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My daughter is 5, and is attending an elementary school. My daughter keeps her favorite toy 'pop its' in her bag and take it along to the school and after school.

Today at after school, one of her friends (not best friend but her school mate) played with her toy for some time. Without asking my daughter, the friend took the toy to her home. My child came in asking what to do. She asked if they will bring it back or not.

How should I deal with this? I know she needs this back badly as we bought it few days back from the store.

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confused mommy
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1 Answers1

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This is a great teachable moment, both for your daughter and the other child.

First - talk with her about the risks of bringing things she cares about to school. I would usually not recommend having kids take things they care about to school - not because I think the other kids will be bad per se, but it's just too likely to lose things, accidentally break things, etc. But - it's her choice, for the most part; obviously with your limits preventing her from taking something inappropriate or too expensive to risk. Don't blame her for this happening - it's not her fault! But, she should keep this in mind when making choices in the future.

Second - she should talk to the child tomorrow, and ask her if she brought it back. If not, she should ask if the other child can please bring it back. This is the first step - as it would be for an adult, too!

If it doesn't come back the next day, then it would be appropriate to ask the parents of the child if they could help her out. Don't be confrontational - after all there's a good chance this was accidental, and even if it wasn't, there's no real value in being confrontational. Just ask if they can help her remember to bring back your daughter's toy that she accidentally took home.

If you don't know the parents, you can ask the teacher to help you contact them, or maybe talk to them at pickup if that's possible. Again, not confrontationally - just fixing the problem.

There's a nonzero chance though that the toy is lost - the child may have brought it home and then lost track of it, or lost it in the car or who knows where - it's something that happens with children. If the parents aren't able, or willing, to help you, then you may have to make your peace with the loss, and help your daughter do the same.

One side note: "Pop-its" are very commonly used with children with autism or sensory disorders. If this is why your daughter brings it with her - if it's basically a therapeutic device - this changes things slightly. In that case I would still have her ask the child, but I would also probably involve the teacher - not necessarily to retrieve it, but to watch and help your daughter out in the future avoid issues like this.

Joe
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    And if child (or adult!) is not diagnosed with anything that would make her not neurotypical, but at the same time just needs widgets like that, it would be good to get her checked out. For example, ADHD in girls may show that way. Or it may be nothing, but the sooner you know, the better. – Mołot Oct 08 '21 at 16:59
  • The nonzero chance that the other side claims to have lost the toy also includes the nonzero chance that the child had stolen it. – user21820 Oct 09 '21 at 08:51
  • Disclaimer: I don't have kids. If the parents aren't able, or willing, to help you, then you may have to make your peace with the loss I'm sorry, but while everything else is a good, solid answer, I 100% disagree with this part. While this is indeed a good chance to teach OP's kid about loss, in this case the other kid's parents SHOULD BE ABLE to help. Any parent should be wary about new, unknown toys their kids bring home from school (for a lot of reasons) and if such toy was borrowed or stolen, is their resposibility to make sure their kid returns it to its rightful owner - (cont'd...) – Josh Part Oct 09 '21 at 16:43
  • now, if the kid lost the toy, it's again the parents responsibility to replace it, and handle this situation with their kid as a lesson on how to be careful with other's belongings. And in the case that the parents are UNWILLING to help, this becomes a serious red flag that should be handled by the class' authorities (teacher or principal), as nothing is really preventing this kid to do this again; in fact this could not be the first time this kid does this. I'm not saying that OP should be confrontational, I just say that this shouldn't be a situation to sweep under the rug.
    • – Josh Part Oct 09 '21 at 16:48
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    @JoshPart Sure, the parents should be able to, and maybe they will! But if they don't, what are you going to do, file a lawsuit? No, the school authorities aren't going to get involved in this - maybe for an iPad or something of major value, but for this, they won't do anything beyond maybe pass the question along to the other parent, and tell your kid not to bring toys to school. This sort of thing is super common, and very likely not malicious - kids just aren't careful. There's a good chance the kid doesn't even have the toy anymore, and the parents have no idea about any of this. – Joe Oct 09 '21 at 16:50
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    Do remember that this is a 5 year old, not a 13 year old - it's just not the same ballpark. The question isn't sufficiently specific here, but there's a good chance that nobody realized she took it home (the other kid included) until much later. That happens all the time with five year olds. – Joe Oct 09 '21 at 16:51
  • @Joe just for clarification, my comment was all about the scenario where the parents were unwilling to help. And precisely because these are 5 yo kids, this should not be just overlooked as something "kids do". If this was unintentional/not malicious, then as I said is a great chance to teach both kids about responsibility over their's and other's stuff. If you just overlook it, what you're teaching your kid is that there's nothing wrong with taking/borrowing toys from other kids without consent and then keeping or losing them. For me, that's a big red flag. – Josh Part Oct 09 '21 at 17:20
  • I understand that my comment might be out of scope on the question, as I talk about a situation pretty much out of OP's control. All I say is that telling OP to just take this as a "meh, kids gonna be kids" situation is not really a good advice in an otherwise solid answer. IF the other kid doesn't bring back the toy, and IF the other kid's parents are not willing to do anything, then the advice should be to make the teacher aware of this situation, and the lesson for OP's kid should be both to be more careful, and to stay away from this kid. – Josh Part Oct 09 '21 at 17:32
  • To be clear, when I say this is something 5 year olds do, I mean being careless with their toys. Not intentionally taking things. I don't think, though, that it's something that can or should be escalated if it's a one time occurrence and the parents are unwilling to help; you do have to choose your battles, and there's enough uncertainty that you don't even know for sure they can help. Either way, there's little to no chance the school will help on that front. – Joe Oct 11 '21 at 18:01