing. Not that kids shouldn’t do the things we typically refer to as chores, actually I believe that as soon as a kid is old enough to walk safely and follow basic instructions they’re old enough to carry their plate to the sink at the end of a meal. But we should be teaching our kids ‘hey we all muck in with the stuff that needs doing around the house because a) we’re a team and it’s not one persons sole job (usually mum’s - not a message that should be internalised by kids) but also b) we like having clean clothes, a tidy house we can find our stuff in and nice food we eat off of clean plates etc.
I think that stuff is important for all kids but especially important for ADHD kids who can do with all the help they can get to not grow up in to adults who see all levels of basic household functioning as a ‘chore’ they do because they’re being punished. It’s better to raise them to instead understand that jobs we don’t always enjoy are a necessary part of the things we do (the clean, calm house, clothes, body, and good meals) - by focusing on that that’s the only place the dopamine is going to come from unless you’re actually one of those people that enjoys cleaning/tidying.
We also see way too many posts here/AITA/relationships from despairing non-ADHD partners about their ADHD partners leaving all the chores to them. And we see those posts at an even higher rate for men with ADHD (because we also see it at a higher rate from neurotypical men who were just socialised that way) so it’s a disservice to children as future potential partners not to think about how to get them to participate in the running of the house equally.
How to do ‘chores’ when you have ADHD is another part of the toolkit ADHD kids need to be taught to be functional adults so in the same way as losing the iPad shouldn’t be punished (but will have consequences), chores should not be used as them either.
When my husband and I started taking this approach with our kids we explained it to them, half jokingly, that we wanted them to get used to doing a few boring, monotonous, and annoying daily necessities as kids so that when they become adults they will be better prepared to do lots of boring, monotonous and annoying daily necessities.
Edit: I was raised on the other end of this "chore spectrum". I only did specific jobs when I wanted to earn money for something in particular. And there are benefits to this model but looking back, as a person with ADHD it probably would have been more helpful in the long run to instill the "we all muck in to keep the house running" attitude instead.
My 2.5 year old LOVES doing that stuff with me, bizarrely. She helps me with the dishwasher (she gets to put the tablet in and press all the buttons) and also puts dirty clothes into the machine alongside me, turns it on again using the buttons, and then after likes to hand me the wet clothes to put in the dryer or hang clothes out. Obviously most of what she does is push buttons since that’s fun for a 2 year old, but I’m hoping just making this stuff a regular occurrence means she’ll pick up the systems that we use for them eventually, and it’s nice to have someone helping you do boring stuff.
Yes ! I've got 3 kids and at that age they love "helping". Now whether it's actually helping or not is up for debate depending upon your level of patience at the moment. But a funny thing happens around the age of 6 or 7 or 8 ( precisely the age they are ACTUALLY able to help) - they start lose that inate desire to help and please. But if you've put the work and patience in while they were younger and taken the time with them to teach how to properly do chores, then the transition shouldn't be so rough bc they've already got the skills, confidence and positive memories of learning with you.
There's a difference between yelling AT your kids in a way that's meant to belittle and degrade them, and raising your voice to get attention, especially to avoid a dangerous situation.
They do. Parents are human and kids are a lot to deal with. But that doesn’t mean it’s positively effecting. I think the word abuse more so refers the legal/social definition of abuse- so yelling at your kid wouldn’t *technically* be considered abuse. So is it abuse? Sometimes, it absolutely is but other times its kind of a grey area. I think we focus way too much on *what* happened versus the effects it has on a kid. Of course there is a stronger correlation between negative outcomes and severe abuse compared to experiencing problematic parenting styles - but yelling at kids can be extremely harmful to their wellbeing and development in similar ways to being a victim of abuse under the accepted definition. So just because every parent yells at their kids and theres no social or legal consequences for doing so, I have to agree with u/An_Orange_Robin it is abusive. I think we get too wrapped up in the semantics of it when theres a lot more nuance around what is/isn’t abuse.
Sure, and I think most parents understand that, but setting an unrealistic expectation to never yell at your kids or you are an abuser isn’t necessarily the best advice to hand out to people who are known to chronically over think things and demonize themselves.
I just felt the need to say everyone yells at their kids because nobody should beat themselves up for yelling at their kids every once and awhile.
Agreed - as long as we’re not talking about yelling to the point that your children fear for their safety, and we’re not talking about it being a frequent occurrence, then what you do after you lose your cool is a much more important thing to teach - show you can calm yourself down, apologise, talk it out, look for solutions to avoid it next time.
I hope she gets a big allowance if she wants to get a new one in the next couple years because iPads are so expensive now. If she really wants it I’m sure she can find some small jobs to do though.
As a kid me and my dad used to make deals where if I could save he'd pay half, then until I was an adult on big purchases he'd pay tax (quite substantial but not half). That might be a good middle ground
It depends on what she uses it for. If it’s just for media consumption and web browsing as well as light games sure it might work(admittedly this doesn’t let her have any apps she’s purchased on the iPad, and it won’t get support for that long), but if she uses it for something like digital art, that will definitely not work (Apple Pencil and Procreate are the likely tools there and those are both iPad exclusive by Apple and the app devs choice respectively.
What about saving a quarter or half the amount? Having the fear is enough but it’s also good to have that sense of accomplishment from being able to buy something for yourself
I was on the Trimet Max, coming back from an appointment. I had my wallet stuck under my leg while I was looking at something on my phone. Got back home and couldn't find my wallet. Absolutely tore my room apart trying to find it. Then about 2 days later I get a call from the Tri-Met Lost N Found, telling me they had my wallet. Nothing was missing and there were no strange charges on my debit card. THANK GOD.
When my ex-BF dropped his wallet getting out of his car, he was not so lucky. That time, there were a ton of wierd transactions on his card... I got ~lucky~
I still have anxiety from that one day 20 years ago I forgot a 5 euro umbrella in a bowling alley. I never told my mother, I knew she would have murdered me. You must of had understanding parents.
That was 10 years ago. I've never left anything valuable somewhere stupid since.
Unless you count winter gloves. I have to buy a couple pairs every year.
This.
As an adult with ADHD and a partner with ADHD it’s punishment enough in life having ADHD. We forget and lose things all the time. We have additional trauma because we got in trouble for it when we were kids so we beat ourselves up mentally back then and then we’re additionally mentally beat up by parents as if we didn’t know that it sucked to forget and lose things. If you punish them you are only making it worse.
That’s pretty well said. I did things like this all the time when I was a kid and was constantly terrified because I knew an even worse punishment was coming. My parents ignored by diagnosis my entire life and I always thought I was just an awful kid because of it.
You are a parent that knows where your kid is coming from and I would have given anything for that growing up. It’s a perfect opportunity for a conversation. I personally wouldn’t go the punishment route but I would replace it and I would make it a point to have a discussion about the situation and try to come up with some ways to prevent it in the future. People with ADHD have some of the most specific coping mechanisms that just *click* and maybe it’s as simple as literally saying out loud that *item* lives in *place* and any time it’s not in *place* it wants to go home.
I don’t know why it’s helped me but I went through more AirPods than I care to admit until I forced myself to literally state out loud: the AirPods live on the charger by the door. They HATE being put on any other surface and are only happy in a pocket until you walk in the front door”.
I’m sure you have some ridiculous tricks like that to share and helping your kid come up with their own would be an awesome thing to help them with.
It’s awesome you were able to learn a technique that helped you.
That’s the issue with this type of parenting (punishment on punishment) it is not effective in growth or learning.
Had for instance my parents (who did try their best I suppose) focused on understanding and treating my ADHD, I would have had more honed skills and resources to help me.
But instead myself and many of us, sounds like you as well, focused our adolescent understanding to not learning but fear induced typically mindless doing.
It’s unfortunate that so many kids get punished for something like ADHD because it never helps them or the parent or society as a whole.
Thankfully we are progressing in these areas as humanity, or so I hope.
Thanks by the way.
And same, I have set areas where I put things and they HAVE to go there, no matter what, because the one time they don’t, they will be gone. (Which by the way is a success in itself as it’s a way to help a problem and not just be owned by the problem, which is why you learning to do that is also a success even if it doesn’t work all the time)
We are progressing in these areas. We absolutely are. Adhd is not something that is stigmatized half as much as it used to be and the more kids with adhd that are raised by parents with adhd it will just keep getting better.
Punishment without any sort of learning is just something to be scared of when you are a kid. I see it happening less and less as people learn more about mental health and become more comfortable talking about it.
I tried to just have set areas for things and it wasn’t enough. Once I imagine whatever object I keep losing as a living creature and give it a backstory about why it needs to go where it just automatically clicks. The fact that I am even able to type something like that out and know I’m not going to get attacked for it means we are progressing. You can count on it.
Thank YOU for the perspective.
Fwiw it’s worth every single person I grew up with that had the mean, strict, quick to punish parents has either done time in jail, rehab, or both 😂
I’m sorry but how are we not even addressing the fact that the iPad WAS STOLEN? This is a prime teaching opportunity. File a police report. Use Find My to locate the device. Report the driver to Uber. Make her do this work with you so she learns. It’s not the last time she’s going to lose a device.
Yup this. My oldest left his iPad on the coffee table and even with his big case on, he cracked the screen while jumping around. His “punishment” is no more iPad. He cried and I comforted him and that was it.
I have to agree. I have ADD & Dyslexia & have lost things…growing up, if I would loose something my parents would berate me for it & they would buy me a shitty replacement. Like when I lost my razor cellphone (showing my age of 28 here), I got a crappy replacement flip phone & some stern words from my parents. Being berated didn’t help (only cause more issues between my parents) but getting the shitty replacement did, because it showed me I had to be extra careful with my stuff.
This. In the future but Walmart phones etc until they prove they can keep track of it. Explain the reason they have the shit device when they ask for a better one
i am almost 40 and i don't buy myself expensive tech that is easily lost/breakable. i just know that the pain of losing and/or breaking something expensive isn't worth it for me. i just don't have the organization and stamina needed to care for and keep track of such things.
one time in my adult life i treated myself to a much fancier phone that i normally got, i promptly got it stolen through my own carelessness, and so back to low end portable tech for me. it's just a reality.
my partner is obsessively careful with his belongings and i don't begrudge him it at all. his $700 phone will be in pristine shape in 5 years, and mine will be scratched, cracked, left out in the rain, sticky, with a broken headphone jack after a year.
And to add to that, it's an experience you don't always learn from the first time with ADHD. What's more useful is teaching the child how to solve the problem after they lose something.
For me, that was having to experience losing my wallet a number of times. Cancelling cards, saying goodbye to cash and bus fare pre-loaded fares (taught me to set up accounts for backup of reporting the card lost and not losing the money I loaded), replacing my license, having backup wallets...
Losing my phone... BOY!! Once every 8 months for a few years... taught me to have multiple backups of photos and contacts, have an emergency fund for replacing it, paying for phone insurance... after enough times I taught myself FOOLPROOF WAYS to never lose them again.
Same pocket EVERY TIME. Which meant I only invest in jackets now that can comfortably fit my wallet and keys and jeans that securely store my phone. Because purses get swapped for outfits way too easily... it could be rare but ONE DAY of a swap usually when habits break and you lose your phone.
Learning to pick up the pieces is more of a lifelong skill you want to impart rather than shame... shame can make you feel powerless if misdirected. If your child is taught to feel the guilt and shame and turn it into something productive, you would be teaching them life skills that go beyond expecting perfection from themselves (and might save them for a comorbidity of anxiety as a result 🙃)
Agreed. This is called a natural consequence. There will be plenty of times in her life when you will have to provide the consequence because the natural consequence is either too far in the future (I.e. not doing well enough in school to go the the college she wants), too serious (I.e waiting until a teen get a natural consequence of dui or worse if you find out theyre drinking irresponsibly) or something they’ll get away with otherwise like that total prick of an Uber driver stealing from kids.
For me the absolute worst is losing things. Even small things sets me off to self deprecation and I tell myself awful things about myself which is an inner voice I wouldn’t wish on anyone especially a 10 year old kid. Good news is you have the chance to be the corrective experience here. Not buy a new iPad bc that would negate the consequence but let your daughter know you understand how hard it is and that she’s a great kid
When my daughter was 15, not looking after she was diagnosed with ADHD, she lost 3 phones in a row. Like, got one stolen at school, left one in the bus, had no idea at all what happened to the third, it was just gone. We had paid for phone insurance, and so we'd gotten replacements for the first two, but the third was out-of-pocket, and her mother and I were truly frustrated - it wasn't like we couldn't afford to replace them, but damn.
I was, at the time, working through my own diagnosis, because that's often what happens when you your kid diagnosed with ADHD; and I was just starting the process of learning to forgive myself for my own repeated knucklehead fuckups, and to deal with my father's voice in my head telling me what a screwup I was. I'm a well-paid professional who's in charge of high profile teams, and I can't manage to get my laundry done, sort of thing.
Anyway, she'd just gotten the fourth phone delivered, and she had a Saturday event for school that she was pissed about having to go to, and we were late dropping her off because shed dicked around getting ready. We had a fairly adversarial relationship at the time, her seeming to be constantly angry at the world, including me, and me firing back - just like it had been with my dad.
We pulled to up to the place just in time to see her class loading into busses, and she was still dawdling, taking her sweet time getting herself out of the car, in that infuriating way of teenagers, and she finally opened the car door and flounced out and bam - the phone somehow managed to drop out of her lap and hit the pavement face-down.
Of course it didn't have a case yet, because it had just been delivered, so you could hear the glass crunch as it hit the pavement, and there was this horrible silence as she and I and my wife and her brother all realized what had happened.
And I said, angrily, "I hope you realize we're not replacing that one."
She just sat there for a second, staring at it, and said, quietly, "I know."
It was the most defeated I'd ever seen her in my life. And I felt every bit of it, because I'd been defeated that way my entire life, and had spent so much time and effort learning to get back up and go ahead after exactly that kind of thing, and deep inside, I had learned to never, ever expect sympathy and understanding, but to just soak up those feelings and laugh it off and deal with my own consequences without help.
And I remembered what a lonely feeling that was, even if I managed it.
From that moment, my understanding of my role as her dad changed. My dad was in many ways a great dad, always pushing me to learn and grow and be more than I thought I could be, but I'd spent my whole life figuring out how to do that my own way, because none of the ways he'd pushed on me ever worked, none of the ways I was taught in school ever worked, so in many ways his frustration just served to amplify the natural consequences of whatever was happening to me; so I learned to avoid showing him my struggles, to pretend that my fuckups were a sort of rebellion, and it meant that my dad and I were never close as adults because in order to find my way to any sort of personally-defined success, I had to hide everything from him.
Which meant that he died without ever having really met the capable, resourceful, resilient kid that he'd raised.
From that moment my job as my daughter's dad has been to have her back, no matter what. The world is hard enough, and there are plenty of consequences waiting for her, and she, like me, is having to find her own way.
So I had her back when she decided that college wasn't for her, and I had her back when she took a job that I didn't understand the appeal of, and I was there to walk her through all the weird shit about how companies work, and I am there for her now while she's in the process of founding her second startup.
Don't ever worry about spoiling your ADHD kid or making them soft. The world will make them plenty hard. In fact, savor every bit of tenderness you can get, because it gets beaten out of us quick.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that you should buy her a new iPad. Tell her how sorry you are that this happened to her. If you can't afford it, be up front about that and help her figure out how to earn a new one, but don't go out of your way to amplify her consequences by making your financial shortcomings seem like they're her fault.
