Inattentive ADHD, the Cobra Phone Tag and Lost Belongings

My 12 year old Inattentive ADD son will soon enter into Middle school and I am anticipating that much pain and suffering will come from losing half his belongings as he moves from classroom to classroom. 

 I have been preparing him to say goodbye to the good old days when he had the luxury of only searching for lost objects in one classroom and we are forging a plan.

Be Prepared is the Scouting motto and this has become my summer motto.  You can call me pessimistic but I know him and I know that all of us with Inattentive ADD have a huge problem with lost and misplaced items so we, in advance, are making preparations for finding all of his soon to be lost objects.

Those of us with ADHD and especially those of us with ADHD Inattentive know the daily misery of searching for lost keys, wallets, cell phones and purses. I have written before about the smart finders that help ADHD-PI folks find lost items, but there are many circumstances where the smart finders do not help.

The smart finder will locate an item that is within about 30 feet of the locater and this is really helpful for finding the keys that you carefully put away in the spice cabinet but there are many circumstances where these smart finders cannot help you. For instance, when you are at school, at work or at the coffee shop, what you really need and want is to not be separated from your cell phone or your purse or backpack. In these situations it is more a matter of not losing rather than a matter of trying to locate.

Our inattention causes us to forget where we put things and this is where the smart finders help but our ADHD-PI symptoms also makes us more prone to get separated from our things and, up until now, there have not been devices to help with this problem.

There is a new gadget that was introduced just this year called the Cobra Phone Tag that will be available for purchase in July that aims to resolve the misplacing issue that can be such a disabling problem for those of us with the Inattentive subtype of ADHD.

The Cobra system is a two way alarm system. The way it works is through a downloadable GPS program that you download to your phone and through a key like fob that you attach to your purse (or backpack, or wallet or keys). The system will activate a loud alarm and alert you if the two things are separated such as when the cell phone is separated from the backpack.

The GPS system will also notify you as to where exactly the separated item is through text messages, twitter messages, Facebook alerts or email.  The Cobra system is not cheap. It will cost about $60.00 but considering that a lost backpack or a lost phone can end up costing much more than that, this cobra system may well be worth the expense.

There are two other systems, one called Phone Halo and one called the Zomm that are as expensive and that simply sounds an alarm when you are more than a certain distance from your phone.   The Phone Halo tethers two items such as a phone and keys or a phone and a backpack and this product gets pretty good reviews. The Zomm only works with your cell phone and the reviews that I have read on this product are not that good.  The Zomm does not have the GPS capability but the Phone Halo does..

People with the symptoms of ADHD Inattentive do better at work, school and in life when they are prepared, anticipate and make allowances for their weaknesses. The Cobra Tag system is an aid that acts to buffer the annoyance of living with the weaknesses of ADD. Much like the double set of textbooks, the extra calculator, the homework organizer and the fully stocked closet of pens, pencils and protractors this misplacement protector will likely find a place in my arsenal of ADD tools.