Help Your Child Get Organized

As a parent you have, no doubt, worked hard to teach your children good manners, how to read and write, how to tie their shoes and all of the basic life skills necessary to succeed in the world. But is there a life skill you are overlooking?

Are you helping your child get organized? Teaching children to organize will greatly increase their potential to succeed in life.

The best way is to lead by example. If you are organized your children will naturally grow accustomed to living in an organized environment and they will be more likely to become organized adults. Here are some ways you can create an organized environment in your home:

• Maintain a system of organization within your home. A place for everything and everything in it's place. Start teaching your children, as early in their lives as possible, how to put their toys away when they are finished playing with them. In order for you to be able to enforce this rule in your home, two things must happen:

  1. You must have a designated home for each and every toy; and

  2. You must also follow this rule yourself when it comes to household items. Remember that you are leading by example. If you cannot put your belongings away, you cannot expect your children to put their belongings away.

When your children are babies show them how to put their toys away. Be sure you tell them what you are doing as you are doing it. They understand more than we think they do.

As toddlers help them, making sure that you are talking to them about what you are doing and where their toys belong. As your children grow older they can become more and more independent in this task. The goal is for clean-up to become second nature. Keeping things in place is a basic foundation of organization.

• Maintain a family calendar. Place your family calendar in a central location where it can be seen by each family member on a daily basis. Your family calendar should include a column for each family member to record their appointments and events. Help your child get organized by encouraging them to add their own appointments to the family calendar, giving them ownership of their own time.

• Allow your children to be in charge of the system they will use to keep their own bedrooms organized. Giving them the power to choose and to be in complete control will increase their level of pride and might even get them excited about organization. Keep in mind, however, that what appears organized to a child may appear completely disorganized to you. Be careful not to criticize your child's efforts. That could be a blow to their self-esteem. Their level of organization will increase as they grow older.

Also remember that children need specific instructions if you expect specific results. You cannot simply tell your child to come up with a system to keep their room organized. They may not know what you mean and will interpret your words in their own way.

If you expect a specific level of organization be more specific with your instructions. A great way to be sure all of your goals are met within the framework of your child's plan is to create a chore chart that can be used as a visual aid in your child's bedroom. Help your child get organized by making a list of tasks that should be accomplished daily to maintain an organized bedroom, for example:

• Make bed every day
• Keep books on bookshelf
• Put dirty clothes in hamper
• Keep clean clothes put away

Having this visual reminder of what you expect will allow them to be more in control while still accomplishing the tasks you require. They can check their chore chart as they go and be sure they are meeting your expectations. A chore chart is a great way to help your child get organized.

Time Management is another life skill that will be important for your child to learn early. Time management is a skill that is best learned by doing because time is such a difficult concept to understand unless you experience it.

As soon as your child is old enough to read a clock, they are old enough to begin taking responsibility for their time. If you have someplace to go, tell your child what time they must be ready. Show them on the clock where the hands will be when it is time to leave and encourage them to be responsible for being ready on time.

Provide reminders as the time passes, "you have 15 minutes left before we leave," and "Only five minutes until we leave." Each time you provide a reminder, show your child the clock so they can see where the hands have moved to.

You will be helping your child get organized by developing an understanding of time. Gradually, they will begin to realize how fast time passes and they will recognize how much they can accomplish in a set amount of time. So when you say "we are leaving in half an hour," they will know exactly what that means.

Time management is a skill that many grown adults lack. Helping your child get organized through time management early on in their lives will give them a great advantage as adults and allow them to make the most of their time and get ahead in the game of life.

In addition to an organized home environment and time management, you can help your child get organized in their school environment as well.

When your children become school-aged you have another opportunity to introduce organization into their lives. Help your child develop a school routine and encourage them to become more independent.

The goal to work toward when it comes to your child's school organization system is that they become solely responsible for remembering and following through with all school-related activities. Some of the things you can encourage your younger children to do for themselves are:

• Keep track of their own homework assignments.
• Pack their own backpacks daily
• Choose their own school clothes daily
• Pay attention to the clock and recognize when it is time to go to school.

Creating a schedule will be helpful for your younger children to become responsible for these school-related activities. For instance, you could make it a rule that your children do their homework immediately following dinner each evening. While you are cleaning up the kitchen, your children can be sitting at the table doing their homework and you will be close by in the event they need some assistance.

Work toward not having to tell your children that it is time for homework. When dinner is over they should be able to get their backpacks and get started without you having to remind them.

As your children grow older they should grow in independence as well. Their responsibility for their school assignment and activities should increase with age and an increased level of capability. By the time your children reach high school they should be able to recognize that school is their career and they are responsible for doing their best job at all times.

Helping kids get organized and develop a clear understanding of time management will provide them with a solid foundation for an organized future. Start helping your child get organized today.