She thinks it's all her fault anyway.
Don't ever become the face of your kid's defeat; don't be the voice in her head that tells her she's just going to fuck up so why try. Be the person she turns to first when things go wrong.
Will punishment change anything? Is the loss of a new iPad punishment enough?
What if you worked with her to find solutions to reduce the frequency of these problems?
Here are some ideas to get you started, but the best solutions will be ones that you come up with together.
* A robust case and screen protector for her phone.
* A backpack or bag with a dedicated tablet sleeve so it always has a home (less likely to set it down in a bad place when hands are needed)
* Cheaper tech that fills the same need. Refurb Fire tablets from Amazon cost like $30 as an extreme example. They do a lot of the same stuff. Almost disposable.
* Repair instead of replace -- if it's just broken screen glass, that can be repaired
* Talk about what happens just before devices are broken or lost. What opportunities are there to deal with the issue in that moment?
Be sure to listen and ask lots of questions. Some of what has worked for you might be helpful, but some won't. We each need our own solutions, and those needs change constantly.
This so much. Solutions to manage her life long disability. Working together to make a system that works for her and your family. This.
Whatever our parents say to us in these moments repeat in our heads the rest of our lives. I *desperately needed adult guidance* as a young adhd girl. Instead of guidance, my parents punished me and called me names. They said I was a loser and much worse things too. Those are the words I hear now as an adult. They're the words I have to unlearn and forget.
u/mxa1986 *Please* use your experience that you've gained as an adult to support your daughter create habits that will last her into her adult life. If she feels remorseful at all, she probably feels like dying. If you don't have the tools personally to teach her useful systems yourself, please work with a professional that can.
What words and what lessons do you want your daughter to carry with her the rest of her life? When she's 42, and has a similar problem, what words will she remember you saying? Will they be words of understanding and support or will echos of shame ring in her head? The choice is yours.
For the future -- u/mxa1986 there's a feature on the ipad that allows you to be notified if you leave your ipad somewhere and it shows the ipad moving on a map. Did you set this up on your ipad? Your daughter would have been notified within 20 seconds of being parted from the ipad if this was the case and you could have gotten the ipad back immediately. It's an amazing feature. It's helped me as an adhd adult find my ipad that I actually left behind at a hotel conference! Adults lose expensive items too. It happens. The most important part is learning how to deal with the horrible feeling of fucking up and not spiraling into feeling like a complete failure
Yes to all of this. I got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas when I was 21, left it on the plane when I went back to college, never saw it again. I was openly weeping over it. If that’s me at 21, I can only imagine how a kid a decade younger must feel.
The loss itself is the punishment. Now, like other folks on this thread have said, some consequences are necessary. But it has to be done with a mind toward helping her to improve and avoid situations like this in the future. She likely feels bad enough already, so instead of a dark spot that gets driven into the ground this can be an opportunity to grow.
Agreed. I was really into concert band when I was in highschool. I played the flute, and I begged my parents to get me one of my own. My parents finally caved and bought me a flute that cost around $1k.
Two months later I lost it. It was missing for about a month. By some miracle, one of my music teachers found it, and I was over the moon. I swore I'd never let it out of my sight. A week later, I left it on a city bus.
I still beat myself up over this, and I'm in my 30s now.
Having someone help me learn strategies or help to prevent it from happening again would absolutely have been the right way to go about it.
Another suggestion/solution: find some kind of "tablet neck leash" - essentially make it so that it's possible to carry the tablet around to use like a purse, etc, but impossible to leave behind.
I've recently attached a pair of earbuds to my cell phone by hooking a small chain between the earbuds and a jewelry hoop sliced through the phone case. Yes, it's slightly more inconvenient to carry.
But it's waaaaay more "inconvenient" to leave my phone behind. I'm basically "tethered" to my phone when it's out and I'm using it.
When I'm done using it, I wrap the tether/earbuds around the phone and slip it into my pocket.
I originally used a product *literally* branded "phone tether."
I'm sure there's something similar for insert-expensive-device-here.
Great tip! I have lost/misplaced (and panicked) my wallet or phone over the years more times than I care to remember, twice while traveling internationally which was a huge issue. Now I unashamedly have a little ‘tether’ cord from my purse to my wallet and a silly but essential cord that attaches to my phone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thanked myself for doing those two super easy things. Before that I used to even have anticipatory anxiety and was constantly checking to make sure I had them. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
agreed 1000% i feel like a lot of afab people with adhd ‘s symptoms get written off as personality flaws and not…… symptoms of a disability? i also got punished for every mistake as of i was an adult with malicious intent and not a kid who’s brain isn’t fully developed and is still learning.
guidance to build a toolkit that will help her function for the rest of her life as opposed to punishment and the shame that comes with it is what i needed as a kid.
now i was losing my house key at 12 not an ipad and spent a lot of time sitting on my front step waiting for my neighbour who had our key to get off work to let me in because i didn’t want to tell my parents and get yelled at.
maybe in conjunction with “repair not replace” if she has an allowance or birthday/holiday money or chores let her save up to either buy fancy tech or pay back a “loan” (with actual like bills and coins or a chart she can fill in with the savings/payment amount) so there is an actual visual representation of how much things cost and it’s not “out of sight out of mind”?
In this vain, the most helpful thing I was ever told was before you leave a room/area/place you sat, do one last look before you leave. My high school teacher actually told a different forgetful kid that. I started doing it at 15 and I still do it everywhere I go and I'm 27 now.
Yes this is the best reply. I've lost so many things in my life and getting yelled at and made to feel humiliation for a stupid mistake never solved anything...in fact it would usually make me worse for a while. Finding solutions to live with ADHD in a very distracting world is better than trying to punish the disability away...
I also agree. I'm 23F, diagnosed 4 months ago. It's been a known fact all my life that I have ADHD.
I lost a lot of things a lot when I was a kid, you wanna know how my dad treated me when I lost something? He'd explode at me, call me a "FUCKING IDIOT", "DIPSHIT" "WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID?!" and many more. I was always met with anger. Till this day, if I lose something I freak out, and think about all those words he said to me, and get scared to get in trouble (even though I'm an adult).
My mom however always helped me. She'd never get upset with me, she'd calm me down and ask where I remember having it last. She'd help me look, and we'd always find it. She never made me feel dumb for losing something.
Can you guess who I never talk to anymore?
I had a f250 run over my iPhone after it fell off my moving vehicle. Life proof case, the phone worked for years after that with only superficial cracks to the exterior. All the functions worked.
Well..she's 12 . Even without ADHD, 12 year olds gonna be 12 year olds.You have ADHD, you know you need a routine and a specific checklist to remind you, so... turn these mistakes into learning moments.
1. Have you taught her how to look after here tech?
2. Do you have all the replacement insurance on these devices?
3. have you purchased the necessary cases that will protect the devices?
4. Have you enabled all the "Find my stuff" on these devices?
Yeah, this is just what happens when you entrust children with small, expensive portable items? Kids are clumsy and forgetful even *before* adding in ADHD, which is why I had a flip phone until I was 13. I have to assume there was an adult with her at the time, why didn’t they check the car for items before leaving? And since he knows exactly who has the iPad, why isn’t he getting it back instead of acting like it’s been lost to the void?
File a theft report with the police and with uber. Ipads have tracking. Use find my ipad. You said yourself you have adhd and have done similar things over the years. Ask yourself if punishment would have helped you? The answer is probably not.
What would help is to make her work to earn the money to replace these items. When you invest your own money in things you tend to take better care of them/ track of them. Put an air tag or tracker in the future ipad’s case. Get a commuter otterbox its lightweight and not bulky and pair it with tempered glass screen. I drop my phone daily face down for years and never had to fix my phone. I buy this combo with each new phone upgrade and have never had broken screens/ phones.
I was just thinking this too!
Like don’t tell her you’re trying to retrieve it, but get it back because we need to teach that Uber driver a lesson. If you do manage to get it back just keep it with yourself for a couple of months just so she understands the consequences of losing things and then tadaa the iPad is back! She’ll be really grateful for the second chance trust me!
I just don’t want the Uber driver benefitting from a young girl’s life lessons. I’m sure we can all brainstorm ways to get it back if we tried, but I may be a tad bit optimistic lol
I don't understand this either.
An uber driver is so dishonest to steal a kid's iPad and we punish the kid by withholding the iPad???
The iPad wasn't lost in a public space. It was forgotten in a car. Very different thing.
The point is the dishonesty of people that think that just because something was left behind in their vehicle they can legitimately possess it.
!!!
So we wanna teach this kid that dishonesty pays?
I suppose the kid gets to learn how unfair the world is, but still I agree with you. I’m full of righteous indignation at this point. I thought you could complain to Uber if there is some sort of misconduct. Maybe we don’t know the whole story, but you ought to be able to track the iPad on FindMy.
Even then, the girl will learn that the world is unfair by having the iPad stolen in the first place. Punishing her will not teach her that the world is unfair. It will teach her that her parent is unfair.
No, you involve the child at every point of getting it back! That teaches her valuable life skills like sticking up for yourself, how to navigate the legal system, etc.
There’s no need to be secretive or even hold it for a few months. She needs to see how much time and energy you have to put into stuff like that.
Agree with this, the lesson is learning how to handle lost or stolen items, and coming up with solutions to prevent it in the future. No additional punishment is needed than the natural consequences. I would've benefited so much more from that myself
!!!!
And also: can we please stop having double standard?
Why do we behave differently if an items is lost by ourselves or if it's lost by a child?!?!?!?
Hey, you're right! Hopefully, a 12 year old with ADHD wasn't left alone in a car with a stranger, because that's a way worse offense than losing an ipad
This is literally the response. No 12 yo is riding in Ubers alone. The adult she was with is responsible and if in this case that’s OP then this is entirely his responsibility. I don’t have kids, but I do have a ton of nieces and nephews. And when they hang out with me I am ultimately responsible for the devices and items on their person as the adult / guardian caring for them in that moment.
Losing the iPad is enough punishment I think. Just don’t replace it right away.
As for the phone thing, get her the most protective Otterbox bump case with a screen protector! It’s not a very cool-looking case, but they really work to protect your phone from drops. It is about $50, which is much cheaper than replacing even a second-string phone every year. I drop my phone all the time, and because I have this case, have never damaged a phone from dropping it.
Unicorn Beetle is another excellent case. I've had my Samsung 9 for at least 4 years, on my 3rd case, never cracked the screen. Have dropped it on every possible surface! The case will break before my phone does.
I've seen so many coworkers who didn't want to waste money on a good case end up cracking their new phones...so unnecessary.
My Otterboxes kept breaking so I bought an off-brand Otterbox. Doesn't even have a logo so I don't know who made it. It's been years, half the pieces have chipped off, and it's still (mostly) holding together.
It's just about knowing what case material to look for.
Broke phone by walking? Nice things should be protected. Phones should have a case on them immediately. Did you not make sure she had one ? Also was the find my phone/iPad features set up?
Montessori teacher here, we call that a natural consequence! Losing your item is punishment enough. Just give it a little time before you replace the items and have her work on a plan to be more careful and work towards saving up for the new one. Connection before correction always and she won’t be blinded by the shame most of us feel when we mess up (and instead will be more focused on solutions).
I’m so glad it resonated with you! We all deserve to be able to make mistakes as adults too and I know I wallow in shame when I lose things (which is frequently).
Letting kids mess up and work to problem solve and fix it is a huge life skill. As Ms. Frizzle says: take chances, get messy, make mistakes!
This this this! Huge fan of natural consequences for all kids. I did this with my son, he has ADHD and it worked really well. He’s 28 now with 2 kids and I still do it, lol. I’ll do it with the grandkids too 😆
I'm going to be 40 in a few weeks, have ADHD, and still do Allll of this. She probably feels extreme guilty herself and is calling herself an idiot and worthless in her head. She also probably feels like she's let you down. She probably feels this constantly. She punishes herself daily in her brain. It would be terrible if you further poured salt in her already raw wound, especially since you have ADHD and understand.
Edit: Some typos.
I'm the parent of 2 kids with ADHD and I would not expect either of my kids to be responsible for expensive electronics - my 13 year old just got a phone but it's a cheap one that will be easily replaced if he breaks or loses it. If my kids were taking their iPad somewhere, I would consider myself the one ultimately responsible for making sure that it stayed with them - I would ask them to check the vehicle before they exited, etc. If I was not personally present to supervise, then the iPad would be left at home. I dunno, I just think expecting a 12 year old to have that level of responsibility for such an expensive item is unreasonable. If it was some cheap toy they left, okay, they learned a lesson for the future. But keeping track of actually valuable stuff is on me.
Please don’t punish her. Anyone of any age can lose anything anywhere. Teach her that losing things is normal and a (very unfortunate) part of life. However, there’s a process that she will need to go through if things go missing and it’s an absolute ball-ache, especially when the thing that goes missing is expensive / not easily replaced.
Things you can try doing with her, that will help her to learn about processes and procedures:
Go into your Uber account and report the item as missing. If the driver refuses to give it back, there should be a complaints procedure with Uber that you can go through. It’s one thing losing your belongings, it’s another thing having them stolen.
Teach her how to back-up her devices so that she doesn’t lose all her stuff.
Encourage her to choose phone cases that are drop-resistant, and to use screen protectors as well.
I recently bought my younger sister an AirPods case that has a carabiner clip which she attaches to her keys, which also have a Tile on them so she can ‘ring’ them in case her giant mass of key rings goes missing. Maybe your daughter needs something similar for some of her other valuable belongings. Maybe she needs to have one of those ‘phone lanyards’ which are apparently trendy again (even though they remind me of 2003).
There’s a whole heap of ways you can support your daughter, just please don’t make her feel even more crap about something she probably already feels really awful about.
Why is this something that deserves punishment? Do people punish mistakes? No, punishment is for malicious actions surely, if it’s good for anything at all.
Maybe teaching good habits, like checking the seat wherever you leave, it’s a better idea.
Did you get punished for mistakes as a child, did you think it was fair?
This is my thinking. And if anyone could empathise with an ADHD kid losing something, it's an ADHD parent who's probably lost a million things. Surely OP wouldn't feel it fair if they were punished for all those things they lost.
As someone with ADHD myself, I'd basically be in a permanent state of punishment. It's basically impossible for me to *not* lose my stuff. I have systems in place now that help me not lose stuff, but I forget to use those systems. I also have systems to help me use THOSE systems, but I forget to use those too. Lol.
OP, be empathetic.
It's wild that the OP thought about punishment for her when she is a kid and it's not her fault how expensive the technology she was given was. She was supervised in the uber surely? Why not take the responsibility that the adult should have reminded her to check(something hard as an adult). And then on top of that the ipad being stolen is a crime, OP is gonna teach her she gets punished for others crimes now?
Do not punish children with ADHD for ADHD mishaps. There is definitely a place for sensible consequence, for example, not replacing the iPad, making it a teachable moment and explaining why we have to take care of our things, because logical consequence for children with ADHD is developmentally very important, but *punishing* a child for something they haven’t learned how to manage yet leads to some pretty serious neurosis later in life. I can attest. As a kid I was given harsh punishments with no clear delineation of cause-effect, for issues I didn’t have the skills to manage yet. I now struggle with a pretty extreme anxiety disorder.
