Put a tracker in the lunch box

Putting a tracker in your kindergartner’s lunch box is the only way to really stop it from disappearing. A label alone just tells people whose it is — a tracker tells you where it is.

Yes, an AirTag or a Tile is overkill for most things, but for a kindergartner’s lunch box, it’s the right tool. The kid will leave the box on a table, in the play area, or shove it into some cubby that no one checks for weeks. With a tracker, you can walk into the classroom after hours, ping it from your phone, and find it stuck behind a bookshelf. You don’t even need to nag the teacher.

But do both. Put a bright, unique sticker or patterned duct tape on the outside, and write the kid’s name and your phone number in permanent marker on the bottom and inside the lid. A kid doesn’t know what “the green one” looks like when every green lunch box is the same. Make it unmistakably theirs.

Lastly, teach the routine: lunch box goes right back in the backpack after they eat. You’ll still have to check the lost-and-found, but the tracker saves you from buying a fourth box by Halloween.

Future you will thank you when you’re not digging through a bin of identical lunch boxes at 4 p.m.