Labels – The Solution to Keeping your Child from Losing Their Things

For many parents, a never-ending source of aggravation is the fact that their children’s belongings seem to be constantly disappearing, sometimes only days after being purchased. Mom will pack up her kids’ lunches, get them dressed, and send them off on the school bus in the morning, only to have them return home in the afternoon missing sweatshirts, backpacks, water bottles, books, or even their shoes! Alternatively, the kids might make it home with everything seemingly intact, however upon closer inspection it becomes evident that they’re wearing another child’s sweatshirt and reading from another child’s Math book.

A forgetful child isn’t exactly a rare occurrence. In fact, between cell phones, video games, the internet, and every other distraction that kids face as they are growing up in our modern age, it’s a miracle that they manage to remember anything at all. Thankfully, there are a few ways to combat the phenomenon of disappearing children’s belongings, and labels are one the best weapons available to you. Amazingly enough, adding name labels to t-shirts, books, water bottles, or anything else that can easily be misplaced, will dramatically reduce the amount of things that get lost in the day to day grind.

For clothing, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, scarves, hats, or jackets, iron-on clothing labels are the preferred method of labeling a child’s things. For most iron-on labels, the process of attaching the labels is pretty easy, and requires just a few basic steps. For starters, the iron needs to be very hot, and should be set on dry (no steam). Once the iron is hot, simply place the label where you want it to be attached, place a thin pressing cloth of handkerchief over the top of it, and then apply the iron to it for at least 15 seconds. After removing the iron, simply test a few of the corners by trying to lift them with your fingernails. If the corners stay put, you’re good to go. If not, try getting the iron to a hotter setting, or apply pressure on the label for additional time.

For items like water bottles, shoes, mugs, or anything that might get wet or need to go through a dishwasher, stick-on waterproof labels are a great solution. A pair of new shoes of your daughter’s is much less likely to walk away from the day care center if theirs is a bright label visible on the heel of the insole.

Most children’s items go missing not because of any malicious intent, but simply because kids can be absent-minded, and they get stuff mixed-up. Having labels on your child’s belongings is an easy way to help their teachers, other parents, day care supervisors, camp counselors, and anyone else who may watch over them in the course of a day, to ensure that your child gets home with the same belongings they left the house with in the morning.