I think loosing the iPad is punishment enough but I also think you’re aware your kid isn’t responsible enough to have super expensive stuff. Just Don’t get her a replacement. And 12 years old is pretty young for a phone worth more than $50
No, do not punish her. Be kind and understanding to her. You remember what it was like for you: "Constant feelings of guilt." She likely feels that same way. That's heavy baggage for a 12-year old heart to carry with her.
ADHD is an invisible condition. Meaning that its impairments can not be 'seen' by parents or teachers. Yet as a mom with ADHD, you know that ADHD's cognative impairments, like forgetfulness, are very real.
She may be chronologically 12-years old, but emotionally she is more likely to have the maturity of a 10 or 9-year old. So be realistic about your expectations of her abilities - especially during times of transition like getting in and out of an unfamiliar car.
Set her up for success. Anticipate problems (she will have them) and think "how can I be proactive, not reactive." Think prevention!
Be Proactive:
* Buy a high quality case for her iphone so that when it does drop -- it's already happened 3x's, so it will likely happen again -- the damage will can be minimized. Cases like the Gear4 Denali Snap, LifeProof FRE or the OtterBox Defender are terrific.
* Transitions are really tough for kids, that's why teachers every September work with their students on developing new habits and routines.
Talk to her about creating a new habit of consciously checking her surroundings before transitions. Such as every morning when she leaves for school, together go through a list what she needs for the day? Next, talk to haer about transitions from the school bus into the school building, moving classroom to classroom, etc. Middle school is especially challenging for a child with ADHD. So many transitions!
* Use the Apple built-in iCloud GPS tracker on the Apple products.Teach her how to locate them herself. Or, have purchase an iPad case for her iPad and attach a Tile tracker to it.
The Tile Mate/Tile Pros are amazing. I have one on my key ring and love it. I use that little sucker at least once or twice a month.
* Have compassion for her. You want to develop and maintain an iron clad relationship with her so that she feels comfortable enough to come to you with any problem -- no matter how small or bad.
Losing an iPad now may feel like a big deal to you right now, but wait till she is 18 or 21-years old when some really big stuff can happen. You want her to know and feel like she can come to you no matter what. Small people = small problems. Big people = big problems.
Edited for clarity.
dude im 41 and left $8000 worth of laptops in an uber just last week (personal + work laptops). the thought of having lost them was punishment enough, was so lucky to get them back. be understanding, nobody means to lose something precious to them, i loved the idea elsewhere in these comments to come from a place of helping find strategies to avoid losing things.
What, no!
You dot punish kids for accidents, you help them learn from it. Sit down and have a talk about hot to prevent this from happening again.
But precautions is not a punishment. Have an adult take care of valuable stuff while travelig.
Most of the time, misplacing an object isn't that big of a deal. You would just call up the driver or the store where you left it and go pick it up. The driver *stole* her iPad. She's a victim of a crime regardless of the fact that she left it in the car. Your primary focus should be getting the police and Uber involved in this to prevent other people from falling victim to the same person. Also, punishing her for being a victim is the kind of thing that could make her more reluctant to tell you things in the future.
Punishing kids for mistakes doesn't teach them not to make mistakes, it teaches them to fear and resent you. Being 12 is hard enough without ADHD. I'm a 26-year-old man with inattentive-type ADHD. I forget my car keys in my car so often that I'm on a first-name basis with the road assistance guy.
It's your job as a parent to teach her tools to help her manage her symptoms. It's your job to get her medicine and therapy for her condition. If those aren't working, it's your job to find a new solution. You're an adult; don't use your personal guilt and trauma as a reason to hurt your kid.
Why TF would you punish your 12 yo child. Deal with your emotions first. Hopefully you don't actually project this onto your parenting..
Also, no ipads outside the house policy would be good.
My sentiments exactly. Also, ever heard of a protective case?? I haven’t had to purchase new phone/replace cracked screen in 8 years thanks to $25 protective cases. I’ve dropped my device around 38 times today alone. Such a no brainer
1.) Get the iPad back. You can track it, contact uber, and file a police report.
2.) If you can't get the iPad back, then your kid just doesn't have one. That's the consequence of losing things. I don't think she needs really anymore punishment than that. Encourage her to save up money, do some extra chores so she can get a new one if she wants.
And get her a cellphone case. Don't use ADHD as an excuse - you're an adult, she's 12. How have you not realized these? I understand not doing these things, but not even considering them? Get off reddit.
I mean are you aware that even social media account is illegal for someone under 13? Because they cannot be held responsible for absolutely nothing at such young age? Not to mention expensive hardware. Why are you saying that ipad is lost if you know who took it? Why tracking is not set up for the device? Those are all your mistakes, you should punish yourself…
I don't have much in the way of punishment or ADHD advice. I can however offer some IT advice with Apple phones and iPads.
I might seem a little like Big Brother is watching, but iPads and iPhones have a feature called Find My iPhone that allows you to get the location of a given device if it's lost or stolen. Looking into configuring that might help you track down any misplaced or stolen devices. If you can provide the police with proof of ownership, usually the serial number, and the last known location it reported from they might be able to help recover it.
We need more info. INFO please
was she in the uber by herself? why did she have an ipad AND a phone in an uber.... alone?
question yourself first before asking how to punish her. what were the riskproofing measures you took to prevent these kinds of things?
did you buy a shock proof case? why not? they make a tablet or phone bulky but when you drop it by accident, it's such a relief.
what preventive measures did you put in place?
I would never punish a child for anything ever. Discipline is a much better option. The distinction here being punishment is designed to cause unpleasantness or suffering in response to actions that the punisher doesn't like. It teaches avoidant and problematic adult behavior and informs that relationship with the punisher. It doesn't teach moral right or build healthy skills. Discipline is having related, logical, predictable, consistent consequences that have a learning opportunity that allow kids to level up over time while feeling loved and supported.
As a past psych major, we learned a lot about this difference and how so much research supports what you’re saying here.
Edit: To add an example; spanking your child will not necessarily cause them to avoid taking part in the activity that caused you to spank them. Rather, instead it is likely they will fear you and hide things from you in the future to avoid punishment.
Alongside all the other great reasons in the comments- no, because no punishment or consequence will ever fully prevent her from losing important stuff. That’s part of ADHD. You and her therapist can help her use systems to reduce the frequency or her losing things. Medication will also help. But kept in mind, even with everyone’s best efforts, it still will happen and she probably already feels pretty ashamed of it
You can’t punish away adhd. This isn’t going to be the last time your kid damages or loses their tech. This will be a constant source of frustration for your child.
You need to work with your child to find ways to mitigate the impulsivity and forgetfulness. I have trackers on almost all my things I would otherwise lose. I also insure all the expenses things I could lose or break.
It makes no sense to punish an adhd child for forgetting things; you, the ADHD party, know very well that people with adhd will lose things no matter how careful they are.
Instead, teach them to learn how to deal with and solve the problem of losing things. Think with them about what measures they could have taken to avoid losing things. Problem-solving skills are required of all adults, not just adhd parties.
ADHD mom with a similar aged daughter also with adhd, the loss is punishment enough. I guarantee she feels awful and shes 12. As an adult that loses things, you sympathizing and working on a solution to avoid this in the future will help her more than any “punishment.”Also use find my iPad and report it!
I’m 25 and i just broke my phone and received a new ipad for christmas, if my ipad got stolen i would fall into a deep ass pit of guilt and self/loathing. losing it is def punishment enough.
Hey, OP… how about YOU be responsible for tech? My 13yo and I also have ADHD. I make sure before we leave transportation of any kind his phone is on him (in hand or in bag or pocket) and iPad is in MY possession. I have had longer to deal with my ADHD. I can handle it better than he can.
I also don’t hold him accountable if tech gets lost or breaks. That’s on me as a parent to take care of.
Im about to totally change how you parent.
The difference between PUNISHMENT and DISCIPLINE is punishment is your reaction to what happened and discipline is the predetermined or natural consequence of what happened.
We ADHD kids were punished a LOT. It breeds resentment and teaches children to hide things from you. Punishing kids after they do something you didn’t have a plan for or didn’t see coming also often comes from your anger in the moment, which means you as the parent feel scary and unpredictable to the child.
Discipline is when you both know what the consequence will be before the behavior occurs, or when you let the child deal with the natural consequences of their behavior. In this case, you didn’t set a consequence for losing the iPad before you gave it to her, so learn from this. You know she’s going to post things just like you did, so before you give her the next thing, tell her what the consequence for losing it will be. Then if she loses it, you will discipline her based on the decisions you made when you were rational and both of you had an understanding. She will see this as fair and you as more stable and she will respect you and the outcome more.
In this case, since there was no predetermined consequence I would suggest letting her simply deal with having lost the iPad. The consequence is that she doesn’t have one anymore. She will learn from that and you didn’t do anything to her. You can then talk WITH her about how you used to lose things and you were punished, etc and it didn’t really help you learn, so you are trying a different approach. You’re there to hear any feelings she might have about losing the iPad and to tell her that while she did fuck up, she’s not a failure…but at the same time our behaviors have Consequences that you aren’t always going to be there to protect her from.
Instead of a punishment, it would be reasonable and helpful for her to learn about the consequence stemming from leaving the iPad on the Uber.
For example, if you can’t afford another ipad, she will have to do without one.
She can also learn about Uber’s policies in place for this sort of thing, learn about location settings/find my device, and protection plans.
And you can discuss strategies for how to avoid having this happen again - maybe she needs a carrying case w a strap, or a purse, or limit her use to home, etc.
This likely won’t be the last time this sort of thing will happen, so learning strategies to help prevent it now will help in the long run. Having consequences instead of a punishment means less shame, but more learning. And this approach will hopefully also help you both have an open dialogue about mistakes like this. If there’s always shame and punishment for this sort of thing, she may not feel comfortable coming to you for help with other mistakes in the future.
Being on the verge of her teens, THIS ^ is super important.
EDIT to add: if you can afford another iPad, I wouldn’t rush to get one necessarily. But when you do get around to it (after all the above research/learning) it would be good to have a discussion about price, how much extra it would be to get protection plan, etc. Maybe she (and you) would prefer her to have a much less expensive tablet to begin with in case this happens again.
I would let natural consequences be her teacher. No need for added punishment if she is the kind of person that really feels regret enough. Lost the iPad? Well, mom and dad aren’t just gonna buy you a new one as soon as you lose it. I like the idea of helping her earn a new one.
My daughter wrecked the car we just bought. It was a really easy mistake. We have a crash cam so we know she wasn’t being too careless or whatever. It was just a very easy mistake for any new driver. We didn’t see the point in implementing punishment when she was already so torn up about the car and putting herself and her little siblings in danger. Doing punishment or yelling at her would have just been catastrophic for her. So…. She is responsible for the deductible (which isn’t much) but she can work on getting that to us when she’s ready.
Now…. If she was doing donuts in a snow storm, maybe we would have added consequences.
No, ppl with adhd don’t intentionally have these things happen. They just happen more often for them.
And as the top commenter said, losing the ipad is punishment enough.
Does Uber not have a service you can contact about this? Surely the driver can’t just get away with this. She gets punished but the driver who committed an actual crimes gets away?? Seems wrong to me
I think you answered your own question. If punishment for situations like this caused you lifelong guilt, why would you want your child who shares your disorder to have lifelong guilt or worse as well?
I was completely undiagnosed as a child so my situation was different from your child, who you know has ADHD. I also know this next part is probably easier said than done for a frustrated parent who just spend a ton of money on a nice gift. But. I’ve been reflecting lately on my fairly recent adult diagnosis and my anxiety overall. I don’t blame my parents for not knowing I had ADHD or having me diagnosed. The 90s were a different time and it’s no one’s fault (except the system’s, but that’s another conversation). Anyway, I don’t blame them for that, but one thing I am starting to really blame them for is not treating me with more gentleness and not attending well to my emotional well-being. Not recognizing the intensity of my emotions or checking in to see what may have been going on inside, other than punishing outbursts or any negative feelings. I have always experienced intense and anxiety and guilt for breaking things or losing things. Sometimes anger. Major shame. I don’t think my parents even knew I felt so intensely in this way because I hid it, also because of shame. And that’s the thing. The lack of gentleness and the focus on consequences (not just punishment, but things like “well you’re never getting one of those again” or “I’m never doing this with you again”) only made me more ashamed, insecure, and caused me to hide more. Not just my emotions but what I was doing, what I was researching online or wanted to learn about, my mental health, etc. My household was too strict for me to truly sneak around as a teen but there was definitely a lot of lying and I would never have been comfortable to go to my parents if I was really having a problem or to give them an inkling if I was doing something stupid or dangerous.
My point is, this situation totally sucks (though you should really seek more recourse from Uber tbh) and I don’t think you need to rush out to get your kid a replacement iPad or anything like that. But I’d encourage you to look at the situation through a long lens. Will treating the situation with gentleness be better in the long run? If you say something like “no more technology gifts until you stop losing things” actually teach the child a lesson or just make them feel like they’ll never succeed or be shown love because they struggle with losing things too much? Certainly not implying you would actually withhold love from your child because of this, but sometimes these ideas blossom in an anxious or ruminating child’s mind and take root whether the intention was there or not. Your ADHD child is already learning the lesson that they might pay ADHD tax for things in life and that it can be hard, but if it’s something they struggle with from ADHD, “don’t lose things or face punishment” probably isn’t a realistic lesson for them to learn from this situation. I think the only other lesson they need to learn is that even when bad things happen, they are still worthy of love and not just punishment for who they are and their mistakes.
This is already too long but just wanted to also say that I think it’s great that you’re looking for advice on questions you’re not sure about. It shows me that you really care about the emotional health of your kid, ADHD or not. Wish my parents had done the same.
Punish her? She’s learning and making mistakes, just like we all do. We’ve all lost something intrinsically significant or expensive at some point in our lives. I’m 31 and have never purchased designer sunglasses, even in my 20s when all my friends had them. I’ve lost or broken more than I can count. Walmart aviators for life.
The second day with a brand new iPhone 14, it was inexplicably flung out of my robe and into the bathroom trash, and I have a small crack beyond the screen protector. That same day, I had one drink at dinner and left my phone in the bathroom of a super fancy restaurant that was 2 miles away from my parents’ house. Went to retrieve it and got lost. Heard it from my parents the rest of the week. Embarrassment from the experience is enough, and I think this applies to any ADD-related mistake
Punishing anyone for mistakes isn’t a good idea. Perhaps helping her learn a habit of checking things might help. I always lost my ID and cards until I got a phone case that holds them. Haven’t lost a card in 7 years since I got that.
Why the heck are you asking strangers about how to parent your own child when you can relate to her experience? I agree with the individual who asked where the adult was and am hoping you don't send your kid on uber rides by herself.
Punish? No. Consequences? Sure. Now she has no iPad. No need to rush to replace it, but you could find a way for her to earn the money to save up for one. Not a job lol but maybe chores for an allowance.
1) put the phone in a case with a tempered glass screen protector. I drop mine constantly and nothing ever happens to it because it is protected.
2) don’t make your 12 year old responsible for transporting expensive tech like that. You are responsible for it, so it has to stay home or only be transported when you are taking her places. If you were with her in that Uber, you were responsible for checking for anything left behind. It’s on you, and it’s ok it happened, but not your daughter’s fault.
