My son lost so many things till he was in his mid-twenties. He has ADD and is very disorganized. But believe me he felt so bad about his losses both because of the cost and because of his own loss of the object. He managed to learn how to hold on to things in the last couple of years because of several traumatic losses. We never yelled at him or got upset - he already felt bad so what was the point. Eventually he found his own way. Maybe the same thing will happen to your daughter.

You are asking what to do now that you "freaked" already. I would suggest you apologize. Getting dramatic and hysterical when things go wrong is not only not helpful, but it is harmful. It teaches your daughter how to become dramatic and hysterical in her life (with her husband and kids later on) when things go wrong. That's not going to help her get along in this world! It is also frightening for youngsters to have their parents freak on them - sometimes leaving them traumatized. As a psychotherapist, I can tell you that many people coming into therapy have very upsetting and disturbing memories of hysterical parents. It's something that people remember with pain. Also, if YOU are the one to get tremendously upset about the loss, your daughter will learn that this is YOUR problem and she won't be bothered to feel the upset of it herself. You're carrying all the upset for her. If you stay calm, on the other hand, your daughter may feel her own grief and regret at the unfortunate loss. This can help her be more careful in the future because she will have really taken on the problem as her own, not yours. Therefore, just tell her that you're sorry you got all upset. Tell her that you know that she didn't want to lose the camera either and you know that she'll be much more careful in the future (this is a "hypnotic" suggestion). Also, DON'T buy her a new camera for quite awhile. Let the loss be an actual loss. This will help your daughter's brain register the necessity to develop strategies for not losing things in the future.  Good luck with all of this,   Sarah Chana

Didn't you ever lose anything? Don't be so judgmental about your daughter. It's human to forget a bag somewhere. In fact, why don't you just tell her that she made a mistake, everyone does it at least once in their life. Tell her you know she'll try harder in the future. And by the way. If you can't take your camera to camp to take pictures of the summer, what good is it having a camera?

She probably had her phone in her pocket and the camera tucked away in her bag. You aren't even TRYING to understand your daughter. I wouldn't want you to be MY mother!

Thank you for all of the fair responses, many points I have taken and realise their worth, even it's hard to accpet. What I didn't mention is that she has lost a number of cell phones, money, clothes etc and I'm sure I have combated this by replacing them. Living in South Africa, teens cannot work until they are 17, so they rely mostly on allowance. Just a note to 'Kat'...my daughter only realised the camera was missing when she went with her friend to fetch a sleeping bag and happened to see her bag with the other left behind bags and only realised then she left the camera inside. The entire weekend it didn't dawn on her to check. I appreciate all constructive critisim based on the incidnet and how I have told it. What isn't appreciated is critisim on someone's character based on such little information, or assumptions reflected with 'probably' in a reply. To Sam and Sarah, thank you for your candid reply. I appreciate your advice based on the info I supplied and the temptation to judge one's character.

just start telling her to but her own things. im 15 years old and i would lose things all the time and so my mom just told me to start buying my own things and id start appreciating them more and i do.