Digital Age Descendants S1:E8 Responsibilities with Technology!!

I gave my daughter a phone because she is active with some youth groups and needed a way to communicate and scheduling her activities.  I also have a rule that either myself or my wife gets her phone at 7 pm before she goes to bed.  

The other night I asked my daughter where her phone was.  Well, she informed me that she had left at her locker at school, I glared at her with a look of disappointment, she said she was sorry and told me she would get it tomorrow.  I said ok.

    So the next day rolls around and she gets home from school, I asked her if she retreived her phone and she said it wasn’t there, again I glared but didn’t get angry.  I just calmly asked her to go with her mother back to school and see if they could find it, they didn’t. Luckily I had Find My Phone application and was able to disable it.  

    The following day she went to her teacher and asked if she had it.  Her teacher told her that another student found her phone and gave it to her.  When she got home I decided to take this opportunity as a teaching moment. I suggested to her that she make sure she either leaves her phone at home, or if she does take it to school that she puts it in the same place every time.  I quoted my father and told her something that has stuck in my head for years; “Everything has its place and, everything in its place.” I had to explain that quote to her but she understood.

The one thing I will take away from this is that I didn’t get mad but could have, but realized that it wouldn’t have benefitted anyone and could have strained the relationship between myself and my daughter.

So what does this have to do with responsibilities, well this subject covers a plethora of things to be responsible for.  My daughter’s homework that in 6th grade she missed turning in 30+ assignments, which by the grace of her teacher and the fact I think her teacher realized that we care about our kid let her turn the assignments in late.  Responsibility to complete her chores. The most important responsibility I want to convey is to take care of your things, not leave them at school or forget to turn things in, especially when a particular item isn’t theirs / hers to lose.

Tell me how you would have handled this in the comments or voicemail.