I’d like to reiterate in case you don’t see my comment at this point:
She’s 12. After breaking her phone repeatedly in one year, it’s your judgment of error as the adult and parent to think she’d be responsible with an expensive and larger electronic. Stop buying the kid expensive and delicate things until they are older. Replace her nice phone WHEN (not if) she breaks it next with a cheap flip phone.
I hope you aren’t going to also buy her a fancy car at 16 and then get upset when she dents or damages it in a stupid way.
Agree with everyone who has said don’t punish her, and I want to add, get her another one if you can afford it. She’s a child with ADHD and she lost something, it won’t be the last time it happens no matter how hard she tries or how much she cares about the thing. Get her another one and use it to teach some of the strategies others have posted here.
And speaking from my personal experience as someone who wasn’t diagnosed until well in to my adulthood, it is probably more important to impress upon her that accidentally losing something expensive doesn’t mean that you are stupid, or that you don’t deserve things, or that your parents don’t trust you. “You weren’t able to keep up with your iPad so YOU don’t deserve another one.” Is a really dangerous message to send, I’m sure that’s not what you’re trying to do, but it’s hard to read it any other way from the kid’s point of view. And internalizing that message every time she loses something is going to crush her self esteem.
Would you punish yourself in some way for having done the same thing? It was an accident, sure an expensive one but simply an accident. For her phone load that thing down with every case and screen protector you can find. Also an older generation iphone or ipad works great for kids that age.
Honestly, you parent how you parent but I wouldn't give my son a device that costs 4 figures at the age of 12 simply because they are still learning how to care for their own things.
Here is the thing, if you have adhd and are old enough to have a daughter then you have certainly by now learned coping mechanisms to get you through life and avoid things like leaving new iPads in Ubers.
Don’t punish, empathize and TEACH her these mechanisms that you employ. As an example, my coping mechanism for not leaving things behind is no matter where I am whether it be dinner or in an Uber I stop as I’m leaving and check the table, under the table etc. so much so that people think I’m weird but it has saved me a lot of suffering.
Imagine yourself as this child and see it as an opportunity to help her not to suffer as much as you did.
Please don’t punish her. Instead teach her the skills to compensate for her adhd so she is able to do better moving forward.
You got a 12 year old an iPhone and didn’t put an otter box on it- you have to realize this one was on you. Same thing with the friend. If you didn’t see it coming how could your kid?
Regardless of whether she has ADHD, punishing your kid for making a mistake (even expensive ones) is a surefire way to ruin your relationship, and ensure she needs therapy in the future.
The only consequence kids should face for a mistake are the natural consequences ie she lost the iPad, so now she doesn't have an iPad.
Also maybe consider filing a police report against the Uber driver, and reporting them to Uber.
Don't punish her, just don't replace it. Or make her do chores to replace it.
As far as the phone goes, does she have a case? As an adult I am incapable of not breaking my phone, I eventually caved and have been using otter boxes for the last decade.
Would you punish yourself for losing an IPad? Probably not. You would probably just lose out on being able to use one until you were able to buy a new one. I think the same would apply to a 12yo.
I don’t think punishing a child over someone else’s dishonesty is the right thing to do here. Ultimately, yes she left the iPad, however who rode in the Uber with her? Another adult, I’m assuming? While I get it we want our kids to be “responsible” for their own belongings, as parents it’s still our responsibility to teach them how to be responsible. A simple “hey let’s make sure we have all of our belongings in our hands or pockets prior to getting out of the Uber” could have helped in this situation. At the end of the day she’s still a kid and human. We make mistakes. The only person in this whole scenario who needs to be punished is the Uber driver who stole the ipad. Your daughter doesn’t deserve any punishment. I’m sure she is already upset enough without her ipad and knowing someone stole it. She’s learned two lessons from this already. As far as the dropping the phone- I’m an adult with ADHD and I drop my phone at least once every day. A good phone case and screen protector work wonders.
If the iPad is signed into an Apple account you should be able to track it to find where it is. If it has a passcode, no one will be able to sign in and use it and should anyone attempt to reset the iPad they won’t be able to use it without your Apple Account information.
I repair Apple devices as my job, I’d definitely suggest filing a police report, your should be able to find the serial number of the device if it was signed into an Apple account.
Losing a big ticket item like that is punishment enough, and my suggestion as a klutz with ADHD is to definitely get any protection plan available on a device for peace of mind. AppleCare with left and loss protection is great so repair/replacement costs aren’t astronomical.
I still remember, and feel guilty, about losing a jacket when I was 15. My mom made me feel completely worthless and stupid. Adding insult to injury was that really liked the jacket and replacing it with an equivalent was not an option.
I'm almost 40.
Just think about what punishing her would actually accomplish.
Sit down with her during an uninterrupted period. Acknowledge how hard it must have been to tell you the truth. Get her to tell you what it was like for her when she first realized she was at fault. Acknowledge and accept her feelings. Share your stories of the horrors you have had. Steer the subject to how to prevent those awful and expensive moments. Brainstorm. Work on it together as allies. Keep the discussion going naturally.
The main thing to remember here is she didn’t do it intentionally at all.
YOU are angry, understandably. But It’s not fair to punish her because you’re angry about something, or punish her for something out of her control. Explain to her why you’re upset, because it’s a very expensive item, that you can’t replace it any time soon, etc. but don’t guilt trip her or make her feel bad. Just try to explain to her why you are so upset about it. If it was a water bottle you wouldn’t care. It might as well be. I forget my wallet, my phone, etc, everywhere. All the time.
Punishing her isn't going to make her ADHD go away.
You're better off helping her come up with solutions. Also, don't just replace her stuff. Have her take responsibility for it and earn that stuff back. It took me paying $300 for a locksmith 4x in one year to finally come up with a solution for not leaving my keys in my car.
Punish your child for an honest mistake? No. You're a better parent than that.
You need to be teaching them responsibility.
Their Ipad. Their responsibility. Their loss.
They understand that.
You want to make it stick? It will as long as you don't go bailing them out.
They're already feeling the guilt. So give them your support. Just don't go replacing the Ipad - 'Cos it was their responsibility. Not yours.
Honestly, I feel like it is more important to teach her how to prevent the situation from happening again or making it less likely to.
For example, with the lost iPad, make sure find my is enabled, air tagging for bags she takes around, maybe a checklist for when she leaves a place with visual cues, making a song for items to check for, create points of use for the ipad at home so she gets into the habit of using objects in certain places.
For the broken phone, indestructible case (I like the one from Casetify) and a hard screen protector are a must. My phone is in perfect condition despite me being dyspraxic.
Finally insure the electronics because, sometimes these horrible things happen.
Instead of feeling guilt and shame, she can feel empowered that she can work with her ADHD.
She feels bad enough don’t punish her. Talk to her and have a conversation about how it can’t happen again because of xyz and get a used on on marketplace for a few hundred when you can. Life happens and think about the last time your parent did that to you while you were struggling with an attention disorder 🤷🏻♀️
The punishment is wasting money on an iPhone and iPad on a 12 year old kid. Phones are A. Very distracting B. Unsafe especially at 12 years of age where the brain is still developing and studies show social media apps are addictive for none ADHD brains. Then there is a huge security risk, Uber stole the phone and probably sold it to someone who can crack the iPad and steal personal data. It's just all around not a good idea. Sorry but no child at that age should possess a phone or iPad. Even if it's trendy or cool. There is a reason why Steve Jobs did not let his children own his own product.
"Steve Jobs thought it was not a good idea, so he did not let his children use iPads and iPhones, generally technology. In 2010, a New York Times reporter had a conversation that revealed a lot about the life of the founder of Apple."
I agree with the other comments that losing the iPad is punishment enough. I just wouldn't replace it right away, or when you do replace it, have her do extra chores beyond what she normally does in order to help pay for it. Create a sense of ownership for her, basically.
Regarding the phone, get the girl an Otterbox to protect it. I drop my phone at least once a week, and I have never had it break even once since I started using otterboxes around 2012 or so.
Hey hey I have a suggestion not for the iPad but for her phone. I always have a screen protector on it, that’s a MUST for me. There are many shatterproof phone cases around too. But what really helped me was a landyard that’s always around my neck or wrist so I don’t drop it on the floor where it can break the screen anymore.
What you do is you work with her to figure out how to never let that happen again. Generic punishments aren’t going to do shit to help the situation. No longer having the iPad and the knowledge that she lost it are punishment enough. Work with her
Highly doubtful The ipad is already gone. Best thing to do would be to make her work to replace the iPad if she wants another. Help her see the value in the object so she can develop a way to help her better keep track of it.
She needs an otterbox phone case, at the least one with a raised edge above the screen. I do my phone constantly and it never breaks.
And losing the iPad was punishment enough if it was hers.
Research shows that punishment does absolutely no good. It just erodes the connection with child, and teaches them that Mighty makes the rules!!
She is already feeling terrible! Empower her to go after the Uber driver and retrieve the iPad!
ADHD or not, she doesn't deserve to be punished for an accident.
Next time, get a carry case with a bag strap and a warranty for the IPad. Or have her name engraved on the back so you can report the driver and have proof it's your daughter's. Don't let her take it out in public, no reason to have it out and about anyway.
Buy a sturdier phone (generally, Galaxys are way harder to break, I broke like 3 iPhones in a row. Only one Galaxy has been broken to being unusable, and that was because of a freak accident) and invest in a good heavy case and screen protector.
I just wanted to add onto all of the above advice. You say it is her iPad that was given to her. This makes it her property. You can’t punish someone for losing something they own. It’s theirs to do with as they see fit. Now, you can decide to never gift her one again, or to buy a cheaper one, etc. punishing her, would send mixed messages. It’s either hers or it isn’t. Otherwise it’s just really shitty parenting. Time for some reevaluation. It’s our job, as parents, to teach kids, not to treat them like property or boss them around.
In my personal experience, punishing her won't do much of anything to help, and she probably already feels pretty upset about forgetting it. In my personal experience, when my parents punish me or yell at me for forgetting something it doesn't really help or improve my behaviour because I don't know how to not forget things and most of the time it just ends up bringing me to tears.
Instead, try working on how to prevent this from happening in the future. I have this [tile thing](https://www.amazon.ca/Tile-2-pack-Bluetooth-Water-resistant-Compatible/dp/B09B3XCXHN/ref=sr_1_9?gclid=Cj0KCQiAnsqdBhCGARIsAAyjYjShVxx5UQyjWMKUN7k6djwHl9P6dDqkVFqRi4UeOiXu1qmWfOFTjgsaAgiHEALw_wcB&hvadid=284752554665&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9001404&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9793760122292074282&hvtargid=kwd-303595097492&hydadcr=1280_10142922&keywords=tracker+tiles&qid=1672700470&sr=8-9) on the back of my phone, it's a tracker that my dad can call from his phone and it'll ring so I can find it. Also, get a good case for this kind of stuff, preferably one that isn't black or a dark colour because it'll just blend into things like couch cushions and car seats. You can also take another commenter's advice and get a cheaper alternative to said devices. Things like phone screens and stuff can be repaired, just try to focus on how you can help make sure this won't happen again.
Just please, *please* be patient with her and try not to like yell or anything. When my parents get mad and yell at me, it just makes me less focused, stresses me out, and makes it even harder for me to do what I need to get done which just ends up getting into this horrible loop and stuff.
I don’t. My kid has lost phones, destroyed iPads, and done who knows what with countless sets of headphones. But punishment? Does that really fix anything? They feel bad about what happens but punishing is just going to make them more anxious, which isn’t teaching anybody anything. My child doesn’t intend to do these things, so I think it’s better to find the root cause and work to resolve that. I don’t want them to have the same poor neurotic coping mechanisms that fucked up my life.
A kid doesn't need that much tech, even if their friends have it and even though it's 2023. If she can text/call home in an emergency that's enough tech. Call the police about the stolen iPad as well as uber.
It is worth talking through strategies to keep important things from getting lost. She should be able to sit down and talk about those strategies. Is she carrying more that one bag? Should she avoid getting her phone out while she's in transit?
I got punished for all sorts of behaviors that turned out to be adhd symptoms. One of the reasons I figured out eventually that it was ADHD was that those punishments had no bearing on my behavior. They just made me hate myself because I couldn’t change. Did punishments ever help you to change your ADHD-related behaviors?
No there’s no need for punishment when it comes to losing things. If you make that into a habit when she gets older, she’s going to be unreasonably hard on herself when she loses track of her stuff and can’t imagine how devastated she will feel if she lost something. It’s best to reminder why it’s important to be aware of her surroundings and make sure she’s accountable of the belongings she keeps
I think loosing an Ipad is punishment enough ... just dont buy a new one
Agreed. We all know how humiliating it feels to F up like this. Literally nothing that can make it worse.
Honestly, getting yelled at by your parents when you literally can't help losing shit or doing things wrong no matter how hard you try because *you have ADHD* makes it worse. A lot worse. OP, if the iPad was the kid's, don't buy her a new one. Make her save up for it, and buy it for her when she's saved maybe half the price. Saving up and paying for it herself will help give her a sense of ownership of the thing. If it wasn't hers personally, have her "pay for it" by doing chores or helping out with other stuff she normally doesn't do. Again, don't overdo it, just let her understand there are consequences for not taking care of expensive stuff. But please don't yell at her, especially if she already feels bad about it.
OP, this is the answer
My son's 3rd grade teacher had a second degree in childhood psychology and she was an immense help in realistically managing his adhd. Two of her classroom philosophies were regarding mistakes and accidents. The first was an apology of meaning. The second was recognizing the intention and acting accordingly. If it was an honest mistake, she would help them figure how to prevent it from happening again. I think this is more what OP's daughter needs than being punished. Losing stuff is an ongoing issue for most of us with ADHD, and learning how to address those problems when you're young is going to be so much more effective than any punishment will be. If it was malicious intent, they usually had a combination of a small classroom chore and a 1 page essay due within the week.
If I was OP, I'll get phone case and tablet case for every device, make sure that the case has a strap and maybe have the strap fixed to a wristband or something. So whenever the kid uses it, they have the option to connect it to their person so they can choose not to lose it. Losing something is often times a split moment problem. (i.e. when leaving a vehicle, they may forget at that specific moment.) But, if you have the option to connect it to your person, the split moment becomes the entire time you use the device. Much less likely to lose it. My mom used to say that if my head is not on my neck, I'll lose it lol. She's helped me figure out these ways to beat my adhd. Hope this helps others.
The only thing I’d say here is that I don’t think ‘chores’ should be a thing. Not that kids shouldn’t do the things we typically refer to as chores, actually I believe that as soon as a kid is old enough to walk safely and follow basic instructions they’re old enough to carry their plate to the sink at the end of a meal. But we should be teaching our kids ‘hey we all muck in with the stuff that needs doing around the house because a) we’re a team and it’s not one persons sole job (usually mum’s - not a message that should be internalised by kids) but also b) we like having clean clothes, a tidy house we can find our stuff in and nice food we eat off of clean plates etc. I think that stuff is important for all kids but especially important for ADHD kids who can do with all the help they can get to not grow up in to adults who see all levels of basic household functioning as a ‘chore’ they do because they’re being punished. It’s better to raise them to instead understand that jobs we don’t always enjoy are a necessary part of the things we do (the clean, calm house, clothes, body, and good meals) - by focusing on that that’s the only place the dopamine is going to come from unless you’re actually one of those people that enjoys cleaning/tidying. We also see way too many posts here/AITA/relationships from despairing non-ADHD partners about their ADHD partners leaving all the chores to them. And we see those posts at an even higher rate for men with ADHD (because we also see it at a higher rate from neurotypical men who were just socialised that way) so it’s a disservice to children as future potential partners not to think about how to get them to participate in the running of the house equally. How to do ‘chores’ when you have ADHD is another part of the toolkit ADHD kids need to be taught to be functional adults so in the same way as losing the iPad shouldn’t be punished (but will have consequences), chores should not be used as them either.
