My child has the annoying habit of forgetting their schoolbooks

And it’s not a big deal.
Even if it happens every day, it’s not the end of the world.
Two of my daughters never used to do their homework because they didn’t have “the right textbooks.” Despite being stuffed to a backbreaking capacity, their backpacks hardly ever contained the material we needed to get any studying done.

I say “we” because the reason they consistently forgot to bring home their books was that they simply weren’t mature enough to do their homework on their own.

Homework was so much of a joint effort that I used to talk about it in the first person singular (and still do sometimes):

When I was raising my eldest daughter, I’d get very upset whenever she forgot her books.
How could I help her do well in school if she never brought her workbooks home? Every time I saw that the teacher had written “Homework not completed” in her agenda, my heart would sink. I couldn’t understand how someone like me, who’d excelled academically, could have a child who never did their homework! Even though my daughter seemed indifferent, my biggest worry was that she would never earn enough classroom dollars, gold stars, and smiley faces to enjoy fun Fridays like the rest of her friends.

My daughter would start to cry, and I would lose my temper.
Sometimes, I’d grit my teeth and go all the way back to her school to get the books, or worse, ask to borrow them from one of her friends. It was the last thing I needed after a hard day at work.

Eventually, I stopped being so uptight.
I realized that I couldn’t change my kids and that, above all, I wasn’t responsible for their academic performance. Incomplete assignments didn’t make me a bad mother, not to mention my kids were (and still are) in the process of growing up. They need to learn how to be responsible on their own—and, most importantly, at their own pace.

Nowadays, if my daughter forgets to bring home a textbook or a test I’m supposed to sign, I leave a Post-it note for her teacher in her agenda saying she left it at school. “Sorry.”

If my daughters’ forgetfulness becomes chronic, they have to do their homework without their books.
At the start of the year, I send friend requests on Facebook to their best friends’ parents so that if one of our kids forgets something, they can help each other out.

For example, if one of my daughters doesn’t have the textbook she needs, another parent can take a photo of the relevant pages and send them to me by text message, email, or Facebook. I print them out, and my daughter gets on with her work.

As for that weekly exercise where students have to copy down vocabulary words and conjugate them in their workbooks, my daughter will take the first piece of paper she sees lying around the house and do what she can.

My kids’ homework may not be much to look at, but it gets done.
One of my daughters handed in her homework on lined loose-leaf paper—no workbook—for an entire year. The following year, that stopped as she became more mature.

Want to know what makes our parental support system so amazing?
I don’t lose my temper anymore, and evenings at home are more relaxed. Over the years, my kids have managed to make homework (with or without their workbooks) part of their routines. They don’t panic if they forget something at school, and they have good self-esteem.

The best part is, the other parents call me just as often as I call them. I guess the grass isn’t always greener on the other side!