“He loses most worksheets, project rubrics, classwork, etc!”

Everybody, what’s up? This is Seth with sethburler.com. I hope you’re having a great start to the school year.

I have an awesome question from Christy. She says her son is 13, he’s in eighth grade, and he loses most worksheets, project rubrics, classwork, etc. He has a binder with sections for each class. Some things make it in, and many others don’t. When they do make it home, she makes copies of the important stuff he needs for fear of them being lost.

He doesn’t know where the lost things go. Help — he’s missing an important worksheet due tomorrow and word definitions they did in class that he needs to study for a test. How do we prevent him from losing so many papers? What systems work or don’t work? Is this something I should be punishing him for or not?

It’s so frustrating. I hear your frustration. This is a really difficult and complicated issue, and there are a lot of aspects to it. I’ll try to cover some of that and hopefully give you some guidance and solutions that might work for you.

So he’s 13, he’s in eighth grade. Obviously next year in ninth grade things are going to get even more intense, so taking this very seriously is really important. And one of the things I want to mention about that is that you’re not going to be able to make copies forever. You’re going to get even more and more papers next year.

So one of the things I want to mention about getting this done this year is doing the weekly overhaul. It sounds like you’re very involved, and that’s awesome.

With the weekly overhaul (in my blog, I send it out as part of my mini course — I just resent it to everybody actually), what I recommend, if Sunday nights work for you, is that every Sunday night you go over all the systems and do a reset, like you would do on your telephone, but you’re doing a reset of the folders, the planner, and everything.

On that reset night — Sunday night or whatever time you choose — you go over everything with your child with a fine-tooth comb. When I’m working with clients, I do this at least weekly. I go through every single pocket in the backpack. I have them bring everything home from school. I don’t want anything left in the locker or desk, depending on their school situation.

I want everything with us so we can go through it carefully, because they do not track details well, so they need support in that. Especially if they’re going to get penalized at school for missing work, you really need to make sure they have it — but also teach them a system.

So for this whole eighth-grade year, I would do a Sunday overhaul and keep doing it the entire school year. You want to use a gradual release of responsibility, which means week by week, month by month, your child takes more and more responsibility for getting organized.

Of course, your child still needs to spend a lot of time just doing homework and studying right now — probably even makeup work, unfortunately — but over time, they should take more responsibility for organization.

He has a binder with sections for each class, but some things make it in and many don’t. If he’s not required to use binders by the school, I don’t like binders at all. I prefer simple folders.

For a kid like this who loses a lot of things, I would go with simple folding folders — one color per class: blue, red, green, yellow, orange, etc. I might also give them a zip binder where those folders can go.

At this point, I just want the child to put papers in something consistent. Or even just into the backpack — I’m not overly concerned about perfect organization yet.

When they get home, you can help reorganize the folders daily for a while if needed. This child is starting from ground zero and really needs a simple system.

So I would not use a binder — it’s too complicated. I would stick to simple folders. Either pocket folders or basic folders are fine, but keep it simple.

For this child, I would also use what I call the “queue” (Q-U-E-U-E). If you look in my blog and search for “queue,” you’ll find a video about it.

The queue is basically a catch-all place. So if they can’t put papers in the right folder, at least they put them in the queue or in the backpack, and then you can sort it later.

I also talk a lot about minimalism. I would not keep anything that doesn’t need to be kept. If work is completed, graded, and in the grade book — get rid of it.

A lot of parents think kids need old worksheets to study, but 99% of the time they don’t, because teachers provide study guides.

I would aim for only 5–10 papers per folder at any time — very current work only.

He says he doesn’t know where lost things go. He probably really doesn’t. He’s missing an important worksheet due tomorrow.

I would strongly recommend emailing the teacher. Many teachers can provide materials online. I would also check teacher websites and send short, bullet-point emails like:

“We need support. My child struggles with executive function. Can you help us with copies?”

Sometimes I even see kids with three copies of the same worksheet and none completed because they kept losing them and requesting new ones.

So if teachers can email materials instead, or upload them online, that’s much better. Even taking photos of assignments helps.

As for preventing loss, I would use the queue system and do a daily overhaul for the first 6–8 weeks of school. Sometimes do it with your child, sometimes do it yourself.

He does not yet have the skills — they will not magically appear.

As for punishment: I would not punish him. That will not change the behavior. This is a skill deficit, not a motivation issue.

However, natural consequences can sometimes help if they are appropriate and not driven by anger. The goal is to create awareness, not shame.

For example, some parents may go into the school themselves to retrieve missing work if the child doesn’t manage it. That can be a consequence that motivates change.

But the focus should be on building systems: simple folders, a queue system, daily and weekly check-ins, and gradual responsibility transfer.

It’s a complicated issue, and I wish I could work directly with students to help more hands-on.

But check out my course and the video on the queue system — it may really help.

Good luck, take care.