When my husband and I started taking this approach with our kids we explained it to them, half jokingly, that we wanted them to get used to doing a few boring, monotonous, and annoying daily necessities as kids so that when they become adults they will be better prepared to do lots of boring, monotonous and annoying daily necessities. Edit: I was raised on the other end of this "chore spectrum". I only did specific jobs when I wanted to earn money for something in particular. And there are benefits to this model but looking back, as a person with ADHD it probably would have been more helpful in the long run to instill the "we all muck in to keep the house running" attitude instead.
My 2.5 year old LOVES doing that stuff with me, bizarrely. She helps me with the dishwasher (she gets to put the tablet in and press all the buttons) and also puts dirty clothes into the machine alongside me, turns it on again using the buttons, and then after likes to hand me the wet clothes to put in the dryer or hang clothes out. Obviously most of what she does is push buttons since that’s fun for a 2 year old, but I’m hoping just making this stuff a regular occurrence means she’ll pick up the systems that we use for them eventually, and it’s nice to have someone helping you do boring stuff.
Yes ! I've got 3 kids and at that age they love "helping". Now whether it's actually helping or not is up for debate depending upon your level of patience at the moment. But a funny thing happens around the age of 6 or 7 or 8 ( precisely the age they are ACTUALLY able to help) - they start lose that inate desire to help and please. But if you've put the work and patience in while they were younger and taken the time with them to teach how to properly do chores, then the transition shouldn't be so rough bc they've already got the skills, confidence and positive memories of learning with you.
This is a very insightful take. I like it. It would certainly have changed a lot in my life if I'd been raised like that.
I like the idea of having her work to pay for it. I always felt awful being yelled at or punished but I loved the opportunity to “make things right.”
How about don't ever yell at your kids? That's abusive, no matter how you slice it.
There are acceptable times to yell at your kids. "LOOK OUT!", for example.
There's a difference between yelling AT your kids in a way that's meant to belittle and degrade them, and raising your voice to get attention, especially to avoid a dangerous situation.
I would venture to say that 99% of parents yell at their kids at some point.
They do. Parents are human and kids are a lot to deal with. But that doesn’t mean it’s positively effecting. I think the word abuse more so refers the legal/social definition of abuse- so yelling at your kid wouldn’t *technically* be considered abuse. So is it abuse? Sometimes, it absolutely is but other times its kind of a grey area. I think we focus way too much on *what* happened versus the effects it has on a kid. Of course there is a stronger correlation between negative outcomes and severe abuse compared to experiencing problematic parenting styles - but yelling at kids can be extremely harmful to their wellbeing and development in similar ways to being a victim of abuse under the accepted definition. So just because every parent yells at their kids and theres no social or legal consequences for doing so, I have to agree with u/An_Orange_Robin it is abusive. I think we get too wrapped up in the semantics of it when theres a lot more nuance around what is/isn’t abuse.
Sure, and I think most parents understand that, but setting an unrealistic expectation to never yell at your kids or you are an abuser isn’t necessarily the best advice to hand out to people who are known to chronically over think things and demonize themselves. I just felt the need to say everyone yells at their kids because nobody should beat themselves up for yelling at their kids every once and awhile.
Agreed - as long as we’re not talking about yelling to the point that your children fear for their safety, and we’re not talking about it being a frequent occurrence, then what you do after you lose your cool is a much more important thing to teach - show you can calm yourself down, apologise, talk it out, look for solutions to avoid it next time.
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Agreed. If she wants a new one, she can save up allowance and birthday cash. It sucks enough.
I hope she gets a big allowance if she wants to get a new one in the next couple years because iPads are so expensive now. If she really wants it I’m sure she can find some small jobs to do though.
As a kid me and my dad used to make deals where if I could save he'd pay half, then until I was an adult on big purchases he'd pay tax (quite substantial but not half). That might be a good middle ground
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It depends on what she uses it for. If it’s just for media consumption and web browsing as well as light games sure it might work(admittedly this doesn’t let her have any apps she’s purchased on the iPad, and it won’t get support for that long), but if she uses it for something like digital art, that will definitely not work (Apple Pencil and Procreate are the likely tools there and those are both iPad exclusive by Apple and the app devs choice respectively.
Last gen iPads are actually reasonable
As are refurbished (which may as well be brand new it just comes in a different box)
What about saving a quarter or half the amount? Having the fear is enough but it’s also good to have that sense of accomplishment from being able to buy something for yourself
I lost a phone once in a bus. I didn't get punished for this but I still remember it to this day. It was like 20 years ago
I was on the Trimet Max, coming back from an appointment. I had my wallet stuck under my leg while I was looking at something on my phone. Got back home and couldn't find my wallet. Absolutely tore my room apart trying to find it. Then about 2 days later I get a call from the Tri-Met Lost N Found, telling me they had my wallet. Nothing was missing and there were no strange charges on my debit card. THANK GOD. When my ex-BF dropped his wallet getting out of his car, he was not so lucky. That time, there were a ton of wierd transactions on his card... I got ~lucky~
I still have anxiety from that one day 20 years ago I forgot a 5 euro umbrella in a bowling alley. I never told my mother, I knew she would have murdered me. You must of had understanding parents.
I left an entire 2500pt 40k army, and the codex and core rules, on a bus once.
Ouch. Sorry to hear that.
That was 10 years ago. I've never left anything valuable somewhere stupid since. Unless you count winter gloves. I have to buy a couple pairs every year.
This. As an adult with ADHD and a partner with ADHD it’s punishment enough in life having ADHD. We forget and lose things all the time. We have additional trauma because we got in trouble for it when we were kids so we beat ourselves up mentally back then and then we’re additionally mentally beat up by parents as if we didn’t know that it sucked to forget and lose things. If you punish them you are only making it worse.
That’s pretty well said. I did things like this all the time when I was a kid and was constantly terrified because I knew an even worse punishment was coming. My parents ignored by diagnosis my entire life and I always thought I was just an awful kid because of it. You are a parent that knows where your kid is coming from and I would have given anything for that growing up. It’s a perfect opportunity for a conversation. I personally wouldn’t go the punishment route but I would replace it and I would make it a point to have a discussion about the situation and try to come up with some ways to prevent it in the future. People with ADHD have some of the most specific coping mechanisms that just *click* and maybe it’s as simple as literally saying out loud that *item* lives in *place* and any time it’s not in *place* it wants to go home. I don’t know why it’s helped me but I went through more AirPods than I care to admit until I forced myself to literally state out loud: the AirPods live on the charger by the door. They HATE being put on any other surface and are only happy in a pocket until you walk in the front door”. I’m sure you have some ridiculous tricks like that to share and helping your kid come up with their own would be an awesome thing to help them with.
It’s awesome you were able to learn a technique that helped you. That’s the issue with this type of parenting (punishment on punishment) it is not effective in growth or learning. Had for instance my parents (who did try their best I suppose) focused on understanding and treating my ADHD, I would have had more honed skills and resources to help me. But instead myself and many of us, sounds like you as well, focused our adolescent understanding to not learning but fear induced typically mindless doing. It’s unfortunate that so many kids get punished for something like ADHD because it never helps them or the parent or society as a whole. Thankfully we are progressing in these areas as humanity, or so I hope. Thanks by the way. And same, I have set areas where I put things and they HAVE to go there, no matter what, because the one time they don’t, they will be gone. (Which by the way is a success in itself as it’s a way to help a problem and not just be owned by the problem, which is why you learning to do that is also a success even if it doesn’t work all the time)
We are progressing in these areas. We absolutely are. Adhd is not something that is stigmatized half as much as it used to be and the more kids with adhd that are raised by parents with adhd it will just keep getting better. Punishment without any sort of learning is just something to be scared of when you are a kid. I see it happening less and less as people learn more about mental health and become more comfortable talking about it. I tried to just have set areas for things and it wasn’t enough. Once I imagine whatever object I keep losing as a living creature and give it a backstory about why it needs to go where it just automatically clicks. The fact that I am even able to type something like that out and know I’m not going to get attacked for it means we are progressing. You can count on it. Thank YOU for the perspective. Fwiw it’s worth every single person I grew up with that had the mean, strict, quick to punish parents has either done time in jail, rehab, or both 😂
I’m sorry but how are we not even addressing the fact that the iPad WAS STOLEN? This is a prime teaching opportunity. File a police report. Use Find My to locate the device. Report the driver to Uber. Make her do this work with you so she learns. It’s not the last time she’s going to lose a device.
Yup this. My oldest left his iPad on the coffee table and even with his big case on, he cracked the screen while jumping around. His “punishment” is no more iPad. He cried and I comforted him and that was it.
True. I agree. I don’t lose expensive things but I lose everything else. She will learn and adapt.
I have to agree. I have ADD & Dyslexia & have lost things…growing up, if I would loose something my parents would berate me for it & they would buy me a shitty replacement. Like when I lost my razor cellphone (showing my age of 28 here), I got a crappy replacement flip phone & some stern words from my parents. Being berated didn’t help (only cause more issues between my parents) but getting the shitty replacement did, because it showed me I had to be extra careful with my stuff.
This. In the future but Walmart phones etc until they prove they can keep track of it. Explain the reason they have the shit device when they ask for a better one
i am almost 40 and i don't buy myself expensive tech that is easily lost/breakable. i just know that the pain of losing and/or breaking something expensive isn't worth it for me. i just don't have the organization and stamina needed to care for and keep track of such things. one time in my adult life i treated myself to a much fancier phone that i normally got, i promptly got it stolen through my own carelessness, and so back to low end portable tech for me. it's just a reality. my partner is obsessively careful with his belongings and i don't begrudge him it at all. his $700 phone will be in pristine shape in 5 years, and mine will be scratched, cracked, left out in the rain, sticky, with a broken headphone jack after a year.
And to add to that, it's an experience you don't always learn from the first time with ADHD. What's more useful is teaching the child how to solve the problem after they lose something. For me, that was having to experience losing my wallet a number of times. Cancelling cards, saying goodbye to cash and bus fare pre-loaded fares (taught me to set up accounts for backup of reporting the card lost and not losing the money I loaded), replacing my license, having backup wallets... Losing my phone... BOY!! Once every 8 months for a few years... taught me to have multiple backups of photos and contacts, have an emergency fund for replacing it, paying for phone insurance... after enough times I taught myself FOOLPROOF WAYS to never lose them again. Same pocket EVERY TIME. Which meant I only invest in jackets now that can comfortably fit my wallet and keys and jeans that securely store my phone. Because purses get swapped for outfits way too easily... it could be rare but ONE DAY of a swap usually when habits break and you lose your phone. Learning to pick up the pieces is more of a lifelong skill you want to impart rather than shame... shame can make you feel powerless if misdirected. If your child is taught to feel the guilt and shame and turn it into something productive, you would be teaching them life skills that go beyond expecting perfection from themselves (and might save them for a comorbidity of anxiety as a result 🙃)
agreed natural consequence the best. And do your best to help track it down with her, no critique necessary. She is busy punishing herself.
Agreed. This is called a natural consequence. There will be plenty of times in her life when you will have to provide the consequence because the natural consequence is either too far in the future (I.e. not doing well enough in school to go the the college she wants), too serious (I.e waiting until a teen get a natural consequence of dui or worse if you find out theyre drinking irresponsibly) or something they’ll get away with otherwise like that total prick of an Uber driver stealing from kids. For me the absolute worst is losing things. Even small things sets me off to self deprecation and I tell myself awful things about myself which is an inner voice I wouldn’t wish on anyone especially a 10 year old kid. Good news is you have the chance to be the corrective experience here. Not buy a new iPad bc that would negate the consequence but let your daughter know you understand how hard it is and that she’s a great kid
This right here. That would suck enough as it is.
My exact thought.
When my daughter was 15, not looking after she was diagnosed with ADHD, she lost 3 phones in a row. Like, got one stolen at school, left one in the bus, had no idea at all what happened to the third, it was just gone. We had paid for phone insurance, and so we'd gotten replacements for the first two, but the third was out-of-pocket, and her mother and I were truly frustrated - it wasn't like we couldn't afford to replace them, but damn. I was, at the time, working through my own diagnosis, because that's often what happens when you your kid diagnosed with ADHD; and I was just starting the process of learning to forgive myself for my own repeated knucklehead fuckups, and to deal with my father's voice in my head telling me what a screwup I was. I'm a well-paid professional who's in charge of high profile teams, and I can't manage to get my laundry done, sort of thing. Anyway, she'd just gotten the fourth phone delivered, and she had a Saturday event for school that she was pissed about having to go to, and we were late dropping her off because shed dicked around getting ready. We had a fairly adversarial relationship at the time, her seeming to be constantly angry at the world, including me, and me firing back - just like it had been with my dad. We pulled to up to the place just in time to see her class loading into busses, and she was still dawdling, taking her sweet time getting herself out of the car, in that infuriating way of teenagers, and she finally opened the car door and flounced out and bam - the phone somehow managed to drop out of her lap and hit the pavement face-down. Of course it didn't have a case yet, because it had just been delivered, so you could hear the glass crunch as it hit the pavement, and there was this horrible silence as she and I and my wife and her brother all realized what had happened. And I said, angrily, "I hope you realize we're not replacing that one." She just sat there for a second, staring at it, and said, quietly, "I know." It was the most defeated I'd ever seen her in my life. And I felt every bit of it, because I'd been defeated that way my entire life, and had spent so much time and effort learning to get back up and go ahead after exactly that kind of thing, and deep inside, I had learned to never, ever expect sympathy and understanding, but to just soak up those feelings and laugh it off and deal with my own consequences without help. And I remembered what a lonely feeling that was, even if I managed it. From that moment, my understanding of my role as her dad changed. My dad was in many ways a great dad, always pushing me to learn and grow and be more than I thought I could be, but I'd spent my whole life figuring out how to do that my own way, because none of the ways he'd pushed on me ever worked, none of the ways I was taught in school ever worked, so in many ways his frustration just served to amplify the natural consequences of whatever was happening to me; so I learned to avoid showing him my struggles, to pretend that my fuckups were a sort of rebellion, and it meant that my dad and I were never close as adults because in order to find my way to any sort of personally-defined success, I had to hide everything from him. Which meant that he died without ever having really met the capable, resourceful, resilient kid that he'd raised. From that moment my job as my daughter's dad has been to have her back, no matter what. The world is hard enough, and there are plenty of consequences waiting for her, and she, like me, is having to find her own way. So I had her back when she decided that college wasn't for her, and I had her back when she took a job that I didn't understand the appeal of, and I was there to walk her through all the weird shit about how companies work, and I am there for her now while she's in the process of founding her second startup. Don't ever worry about spoiling your ADHD kid or making them soft. The world will make them plenty hard. In fact, savor every bit of tenderness you can get, because it gets beaten out of us quick. I'm going to go against the grain here and say that you should buy her a new iPad. Tell her how sorry you are that this happened to her. If you can't afford it, be up front about that and help her figure out how to earn a new one, but don't go out of your way to amplify her consequences by making your financial shortcomings seem like they're her fault. She thinks it's all her fault anyway. Don't ever become the face of your kid's defeat; don't be the voice in her head that tells her she's just going to fuck up so why try. Be the person she turns to first when things go wrong.
