<p>Exactly. If only he’d relent and wear his cell phone on his belt. Instead he sticks it along with all the rest of the paraphernalia into his pants pockets. Half the stuff he loses just falls out along the way. Sigh. Let’s see. This summer he has lost his cell phone, a pair of glasses and his ipod. The wallet hasn’t gone missing since about a year ago. Grateful for that.</p>
<p>It’s really cheered me to learn my kid’s not the only one out there . . . and girls, too! I had somehow assumed this was mostly a guy thing.</p>
<p>Worst moment to date was when he lost his wallet and cell phone at an airport during a layover en route home. A real double whammy.</p>
<p>My S’s downfall is that whenever he leaves something somewhere drastic, some ridiculously nice stranger sends it to him, brings it to him personally, or at the very least, tracks him down to call him and say where it is. Left his wallet in Port Authority (!) and a nice woman took the bus to our town and handed it to him, money and everything intact.</p>
<p>@momlive and garland: Alas, in my house, I’m the 50 year old * wife * that’s constantly misplacing and losing things. My H sends his sympathies to the two of you.</p>
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<p>Yep, people sure are nice! I can’t begin to count the number of times through the years that nice cashiers have helped me out by pointing out that I’ve just left my wallet on the counter and other such things. Always makes me smile and reconfirms my innate sense that most people are really * good * most of the time.</p>
<p>To those of you parenting teens and twenties who constantly lose things, I wish I could say it will get better. It might, if you’re lucky. I’ve been misplacing things since high school. Purses never helped since I’d just lose the whole purse. Keys and my cafeteria card in college were the worst for me though. [Funny, I somehow never lost my college id in college.] My H finally got so fed up with me losing and misplacing keys that he bought me a key chain with a clip to physically attach it to my belt loop or my backpack’s zipper pull. That has helped.</p>
<p>The old “put every thing in a magic place” helps some for me. My current problem is that my H doesn’t “approve” of <em>my</em> magic place for some reason and he some times moves my keys and wallet to a more acceptable magic place without telling me …</p>
<p>I could tell many stories as well about my 21 year old. She is very high functioning, and has held positions of enormous responsibility, often beyond her years on a professional level. Very organized with THAT stuff. But with belongings, has lost many things. </p>
<p>This thread caught my eye because just last night, while she is alone in Paris for a week, she lost her debit card.</p>
<p>Are you referring to my son? Which one? My first three are all terrible with their belongings. They’ve lost and forgotten ever so many things. I keep repeating: wallet, keys, cellphone, wallet, keys, cell phone. Found a wallet on the diningroom talbe the other day and it was empty. What he did with his id, cards, etc, I have no idea. I wanted to scream.</p>
<p>I have a cousin who was incredibly absent minded in his youth. He’s now in top R&D strategy at a very tip top technology company. At family reunions, his lovely wife can be heard repeatedly calling "Earth to Steven, Earth to Steven . . . " He has apparently left his children at shopping malls, etc. A good guy but has a lot of trouble focusing.</p>
<p>This past school year, my darling daughter lost her cell phone twice, her wallet twice, and left her purse in a store. She had all returned except one wallet. </p>
<p>Having a boyfriend who calls her on her phone has helped her to keep track of that.</p>
<p>I send fan mail and candy to the university police. I would like it better if when they call with the found phone they would say: “We found a phone and it is in the university police station.” Instead of: “This is the university police…” Aaaaaargh.</p>
<p>My very bright, accomplished 24 yr old grad student son often ‘misplaces’ his phone, keys, etc…he does seem to track them down after a few hours or days.</p>
<p>My wonderful D with special needs, including ADD, NEVER loses anything!<br>
I wonder if after 21 years of all of us reminding her to ‘focus, please focus’ she has decided that we must mean to focus on her belongings! She even helps the rest of us find our missing stuff as though she has taken those mental pictures everywhere she goes. She will also notice a slight change in our home environment (new photo on table, new kitchen towels put out) while everyone else is oblivious.</p>
