Anonymous
Post 01/20/2026 16:42     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
I didn't read the whole thread but you need

CHECKLISTS!

One for morning, one for after school and one before bed. Then you're not reminding for each thing, you're just checking the list. Make then together with your kid and revise them together as needed. Dry erase boards or a laminated page with a dry erase marker can work for younger kids.
Anonymous
Post 01/19/2026 07:48     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Take a hat and gloves is unreasonable. Let him be cold. Just because you want gloves doesn’t mean he does. I’d let that one go and let him experience natural consequences
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2026 20:54     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Remind once then just have them live eight he consequences. My kid went out to the bus without a hat and gloves once. Doesn't forget now. If they don't hang up their towel, they don't get a clean towel. My kid likes home lunch, I'm not washing lunch boxes in the am. So if she doesn't take it out and bring to sink, she's buying lunch at school.
9 is a great age to have these tasks mostly their responsibility with a few reminders.


Yes, I knowingly let him leave without a lunch once last year. School (public) called me and demanded I come drop it off. Teacher mentioned it at conference time too.


Weird. My kid would have just bought lunch. Even if they didn’t have an account the school would have given them a school lunch and billed me. NBD.


+1. Public schools do not demand anyone bring their kid a lunch.
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2026 17:04     Subject: Re:When can I stop supervising and checking
Definitely at a certain age with no accounting for an individual's growth.
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2026 16:33     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
My 11 year old now reliably does all of the things she cares about that affect her. So her bag is always properly packed and she has weather appropriate clothes and her homework is done… but the PJs are on the floor of her room and her dishes might still be on the dining room table. We’ve settled into a once a week or pre-guests bedroom check because we’ve decided the daily struggle isn’t worth it and it doesn’t directly affect us as long as it doesn’t get too bad. There are still constant reminders about dishes and instrument practice. That is all to say, it gets better but it’s also not that your kid is necessarily actually forgetting every time.
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2026 13:48     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Remind once then just have them live eight he consequences. My kid went out to the bus without a hat and gloves once. Doesn't forget now. If they don't hang up their towel, they don't get a clean towel. My kid likes home lunch, I'm not washing lunch boxes in the am. So if she doesn't take it out and bring to sink, she's buying lunch at school.
9 is a great age to have these tasks mostly their responsibility with a few reminders.


Yes, I knowingly let him leave without a lunch once last year. School (public) called me and demanded I come drop it off. Teacher mentioned it at conference time too.


Weird. My kid would have just bought lunch. Even if they didn’t have an account the school would have given them a school lunch and billed me. NBD.
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2026 13:00     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
I have very responsible, straight A, honors/AP teen girls who are 100% in charge of their own schoolwork and even they do not always remember to unpack their lunch boxes until the next morning or will leave stuff out in another room, etc.

Heck even I don’t always do those things immediately. I honestly think you sound rigid and controlling.
Anonymous
Post 01/17/2026 19:14     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Keep holding the line. He will get there eventually.
Anonymous
Post 01/17/2026 07:12     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Remind once then just have them live eight he consequences. My kid went out to the bus without a hat and gloves once. Doesn't forget now. If they don't hang up their towel, they don't get a clean towel. My kid likes home lunch, I'm not washing lunch boxes in the am. So if she doesn't take it out and bring to sink, she's buying lunch at school.
9 is a great age to have these tasks mostly their responsibility with a few reminders.


Yes, I knowingly let him leave without a lunch once last year. School (public) called me and demanded I come drop it off. Teacher mentioned it at conference time too.


Did your kid have money for lunch or did you expect him to go hungry? The latter isn't ok and you should have been called.


NP. What happened to natural consequences? Learning from experience? Personally, if my kid older than first or second grade forgets something and it isn't literally critical to health & safety, they can do without on that day and hopefully realize the importance of bringing their stuff in the future. Absent a medical condition, the worst thing that happens if a kid goes without lunch one day is.... they're hungry, they realize they don't like not having lunch, and in the future they care more about remembering their lunch. I find it ridiculous that the school interfered if it hadn't become a disruptive pattern.


They're hungry, and they disrupt the entire class. The other kids aren't responsible for enduring the natural consequences for your kid.

Anonymous
Post 01/17/2026 07:07     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:So… never? It only stops when they leave the house for college because they aren’t with you physically?


Haha—I’m the PP and I will say leaving the house probably does it. Our senior has done multiple summer programs in other cities and even a monthlong European exchange program and apparently completely had it together while gone.
Anonymous
Post 01/17/2026 07:04     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:You should rephrase this question and repost on tween/teen asking how many people have teens that can do all of things independently.

I have boys in high school and one still struggles with some of these. Talking to other moms several jf his friends do as well.


Yes—it’s highly kid dependent. Our HS senior is just now getting it together on this front. Our sophomore had it together in middle school.
Anonymous
Post 01/17/2026 01:20     Subject: Re:When can I stop supervising and checking
My oldest is 9 and has ADHD, and can’t do most of these things. We have tried all sorts of strategies and I’ve just had to accept it. His six year old brother can manage most of it with minimal reminders. It really sucks but you’re not alone.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 17:51     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
So… never? It only stops when they leave the house for college because they aren’t with you physically?
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 17:44     Subject: Re:When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:Still waiting with my 17yo Dd


Lol.

Have to remind my 13 year old much more than I have to remind my 10 year old Different personalities...

Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 17:25     Subject: When can I stop supervising and checking
Anonymous wrote:DS just turned 9. I feel like multiple times daily I have to remind for every single thing. I have dropped most supervision but have to check later visually. He does have a checklist of items to take to school set up right by his backpack cubby. He doesn’t always check it.

Daily reminders are things like:

-clean up the room you were just in
-turn the lights out
-unpack your backpack (he usually does, but details are lost, like remember to put your lunch box in the dishwasher. Don’t leave the water bottle in the bag - take it out, dump water out, and put by sink so I can wash it).
-hang coat, don’t dump
- pick up dirty clothes and wet towel from bedroom and bathroom
-did you brush your teeth and floss? (Mostly he already has and I don’t have to remind).
-clear your place at the table. No, not on the counter. Scrape it and put in dishwasher
-take a hat and gloves

Are these unreasonable to put on a 9 year old for daily tasks? If I didn’t say these, he’d go to school without his water bottle and hat in 15 degree weather, breakfast dishes piled by the sink, Pjs all over his room, and the lights on in every room of the house. And that’s just the morning. I don’t make him make his bed.


9 and 7 year old and in the same boat. I think I might start doing an allowance system they don’t get if they don’t have these completed