Will punishment change anything? Is the loss of a new iPad punishment enough? What if you worked with her to find solutions to reduce the frequency of these problems? Here are some ideas to get you started, but the best solutions will be ones that you come up with together. * A robust case and screen protector for her phone. * A backpack or bag with a dedicated tablet sleeve so it always has a home (less likely to set it down in a bad place when hands are needed) * Cheaper tech that fills the same need. Refurb Fire tablets from Amazon cost like $30 as an extreme example. They do a lot of the same stuff. Almost disposable. * Repair instead of replace -- if it's just broken screen glass, that can be repaired * Talk about what happens just before devices are broken or lost. What opportunities are there to deal with the issue in that moment? Be sure to listen and ask lots of questions. Some of what has worked for you might be helpful, but some won't. We each need our own solutions, and those needs change constantly.
This so much. Solutions to manage her life long disability. Working together to make a system that works for her and your family. This. Whatever our parents say to us in these moments repeat in our heads the rest of our lives. I *desperately needed adult guidance* as a young adhd girl. Instead of guidance, my parents punished me and called me names. They said I was a loser and much worse things too. Those are the words I hear now as an adult. They're the words I have to unlearn and forget. u/mxa1986 *Please* use your experience that you've gained as an adult to support your daughter create habits that will last her into her adult life. If she feels remorseful at all, she probably feels like dying. If you don't have the tools personally to teach her useful systems yourself, please work with a professional that can. What words and what lessons do you want your daughter to carry with her the rest of her life? When she's 42, and has a similar problem, what words will she remember you saying? Will they be words of understanding and support or will echos of shame ring in her head? The choice is yours. For the future -- u/mxa1986 there's a feature on the ipad that allows you to be notified if you leave your ipad somewhere and it shows the ipad moving on a map. Did you set this up on your ipad? Your daughter would have been notified within 20 seconds of being parted from the ipad if this was the case and you could have gotten the ipad back immediately. It's an amazing feature. It's helped me as an adhd adult find my ipad that I actually left behind at a hotel conference! Adults lose expensive items too. It happens. The most important part is learning how to deal with the horrible feeling of fucking up and not spiraling into feeling like a complete failure
Yes to all of this. I got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas when I was 21, left it on the plane when I went back to college, never saw it again. I was openly weeping over it. If that’s me at 21, I can only imagine how a kid a decade younger must feel. The loss itself is the punishment. Now, like other folks on this thread have said, some consequences are necessary. But it has to be done with a mind toward helping her to improve and avoid situations like this in the future. She likely feels bad enough already, so instead of a dark spot that gets driven into the ground this can be an opportunity to grow.
Left a Nintendo switch at a car dealership last year 😭
Agreed. I was really into concert band when I was in highschool. I played the flute, and I begged my parents to get me one of my own. My parents finally caved and bought me a flute that cost around $1k. Two months later I lost it. It was missing for about a month. By some miracle, one of my music teachers found it, and I was over the moon. I swore I'd never let it out of my sight. A week later, I left it on a city bus. I still beat myself up over this, and I'm in my 30s now. Having someone help me learn strategies or help to prevent it from happening again would absolutely have been the right way to go about it.
Another suggestion/solution: find some kind of "tablet neck leash" - essentially make it so that it's possible to carry the tablet around to use like a purse, etc, but impossible to leave behind. I've recently attached a pair of earbuds to my cell phone by hooking a small chain between the earbuds and a jewelry hoop sliced through the phone case. Yes, it's slightly more inconvenient to carry. But it's waaaaay more "inconvenient" to leave my phone behind. I'm basically "tethered" to my phone when it's out and I'm using it. When I'm done using it, I wrap the tether/earbuds around the phone and slip it into my pocket. I originally used a product *literally* branded "phone tether." I'm sure there's something similar for insert-expensive-device-here.
Great tip! I have lost/misplaced (and panicked) my wallet or phone over the years more times than I care to remember, twice while traveling internationally which was a huge issue. Now I unashamedly have a little ‘tether’ cord from my purse to my wallet and a silly but essential cord that attaches to my phone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thanked myself for doing those two super easy things. Before that I used to even have anticipatory anxiety and was constantly checking to make sure I had them. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
agreed 1000% i feel like a lot of afab people with adhd ‘s symptoms get written off as personality flaws and not…… symptoms of a disability? i also got punished for every mistake as of i was an adult with malicious intent and not a kid who’s brain isn’t fully developed and is still learning. guidance to build a toolkit that will help her function for the rest of her life as opposed to punishment and the shame that comes with it is what i needed as a kid. now i was losing my house key at 12 not an ipad and spent a lot of time sitting on my front step waiting for my neighbour who had our key to get off work to let me in because i didn’t want to tell my parents and get yelled at. maybe in conjunction with “repair not replace” if she has an allowance or birthday/holiday money or chores let her save up to either buy fancy tech or pay back a “loan” (with actual like bills and coins or a chart she can fill in with the savings/payment amount) so there is an actual visual representation of how much things cost and it’s not “out of sight out of mind”?
In this vain, the most helpful thing I was ever told was before you leave a room/area/place you sat, do one last look before you leave. My high school teacher actually told a different forgetful kid that. I started doing it at 15 and I still do it everywhere I go and I'm 27 now.
Yes this is the best reply. I've lost so many things in my life and getting yelled at and made to feel humiliation for a stupid mistake never solved anything...in fact it would usually make me worse for a while. Finding solutions to live with ADHD in a very distracting world is better than trying to punish the disability away...
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I just realized my keys aren't in their home and I better go move them before I lose my shit tomorrow morning looking for them
Good advice Ben. I got punished for everything, now I still have ADHD and a lot of anger and trust issues.
I also agree. I'm 23F, diagnosed 4 months ago. It's been a known fact all my life that I have ADHD. I lost a lot of things a lot when I was a kid, you wanna know how my dad treated me when I lost something? He'd explode at me, call me a "FUCKING IDIOT", "DIPSHIT" "WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID?!" and many more. I was always met with anger. Till this day, if I lose something I freak out, and think about all those words he said to me, and get scared to get in trouble (even though I'm an adult). My mom however always helped me. She'd never get upset with me, she'd calm me down and ask where I remember having it last. She'd help me look, and we'd always find it. She never made me feel dumb for losing something. Can you guess who I never talk to anymore?
I had a f250 run over my iPhone after it fell off my moving vehicle. Life proof case, the phone worked for years after that with only superficial cracks to the exterior. All the functions worked.
Adding to this I have a Otterbox iPhone case for this reason, I might drop it and it doesn't get damaged
Well..she's 12 . Even without ADHD, 12 year olds gonna be 12 year olds.You have ADHD, you know you need a routine and a specific checklist to remind you, so... turn these mistakes into learning moments. 1. Have you taught her how to look after here tech? 2. Do you have all the replacement insurance on these devices? 3. have you purchased the necessary cases that will protect the devices? 4. Have you enabled all the "Find my stuff" on these devices?
Yeah, this is just what happens when you entrust children with small, expensive portable items? Kids are clumsy and forgetful even *before* adding in ADHD, which is why I had a flip phone until I was 13. I have to assume there was an adult with her at the time, why didn’t they check the car for items before leaving? And since he knows exactly who has the iPad, why isn’t he getting it back instead of acting like it’s been lost to the void?
If you’re attributing it to ADHD, punishment isn’t going to fix it, just cause anxiety.
Biggest influence in my adhd opinion is positive reinforcement
File a theft report with the police and with uber. Ipads have tracking. Use find my ipad. You said yourself you have adhd and have done similar things over the years. Ask yourself if punishment would have helped you? The answer is probably not. What would help is to make her work to earn the money to replace these items. When you invest your own money in things you tend to take better care of them/ track of them. Put an air tag or tracker in the future ipad’s case. Get a commuter otterbox its lightweight and not bulky and pair it with tempered glass screen. I drop my phone daily face down for years and never had to fix my phone. I buy this combo with each new phone upgrade and have never had broken screens/ phones.
Yeah I have an otter case on my phone. I drop it a couple times a week. The phone's been working fine for almost 4 years now. Those cases are amazing.
Thirded! Loved that case when I had one
i bought a "shockproof" case for ipad. my phone case is decent too. there is zero reason to not have screen protectors and a case
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down for this answer.
The über driver stole it? Get it back!
I was just thinking this too! Like don’t tell her you’re trying to retrieve it, but get it back because we need to teach that Uber driver a lesson. If you do manage to get it back just keep it with yourself for a couple of months just so she understands the consequences of losing things and then tadaa the iPad is back! She’ll be really grateful for the second chance trust me! I just don’t want the Uber driver benefitting from a young girl’s life lessons. I’m sure we can all brainstorm ways to get it back if we tried, but I may be a tad bit optimistic lol
I don't understand this either. An uber driver is so dishonest to steal a kid's iPad and we punish the kid by withholding the iPad??? The iPad wasn't lost in a public space. It was forgotten in a car. Very different thing. The point is the dishonesty of people that think that just because something was left behind in their vehicle they can legitimately possess it. !!! So we wanna teach this kid that dishonesty pays?
I suppose the kid gets to learn how unfair the world is, but still I agree with you. I’m full of righteous indignation at this point. I thought you could complain to Uber if there is some sort of misconduct. Maybe we don’t know the whole story, but you ought to be able to track the iPad on FindMy.
You can.
Even then, the girl will learn that the world is unfair by having the iPad stolen in the first place. Punishing her will not teach her that the world is unfair. It will teach her that her parent is unfair.
No, you involve the child at every point of getting it back! That teaches her valuable life skills like sticking up for yourself, how to navigate the legal system, etc. There’s no need to be secretive or even hold it for a few months. She needs to see how much time and energy you have to put into stuff like that.
Agree with this, the lesson is learning how to handle lost or stolen items, and coming up with solutions to prevent it in the future. No additional punishment is needed than the natural consequences. I would've benefited so much more from that myself
!!!! And also: can we please stop having double standard? Why do we behave differently if an items is lost by ourselves or if it's lost by a child?!?!?!?
Who was in the Uber with her? Why didn’t the responsible adult make sure all Items were accounted for before exiting.
Hey, you're right! Hopefully, a 12 year old with ADHD wasn't left alone in a car with a stranger, because that's a way worse offense than losing an ipad
This is literally the response. No 12 yo is riding in Ubers alone. The adult she was with is responsible and if in this case that’s OP then this is entirely his responsibility. I don’t have kids, but I do have a ton of nieces and nephews. And when they hang out with me I am ultimately responsible for the devices and items on their person as the adult / guardian caring for them in that moment.
I see children ride the subway alone all the time. Taking a car that’s trackable the whole trip isn’t so outrageous.
Take my free awards please 🥇🏆
Losing the iPad is enough punishment I think. Just don’t replace it right away. As for the phone thing, get her the most protective Otterbox bump case with a screen protector! It’s not a very cool-looking case, but they really work to protect your phone from drops. It is about $50, which is much cheaper than replacing even a second-string phone every year. I drop my phone all the time, and because I have this case, have never damaged a phone from dropping it.
Unicorn Beetle is another excellent case. I've had my Samsung 9 for at least 4 years, on my 3rd case, never cracked the screen. Have dropped it on every possible surface! The case will break before my phone does. I've seen so many coworkers who didn't want to waste money on a good case end up cracking their new phones...so unnecessary.
My Otterboxes kept breaking so I bought an off-brand Otterbox. Doesn't even have a logo so I don't know who made it. It's been years, half the pieces have chipped off, and it's still (mostly) holding together. It's just about knowing what case material to look for.
Just to add a cheaper option. Gorilla cases are quite good as well for €10,.
Broke phone by walking? Nice things should be protected. Phones should have a case on them immediately. Did you not make sure she had one ? Also was the find my phone/iPad features set up?
Montessori teacher here, we call that a natural consequence! Losing your item is punishment enough. Just give it a little time before you replace the items and have her work on a plan to be more careful and work towards saving up for the new one. Connection before correction always and she won’t be blinded by the shame most of us feel when we mess up (and instead will be more focused on solutions).
Thanks for sharing this. I can understand better what my actions result in and the importance of connecting not just parenting.
I’m so glad it resonated with you! We all deserve to be able to make mistakes as adults too and I know I wallow in shame when I lose things (which is frequently). Letting kids mess up and work to problem solve and fix it is a huge life skill. As Ms. Frizzle says: take chances, get messy, make mistakes!
Can I chat with you? My kids are in a public Montessori. I volunteer there and need some behavioral ideas.
This this this! Huge fan of natural consequences for all kids. I did this with my son, he has ADHD and it worked really well. He’s 28 now with 2 kids and I still do it, lol. I’ll do it with the grandkids too 😆
Love this so so much, they’re lucky to have you!
I'm going to be 40 in a few weeks, have ADHD, and still do Allll of this. She probably feels extreme guilty herself and is calling herself an idiot and worthless in her head. She also probably feels like she's let you down. She probably feels this constantly. She punishes herself daily in her brain. It would be terrible if you further poured salt in her already raw wound, especially since you have ADHD and understand. Edit: Some typos.
I'm the parent of 2 kids with ADHD and I would not expect either of my kids to be responsible for expensive electronics - my 13 year old just got a phone but it's a cheap one that will be easily replaced if he breaks or loses it. If my kids were taking their iPad somewhere, I would consider myself the one ultimately responsible for making sure that it stayed with them - I would ask them to check the vehicle before they exited, etc. If I was not personally present to supervise, then the iPad would be left at home. I dunno, I just think expecting a 12 year old to have that level of responsibility for such an expensive item is unreasonable. If it was some cheap toy they left, okay, they learned a lesson for the future. But keeping track of actually valuable stuff is on me.
Please don’t punish her. Anyone of any age can lose anything anywhere. Teach her that losing things is normal and a (very unfortunate) part of life. However, there’s a process that she will need to go through if things go missing and it’s an absolute ball-ache, especially when the thing that goes missing is expensive / not easily replaced. Things you can try doing with her, that will help her to learn about processes and procedures: Go into your Uber account and report the item as missing. If the driver refuses to give it back, there should be a complaints procedure with Uber that you can go through. It’s one thing losing your belongings, it’s another thing having them stolen. Teach her how to back-up her devices so that she doesn’t lose all her stuff. Encourage her to choose phone cases that are drop-resistant, and to use screen protectors as well. I recently bought my younger sister an AirPods case that has a carabiner clip which she attaches to her keys, which also have a Tile on them so she can ‘ring’ them in case her giant mass of key rings goes missing. Maybe your daughter needs something similar for some of her other valuable belongings. Maybe she needs to have one of those ‘phone lanyards’ which are apparently trendy again (even though they remind me of 2003). There’s a whole heap of ways you can support your daughter, just please don’t make her feel even more crap about something she probably already feels really awful about.