<p>I have a 14 y.o. daughter who always leaves something wherever she goes. She’s got her heart set on attending nearby U of Michigan, but a huge hectic place like that has way too many places to lose things. I like Davidson College, where almost all the classes are held in one building. You lose something there, you have a manageable number of places to look for it. I also hope she goes to a place with an honor code, so that there’s half a chance that whatever she’s lost will still be there when she goes looking for it.</p>
<p>Schmaltz, my daughter is in Pittsburgh, not as large as U. Michigan, but I can tell you I was shocked that things were returned to her in a city.</p>
<p>I am now grateful that my kids don’t seem to suffer from this affliction. The carelessness of some of the above-mentioned kids would drive me insane.</p>
I disagree that careless implies intentional, but maybe a better word would have been thoughtlessness.</p>
<p>Since I don’t have to deal with this, I’m sure my perspective is skewed, but…</p>
<p>I’m not buying that this is a trait, except perhaps in a very small number of people who have a legit mental problem.</p>
<p>Do these people walk out of the house without shoes on? Do they remember to go to class? Do they remember where they parked the car? If they drove the car?</p>
<p>It’s just not that hard to remember to pick up your phone, or put your wallet back in your pocket. It’s just mental laziness, it seems to me. For whatever reason this stuff isn’t a priority.</p>
<p>I was a very together person, someone who always remembered everything. It wasn’t until I moved to a new country where my PA took care of everything for me. </p>
<p>Today she literally stuffed paperwork into my handbag that I had to take home for my H to sign. I took it out while I was organizing myself and talking to someone before I left. Of course, I walked out without it. So, my theory is when there is someone to remind you to do things, it doesn’t get better, you just become even more forgetful.</p>
<p>I don’t have a 20 year old who loses things constantly (he only loses things occasionally), but I do have an 18 year old that does! And it’s not laziness, she really, truly, tries to keep track of your stuff. She is learning to manage this, with special places, attempts at keeping her room organized etc. One of the best things she has done is get a wristlet. She can keep all her things with her, no separate wallet to lose, and she is very good at keeping track of it. She did once forget it a movie theater, luckily I was with her and sent her back in right away. The main problem is when she puts something down absentmindedly, she really cannot see it. It takes her forever to find something that most people can see right in front of them. </p>
<p>The thing we have the biggest problem with is her cell phone. She takes it out of the wristlet all the time to use it, and then puts it somewhere without noticing. She lost her cellphone in January-it fell out of her pocket when she was walking home from a city bus and she thought she had left it on the bus. Called the bus company etc. Found out a month or so later in the snow in front of our house. Tried the rice trick, but it was ruined. Recently, she thought she had left it at a friend’s cottage, they checked their, checked the car and didn’t see it. I later found if way back under the seat of the car. She once lost a new phone before it was activated. Never found it. Also loses ipods. And yes, she is paying for these replacements herself, she always feels horrible. She is not a lazy person, she is a very smart girl with ADHD who tries her best and is embarrassed to be that person who loses everything.</p>
<p>Is it carelessness, thoughtlessness, a trait, a sign of brilliance? Believe me we’ve pondered this and believe me we’ve tried a lot of tough love with him. He just doesn’t seem to be very tuned into the physical minutiae around him. When he was home for a few weeks this summer, I would ask him to help me by setting the table, grilling the meat, making a salad. My goodness. He’s just really clumsy! No spatial sense whatsoever. Same with things like helping DH move his home office. Simple things like stacking books in a box seem to bewilder him. But then he takes classes in physics, chemistry and does very well. Never asks for extensions on papers. Grades are good. Gets to his jobs on time, seems to be dependable at work. </p>
<p>I do think the proliferation of gadgets in our lives - cell phones, ipods, laptops, flash drives, debit cards, etc along with the general escalation of pace in our lives might underlie a lot of this.</p>
<p>Each of our kids lost one big ticket item (e.g. cell phone) and each paid for the replacement out of their own earnings. They both were MUCH more careful after and neither lost anything again (or if they did, they didn’t bother to tell us because they KNEW we wouldn’t help them out).</p>