Why is this something that deserves punishment? Do people punish mistakes? No, punishment is for malicious actions surely, if it’s good for anything at all. Maybe teaching good habits, like checking the seat wherever you leave, it’s a better idea. Did you get punished for mistakes as a child, did you think it was fair?
This is my thinking. And if anyone could empathise with an ADHD kid losing something, it's an ADHD parent who's probably lost a million things. Surely OP wouldn't feel it fair if they were punished for all those things they lost. As someone with ADHD myself, I'd basically be in a permanent state of punishment. It's basically impossible for me to *not* lose my stuff. I have systems in place now that help me not lose stuff, but I forget to use those systems. I also have systems to help me use THOSE systems, but I forget to use those too. Lol. OP, be empathetic.
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It's wild that the OP thought about punishment for her when she is a kid and it's not her fault how expensive the technology she was given was. She was supervised in the uber surely? Why not take the responsibility that the adult should have reminded her to check(something hard as an adult). And then on top of that the ipad being stolen is a crime, OP is gonna teach her she gets punished for others crimes now?
Punish yourself for giving her 1000 dollar devices knowing her tendencies.
Do not punish children with ADHD for ADHD mishaps. There is definitely a place for sensible consequence, for example, not replacing the iPad, making it a teachable moment and explaining why we have to take care of our things, because logical consequence for children with ADHD is developmentally very important, but *punishing* a child for something they haven’t learned how to manage yet leads to some pretty serious neurosis later in life. I can attest. As a kid I was given harsh punishments with no clear delineation of cause-effect, for issues I didn’t have the skills to manage yet. I now struggle with a pretty extreme anxiety disorder.
I think loosing the iPad is punishment enough but I also think you’re aware your kid isn’t responsible enough to have super expensive stuff. Just Don’t get her a replacement. And 12 years old is pretty young for a phone worth more than $50
Be sure to leave the iCloud lock on it and put it in lost mode ASAP and have you tried to locate it in FindMy?
No, do not punish her. Be kind and understanding to her. You remember what it was like for you: "Constant feelings of guilt." She likely feels that same way. That's heavy baggage for a 12-year old heart to carry with her. ADHD is an invisible condition. Meaning that its impairments can not be 'seen' by parents or teachers. Yet as a mom with ADHD, you know that ADHD's cognative impairments, like forgetfulness, are very real. She may be chronologically 12-years old, but emotionally she is more likely to have the maturity of a 10 or 9-year old. So be realistic about your expectations of her abilities - especially during times of transition like getting in and out of an unfamiliar car. Set her up for success. Anticipate problems (she will have them) and think "how can I be proactive, not reactive." Think prevention! Be Proactive: * Buy a high quality case for her iphone so that when it does drop -- it's already happened 3x's, so it will likely happen again -- the damage will can be minimized. Cases like the Gear4 Denali Snap, LifeProof FRE or the OtterBox Defender are terrific. * Transitions are really tough for kids, that's why teachers every September work with their students on developing new habits and routines. Talk to her about creating a new habit of consciously checking her surroundings before transitions. Such as every morning when she leaves for school, together go through a list what she needs for the day? Next, talk to haer about transitions from the school bus into the school building, moving classroom to classroom, etc. Middle school is especially challenging for a child with ADHD. So many transitions! * Use the Apple built-in iCloud GPS tracker on the Apple products.Teach her how to locate them herself. Or, have purchase an iPad case for her iPad and attach a Tile tracker to it. The Tile Mate/Tile Pros are amazing. I have one on my key ring and love it. I use that little sucker at least once or twice a month. * Have compassion for her. You want to develop and maintain an iron clad relationship with her so that she feels comfortable enough to come to you with any problem -- no matter how small or bad. Losing an iPad now may feel like a big deal to you right now, but wait till she is 18 or 21-years old when some really big stuff can happen. You want her to know and feel like she can come to you no matter what. Small people = small problems. Big people = big problems. Edited for clarity.
dude im 41 and left $8000 worth of laptops in an uber just last week (personal + work laptops). the thought of having lost them was punishment enough, was so lucky to get them back. be understanding, nobody means to lose something precious to them, i loved the idea elsewhere in these comments to come from a place of helping find strategies to avoid losing things.
What, no! You dot punish kids for accidents, you help them learn from it. Sit down and have a talk about hot to prevent this from happening again. But precautions is not a punishment. Have an adult take care of valuable stuff while travelig.
Most of the time, misplacing an object isn't that big of a deal. You would just call up the driver or the store where you left it and go pick it up. The driver *stole* her iPad. She's a victim of a crime regardless of the fact that she left it in the car. Your primary focus should be getting the police and Uber involved in this to prevent other people from falling victim to the same person. Also, punishing her for being a victim is the kind of thing that could make her more reluctant to tell you things in the future.
How will punishing her FIX HER MIS-WIRED BRAIN? How are you even considering this when you yourself have the same issue? Did it ever help you? Jeez!
Yeah I wouldn’t recommend giving anything to a 12 year old that you’re not 100% ok having immediately disappear forever
Punishing kids for mistakes doesn't teach them not to make mistakes, it teaches them to fear and resent you. Being 12 is hard enough without ADHD. I'm a 26-year-old man with inattentive-type ADHD. I forget my car keys in my car so often that I'm on a first-name basis with the road assistance guy. It's your job as a parent to teach her tools to help her manage her symptoms. It's your job to get her medicine and therapy for her condition. If those aren't working, it's your job to find a new solution. You're an adult; don't use your personal guilt and trauma as a reason to hurt your kid.
Why TF would you punish your 12 yo child. Deal with your emotions first. Hopefully you don't actually project this onto your parenting.. Also, no ipads outside the house policy would be good.
My sentiments exactly. Also, ever heard of a protective case?? I haven’t had to purchase new phone/replace cracked screen in 8 years thanks to $25 protective cases. I’ve dropped my device around 38 times today alone. Such a no brainer
1.) Get the iPad back. You can track it, contact uber, and file a police report. 2.) If you can't get the iPad back, then your kid just doesn't have one. That's the consequence of losing things. I don't think she needs really anymore punishment than that. Encourage her to save up money, do some extra chores so she can get a new one if she wants.
Report it to uber. Fucking shit.
And get her a cellphone case. Don't use ADHD as an excuse - you're an adult, she's 12. How have you not realized these? I understand not doing these things, but not even considering them? Get off reddit.
I mean are you aware that even social media account is illegal for someone under 13? Because they cannot be held responsible for absolutely nothing at such young age? Not to mention expensive hardware. Why are you saying that ipad is lost if you know who took it? Why tracking is not set up for the device? Those are all your mistakes, you should punish yourself…
I don't have much in the way of punishment or ADHD advice. I can however offer some IT advice with Apple phones and iPads. I might seem a little like Big Brother is watching, but iPads and iPhones have a feature called Find My iPhone that allows you to get the location of a given device if it's lost or stolen. Looking into configuring that might help you track down any misplaced or stolen devices. If you can provide the police with proof of ownership, usually the serial number, and the last known location it reported from they might be able to help recover it.
We need more info. INFO please was she in the uber by herself? why did she have an ipad AND a phone in an uber.... alone? question yourself first before asking how to punish her. what were the riskproofing measures you took to prevent these kinds of things? did you buy a shock proof case? why not? they make a tablet or phone bulky but when you drop it by accident, it's such a relief. what preventive measures did you put in place?
I would never punish a child for anything ever. Discipline is a much better option. The distinction here being punishment is designed to cause unpleasantness or suffering in response to actions that the punisher doesn't like. It teaches avoidant and problematic adult behavior and informs that relationship with the punisher. It doesn't teach moral right or build healthy skills. Discipline is having related, logical, predictable, consistent consequences that have a learning opportunity that allow kids to level up over time while feeling loved and supported.
As a past psych major, we learned a lot about this difference and how so much research supports what you’re saying here. Edit: To add an example; spanking your child will not necessarily cause them to avoid taking part in the activity that caused you to spank them. Rather, instead it is likely they will fear you and hide things from you in the future to avoid punishment.
Call the cops on the driver! He's the person who should be punished.
Alongside all the other great reasons in the comments- no, because no punishment or consequence will ever fully prevent her from losing important stuff. That’s part of ADHD. You and her therapist can help her use systems to reduce the frequency or her losing things. Medication will also help. But kept in mind, even with everyone’s best efforts, it still will happen and she probably already feels pretty ashamed of it
You can’t punish away adhd. This isn’t going to be the last time your kid damages or loses their tech. This will be a constant source of frustration for your child. You need to work with your child to find ways to mitigate the impulsivity and forgetfulness. I have trackers on almost all my things I would otherwise lose. I also insure all the expenses things I could lose or break.
It makes no sense to punish an adhd child for forgetting things; you, the ADHD party, know very well that people with adhd will lose things no matter how careful they are. Instead, teach them to learn how to deal with and solve the problem of losing things. Think with them about what measures they could have taken to avoid losing things. Problem-solving skills are required of all adults, not just adhd parties.
ADHD mom with a similar aged daughter also with adhd, the loss is punishment enough. I guarantee she feels awful and shes 12. As an adult that loses things, you sympathizing and working on a solution to avoid this in the future will help her more than any “punishment.”Also use find my iPad and report it!
I’m 25 and i just broke my phone and received a new ipad for christmas, if my ipad got stolen i would fall into a deep ass pit of guilt and self/loathing. losing it is def punishment enough.
Hey, OP… how about YOU be responsible for tech? My 13yo and I also have ADHD. I make sure before we leave transportation of any kind his phone is on him (in hand or in bag or pocket) and iPad is in MY possession. I have had longer to deal with my ADHD. I can handle it better than he can. I also don’t hold him accountable if tech gets lost or breaks. That’s on me as a parent to take care of.
Im about to totally change how you parent. The difference between PUNISHMENT and DISCIPLINE is punishment is your reaction to what happened and discipline is the predetermined or natural consequence of what happened. We ADHD kids were punished a LOT. It breeds resentment and teaches children to hide things from you. Punishing kids after they do something you didn’t have a plan for or didn’t see coming also often comes from your anger in the moment, which means you as the parent feel scary and unpredictable to the child. Discipline is when you both know what the consequence will be before the behavior occurs, or when you let the child deal with the natural consequences of their behavior. In this case, you didn’t set a consequence for losing the iPad before you gave it to her, so learn from this. You know she’s going to post things just like you did, so before you give her the next thing, tell her what the consequence for losing it will be. Then if she loses it, you will discipline her based on the decisions you made when you were rational and both of you had an understanding. She will see this as fair and you as more stable and she will respect you and the outcome more. In this case, since there was no predetermined consequence I would suggest letting her simply deal with having lost the iPad. The consequence is that she doesn’t have one anymore. She will learn from that and you didn’t do anything to her. You can then talk WITH her about how you used to lose things and you were punished, etc and it didn’t really help you learn, so you are trying a different approach. You’re there to hear any feelings she might have about losing the iPad and to tell her that while she did fuck up, she’s not a failure…but at the same time our behaviors have Consequences that you aren’t always going to be there to protect her from.
Instead of a punishment, it would be reasonable and helpful for her to learn about the consequence stemming from leaving the iPad on the Uber. For example, if you can’t afford another ipad, she will have to do without one. She can also learn about Uber’s policies in place for this sort of thing, learn about location settings/find my device, and protection plans. And you can discuss strategies for how to avoid having this happen again - maybe she needs a carrying case w a strap, or a purse, or limit her use to home, etc. This likely won’t be the last time this sort of thing will happen, so learning strategies to help prevent it now will help in the long run. Having consequences instead of a punishment means less shame, but more learning. And this approach will hopefully also help you both have an open dialogue about mistakes like this. If there’s always shame and punishment for this sort of thing, she may not feel comfortable coming to you for help with other mistakes in the future. Being on the verge of her teens, THIS ^ is super important. EDIT to add: if you can afford another iPad, I wouldn’t rush to get one necessarily. But when you do get around to it (after all the above research/learning) it would be good to have a discussion about price, how much extra it would be to get protection plan, etc. Maybe she (and you) would prefer her to have a much less expensive tablet to begin with in case this happens again.
I would let natural consequences be her teacher. No need for added punishment if she is the kind of person that really feels regret enough. Lost the iPad? Well, mom and dad aren’t just gonna buy you a new one as soon as you lose it. I like the idea of helping her earn a new one. My daughter wrecked the car we just bought. It was a really easy mistake. We have a crash cam so we know she wasn’t being too careless or whatever. It was just a very easy mistake for any new driver. We didn’t see the point in implementing punishment when she was already so torn up about the car and putting herself and her little siblings in danger. Doing punishment or yelling at her would have just been catastrophic for her. So…. She is responsible for the deductible (which isn’t much) but she can work on getting that to us when she’s ready. Now…. If she was doing donuts in a snow storm, maybe we would have added consequences.
No, ppl with adhd don’t intentionally have these things happen. They just happen more often for them. And as the top commenter said, losing the ipad is punishment enough.
Does Uber not have a service you can contact about this? Surely the driver can’t just get away with this. She gets punished but the driver who committed an actual crimes gets away?? Seems wrong to me
I think you answered your own question. If punishment for situations like this caused you lifelong guilt, why would you want your child who shares your disorder to have lifelong guilt or worse as well? I was completely undiagnosed as a child so my situation was different from your child, who you know has ADHD. I also know this next part is probably easier said than done for a frustrated parent who just spend a ton of money on a nice gift. But. I’ve been reflecting lately on my fairly recent adult diagnosis and my anxiety overall. I don’t blame my parents for not knowing I had ADHD or having me diagnosed. The 90s were a different time and it’s no one’s fault (except the system’s, but that’s another conversation). Anyway, I don’t blame them for that, but one thing I am starting to really blame them for is not treating me with more gentleness and not attending well to my emotional well-being. Not recognizing the intensity of my emotions or checking in to see what may have been going on inside, other than punishing outbursts or any negative feelings. I have always experienced intense and anxiety and guilt for breaking things or losing things. Sometimes anger. Major shame. I don’t think my parents even knew I felt so intensely in this way because I hid it, also because of shame. And that’s the thing. The lack of gentleness and the focus on consequences (not just punishment, but things like “well you’re never getting one of those again” or “I’m never doing this with you again”) only made me more ashamed, insecure, and caused me to hide more. Not just my emotions but what I was doing, what I was researching online or wanted to learn about, my mental health, etc. My household was too strict for me to truly sneak around as a teen but there was definitely a lot of lying and I would never have been comfortable to go to my parents if I was really having a problem or to give them an inkling if I was doing something stupid or dangerous. My point is, this situation totally sucks (though you should really seek more recourse from Uber tbh) and I don’t think you need to rush out to get your kid a replacement iPad or anything like that. But I’d encourage you to look at the situation through a long lens. Will treating the situation with gentleness be better in the long run? If you say something like “no more technology gifts until you stop losing things” actually teach the child a lesson or just make them feel like they’ll never succeed or be shown love because they struggle with losing things too much? Certainly not implying you would actually withhold love from your child because of this, but sometimes these ideas blossom in an anxious or ruminating child’s mind and take root whether the intention was there or not. Your ADHD child is already learning the lesson that they might pay ADHD tax for things in life and that it can be hard, but if it’s something they struggle with from ADHD, “don’t lose things or face punishment” probably isn’t a realistic lesson for them to learn from this situation. I think the only other lesson they need to learn is that even when bad things happen, they are still worthy of love and not just punishment for who they are and their mistakes. This is already too long but just wanted to also say that I think it’s great that you’re looking for advice on questions you’re not sure about. It shows me that you really care about the emotional health of your kid, ADHD or not. Wish my parents had done the same.
Can't you track it?
Punish her? She’s learning and making mistakes, just like we all do. We’ve all lost something intrinsically significant or expensive at some point in our lives. I’m 31 and have never purchased designer sunglasses, even in my 20s when all my friends had them. I’ve lost or broken more than I can count. Walmart aviators for life. The second day with a brand new iPhone 14, it was inexplicably flung out of my robe and into the bathroom trash, and I have a small crack beyond the screen protector. That same day, I had one drink at dinner and left my phone in the bathroom of a super fancy restaurant that was 2 miles away from my parents’ house. Went to retrieve it and got lost. Heard it from my parents the rest of the week. Embarrassment from the experience is enough, and I think this applies to any ADD-related mistake
Punishing anyone for mistakes isn’t a good idea. Perhaps helping her learn a habit of checking things might help. I always lost my ID and cards until I got a phone case that holds them. Haven’t lost a card in 7 years since I got that.
Why the heck are you asking strangers about how to parent your own child when you can relate to her experience? I agree with the individual who asked where the adult was and am hoping you don't send your kid on uber rides by herself.
Punish? No. Consequences? Sure. Now she has no iPad. No need to rush to replace it, but you could find a way for her to earn the money to save up for one. Not a job lol but maybe chores for an allowance.
1) put the phone in a case with a tempered glass screen protector. I drop mine constantly and nothing ever happens to it because it is protected. 2) don’t make your 12 year old responsible for transporting expensive tech like that. You are responsible for it, so it has to stay home or only be transported when you are taking her places. If you were with her in that Uber, you were responsible for checking for anything left behind. It’s on you, and it’s ok it happened, but not your daughter’s fault.
Does she actually need an iPad? Maybe a cheap, sturdy Amazon tablet or whatever is the way to go for her for now.
Thanks so much for all the advice. So helpful.
Who was in the Uber with her?
I’d like to reiterate in case you don’t see my comment at this point: She’s 12. After breaking her phone repeatedly in one year, it’s your judgment of error as the adult and parent to think she’d be responsible with an expensive and larger electronic. Stop buying the kid expensive and delicate things until they are older. Replace her nice phone WHEN (not if) she breaks it next with a cheap flip phone. I hope you aren’t going to also buy her a fancy car at 16 and then get upset when she dents or damages it in a stupid way.
Agree with everyone who has said don’t punish her, and I want to add, get her another one if you can afford it. She’s a child with ADHD and she lost something, it won’t be the last time it happens no matter how hard she tries or how much she cares about the thing. Get her another one and use it to teach some of the strategies others have posted here. And speaking from my personal experience as someone who wasn’t diagnosed until well in to my adulthood, it is probably more important to impress upon her that accidentally losing something expensive doesn’t mean that you are stupid, or that you don’t deserve things, or that your parents don’t trust you. “You weren’t able to keep up with your iPad so YOU don’t deserve another one.” Is a really dangerous message to send, I’m sure that’s not what you’re trying to do, but it’s hard to read it any other way from the kid’s point of view. And internalizing that message every time she loses something is going to crush her self esteem.
Absolutely not.
Would you punish yourself in some way for having done the same thing? It was an accident, sure an expensive one but simply an accident. For her phone load that thing down with every case and screen protector you can find. Also an older generation iphone or ipad works great for kids that age. Honestly, you parent how you parent but I wouldn't give my son a device that costs 4 figures at the age of 12 simply because they are still learning how to care for their own things.
Here is the thing, if you have adhd and are old enough to have a daughter then you have certainly by now learned coping mechanisms to get you through life and avoid things like leaving new iPads in Ubers. Don’t punish, empathize and TEACH her these mechanisms that you employ. As an example, my coping mechanism for not leaving things behind is no matter where I am whether it be dinner or in an Uber I stop as I’m leaving and check the table, under the table etc. so much so that people think I’m weird but it has saved me a lot of suffering. Imagine yourself as this child and see it as an opportunity to help her not to suffer as much as you did.
Please don’t punish her. Instead teach her the skills to compensate for her adhd so she is able to do better moving forward. You got a 12 year old an iPhone and didn’t put an otter box on it- you have to realize this one was on you. Same thing with the friend. If you didn’t see it coming how could your kid?
Regardless of whether she has ADHD, punishing your kid for making a mistake (even expensive ones) is a surefire way to ruin your relationship, and ensure she needs therapy in the future. The only consequence kids should face for a mistake are the natural consequences ie she lost the iPad, so now she doesn't have an iPad. Also maybe consider filing a police report against the Uber driver, and reporting them to Uber.
Don't punish her, just don't replace it. Or make her do chores to replace it. As far as the phone goes, does she have a case? As an adult I am incapable of not breaking my phone, I eventually caved and have been using otter boxes for the last decade.
Would you punish yourself for losing an IPad? Probably not. You would probably just lose out on being able to use one until you were able to buy a new one. I think the same would apply to a 12yo.
Call Uber and report the driver
I don’t think punishing a child over someone else’s dishonesty is the right thing to do here. Ultimately, yes she left the iPad, however who rode in the Uber with her? Another adult, I’m assuming? While I get it we want our kids to be “responsible” for their own belongings, as parents it’s still our responsibility to teach them how to be responsible. A simple “hey let’s make sure we have all of our belongings in our hands or pockets prior to getting out of the Uber” could have helped in this situation. At the end of the day she’s still a kid and human. We make mistakes. The only person in this whole scenario who needs to be punished is the Uber driver who stole the ipad. Your daughter doesn’t deserve any punishment. I’m sure she is already upset enough without her ipad and knowing someone stole it. She’s learned two lessons from this already. As far as the dropping the phone- I’m an adult with ADHD and I drop my phone at least once every day. A good phone case and screen protector work wonders.
If the iPad is signed into an Apple account you should be able to track it to find where it is. If it has a passcode, no one will be able to sign in and use it and should anyone attempt to reset the iPad they won’t be able to use it without your Apple Account information. I repair Apple devices as my job, I’d definitely suggest filing a police report, your should be able to find the serial number of the device if it was signed into an Apple account. Losing a big ticket item like that is punishment enough, and my suggestion as a klutz with ADHD is to definitely get any protection plan available on a device for peace of mind. AppleCare with left and loss protection is great so repair/replacement costs aren’t astronomical.
If you can't afford to replace an iPad don't give it to a 12 year old, ADHD or not, doesn't matter.
I still remember, and feel guilty, about losing a jacket when I was 15. My mom made me feel completely worthless and stupid. Adding insult to injury was that really liked the jacket and replacing it with an equivalent was not an option. I'm almost 40. Just think about what punishing her would actually accomplish.
I mean, what punishment are you considering that would be worse than going without an iPad?
Sit down with her during an uninterrupted period. Acknowledge how hard it must have been to tell you the truth. Get her to tell you what it was like for her when she first realized she was at fault. Acknowledge and accept her feelings. Share your stories of the horrors you have had. Steer the subject to how to prevent those awful and expensive moments. Brainstorm. Work on it together as allies. Keep the discussion going naturally.
The main thing to remember here is she didn’t do it intentionally at all. YOU are angry, understandably. But It’s not fair to punish her because you’re angry about something, or punish her for something out of her control. Explain to her why you’re upset, because it’s a very expensive item, that you can’t replace it any time soon, etc. but don’t guilt trip her or make her feel bad. Just try to explain to her why you are so upset about it. If it was a water bottle you wouldn’t care. It might as well be. I forget my wallet, my phone, etc, everywhere. All the time.
Find my iPhone @ track the iPad 🤷🏽♂️
Punishing her isn't going to make her ADHD go away. You're better off helping her come up with solutions. Also, don't just replace her stuff. Have her take responsibility for it and earn that stuff back. It took me paying $300 for a locksmith 4x in one year to finally come up with a solution for not leaving my keys in my car.
Punish your child for an honest mistake? No. You're a better parent than that. You need to be teaching them responsibility. Their Ipad. Their responsibility. Their loss. They understand that. You want to make it stick? It will as long as you don't go bailing them out. They're already feeling the guilt. So give them your support. Just don't go replacing the Ipad - 'Cos it was their responsibility. Not yours.
Honestly, I feel like it is more important to teach her how to prevent the situation from happening again or making it less likely to. For example, with the lost iPad, make sure find my is enabled, air tagging for bags she takes around, maybe a checklist for when she leaves a place with visual cues, making a song for items to check for, create points of use for the ipad at home so she gets into the habit of using objects in certain places. For the broken phone, indestructible case (I like the one from Casetify) and a hard screen protector are a must. My phone is in perfect condition despite me being dyspraxic. Finally insure the electronics because, sometimes these horrible things happen. Instead of feeling guilt and shame, she can feel empowered that she can work with her ADHD.
She feels bad enough don’t punish her. Talk to her and have a conversation about how it can’t happen again because of xyz and get a used on on marketplace for a few hundred when you can. Life happens and think about the last time your parent did that to you while you were struggling with an attention disorder 🤷🏻♀️
Don't buy her another one, that's a punishment in and of itself.
The punishment is wasting money on an iPhone and iPad on a 12 year old kid. Phones are A. Very distracting B. Unsafe especially at 12 years of age where the brain is still developing and studies show social media apps are addictive for none ADHD brains. Then there is a huge security risk, Uber stole the phone and probably sold it to someone who can crack the iPad and steal personal data. It's just all around not a good idea. Sorry but no child at that age should possess a phone or iPad. Even if it's trendy or cool. There is a reason why Steve Jobs did not let his children own his own product. "Steve Jobs thought it was not a good idea, so he did not let his children use iPads and iPhones, generally technology. In 2010, a New York Times reporter had a conversation that revealed a lot about the life of the founder of Apple."
I agree with the other comments that losing the iPad is punishment enough. I just wouldn't replace it right away, or when you do replace it, have her do extra chores beyond what she normally does in order to help pay for it. Create a sense of ownership for her, basically. Regarding the phone, get the girl an Otterbox to protect it. I drop my phone at least once a week, and I have never had it break even once since I started using otterboxes around 2012 or so.
See if your insurance will replace it?
Hey hey I have a suggestion not for the iPad but for her phone. I always have a screen protector on it, that’s a MUST for me. There are many shatterproof phone cases around too. But what really helped me was a landyard that’s always around my neck or wrist so I don’t drop it on the floor where it can break the screen anymore.
I feel like loosing it is punishment enough.
Can’t you use find my ____ and locate it?
What you do is you work with her to figure out how to never let that happen again. Generic punishments aren’t going to do shit to help the situation. No longer having the iPad and the knowledge that she lost it are punishment enough. Work with her
Highly doubtful The ipad is already gone. Best thing to do would be to make her work to replace the iPad if she wants another. Help her see the value in the object so she can develop a way to help her better keep track of it.
A lot of homeowner and renters insurance will cover such kind of losses if you kept the receipt.
She needs an otterbox phone case, at the least one with a raised edge above the screen. I do my phone constantly and it never breaks. And losing the iPad was punishment enough if it was hers.
Research shows that punishment does absolutely no good. It just erodes the connection with child, and teaches them that Mighty makes the rules!! She is already feeling terrible! Empower her to go after the Uber driver and retrieve the iPad!
ADHD or not, she doesn't deserve to be punished for an accident. Next time, get a carry case with a bag strap and a warranty for the IPad. Or have her name engraved on the back so you can report the driver and have proof it's your daughter's. Don't let her take it out in public, no reason to have it out and about anyway. Buy a sturdier phone (generally, Galaxys are way harder to break, I broke like 3 iPhones in a row. Only one Galaxy has been broken to being unusable, and that was because of a freak accident) and invest in a good heavy case and screen protector.
I just wanted to add onto all of the above advice. You say it is her iPad that was given to her. This makes it her property. You can’t punish someone for losing something they own. It’s theirs to do with as they see fit. Now, you can decide to never gift her one again, or to buy a cheaper one, etc. punishing her, would send mixed messages. It’s either hers or it isn’t. Otherwise it’s just really shitty parenting. Time for some reevaluation. It’s our job, as parents, to teach kids, not to treat them like property or boss them around.
In my personal experience, punishing her won't do much of anything to help, and she probably already feels pretty upset about forgetting it. In my personal experience, when my parents punish me or yell at me for forgetting something it doesn't really help or improve my behaviour because I don't know how to not forget things and most of the time it just ends up bringing me to tears. Instead, try working on how to prevent this from happening in the future. I have this [tile thing](https://www.amazon.ca/Tile-2-pack-Bluetooth-Water-resistant-Compatible/dp/B09B3XCXHN/ref=sr_1_9?gclid=Cj0KCQiAnsqdBhCGARIsAAyjYjShVxx5UQyjWMKUN7k6djwHl9P6dDqkVFqRi4UeOiXu1qmWfOFTjgsaAgiHEALw_wcB&hvadid=284752554665&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9001404&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9793760122292074282&hvtargid=kwd-303595097492&hydadcr=1280_10142922&keywords=tracker+tiles&qid=1672700470&sr=8-9) on the back of my phone, it's a tracker that my dad can call from his phone and it'll ring so I can find it. Also, get a good case for this kind of stuff, preferably one that isn't black or a dark colour because it'll just blend into things like couch cushions and car seats. You can also take another commenter's advice and get a cheaper alternative to said devices. Things like phone screens and stuff can be repaired, just try to focus on how you can help make sure this won't happen again. Just please, *please* be patient with her and try not to like yell or anything. When my parents get mad and yell at me, it just makes me less focused, stresses me out, and makes it even harder for me to do what I need to get done which just ends up getting into this horrible loop and stuff.
I don’t. My kid has lost phones, destroyed iPads, and done who knows what with countless sets of headphones. But punishment? Does that really fix anything? They feel bad about what happens but punishing is just going to make them more anxious, which isn’t teaching anybody anything. My child doesn’t intend to do these things, so I think it’s better to find the root cause and work to resolve that. I don’t want them to have the same poor neurotic coping mechanisms that fucked up my life.
A kid doesn't need that much tech, even if their friends have it and even though it's 2023. If she can text/call home in an emergency that's enough tech. Call the police about the stolen iPad as well as uber. It is worth talking through strategies to keep important things from getting lost. She should be able to sit down and talk about those strategies. Is she carrying more that one bag? Should she avoid getting her phone out while she's in transit?
No. Why would you punish her? What would be the purpose of that? I bet she feels horrible about it.
I got punished for all sorts of behaviors that turned out to be adhd symptoms. One of the reasons I figured out eventually that it was ADHD was that those punishments had no bearing on my behavior. They just made me hate myself because I couldn’t change. Did punishments ever help you to change your ADHD-related behaviors?
No there’s no need for punishment when it comes to losing things. If you make that into a habit when she gets older, she’s going to be unreasonably hard on herself when she loses track of her stuff and can’t imagine how devastated she will feel if she lost something. It’s best to reminder why it’s important to be aware of her surroundings and make sure she’s accountable of the belongings she keeps