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A recent move offered our family more lessons than how to creatively pack or to always explore a new town with a fully charged cell phone. For years, our family has prided itself on being organized. Cleaning out closets to donate clothes or household items that haven’t seen the light of day in a few seasons, or neatly aligning the tools on the workbench, makes it easy to assume our orderly and tidy habits would rub off on our 9-year-old son. Ironically, in the first weeks of unpacking in our new house, my illusions that my son was anything remotely resembling organized were shattered. Understanding that more than one-half of children are disorganized and another 20% have acquired limited organizational skills by the time they’re 12 years old stimulates the patience necessary to do better. Realizing that your child nearly shuts down at the thought of cleaning his room or sorting through his latest collection of treasures is an important step, however, organizational experts suggest incorporating a few tips that are sure to help your entire family elevate their organizational skills to a new level. One way to help determine your child’s level of organization is to assess whether he or she knows where his items are. Although his room is a mess, can your son locate his baseball mitt or pocket dictionary? Does your daughter know where she placed her bathing suit or can she produce her completed book report despite the condition of her desk? Does your child embrace or resist the concept of becoming and staying an organized individual? Pack rat or disorganized disaster? Kathi Burns, professional organizer and image consultant, and founder of Add Space to Your Life in San Diego, offers comfort to parents struggling to create organization in a child’s bedroom, dorm room or school desk. Burns says some children make a conscious attempt to be organized. Having been hired by young clients who’ve sacrificed their allowances and spent Bat Mitzvah money in the hopes of becoming more efficient, she emphatically acknowledges that children want to be organized. “They need us to give them the tools,” says Burns. Having the desire to be organized may not be enough because stuffed animal habits, vast collections of rocks, books, toys, trading cards, etc. often make organization an overwhelming chore. Before attempting to implement an organizational plan, you and your child need to apply the trusted adage, “There’s a place for everything, so put everything in its place” and mutually agree on a “home” for all his items. “Telling a child to take his LEGOs to their home gives the ownership to their organizational plan,” says Burns. “When playtime is over, each toy needs to ‘go home.’” School desk and lockers Professional organizer Fran Collins says being neat does come natural to some people regardless of who is organized in a family setting or who is not. “Organization is often a personal choice. You can teach anyone to be organized but if they have no will, they never will be,” she explains. Interestingly, a lack of these skills can affect many areas of your child life. It can contribute to missing homework assignments, forgetting to bring home a study guide, or needing to replace a book borrowed from the school library. Whether your child welcomes or resists, you can subtly encourage better skills that he then will apply to the classroom, homework desk and backpack. If your child can easily sort through the contents of his locker or school desk, he’s more likely to keep these areas tidy and work efficiently in school. Shopping for locker or desk organizers commonly found at office supply centers and most stores that carry school supplies and stationery can turn a messy desk or crowded locker into a functional space. Assigning a separate “in” and “out” pouch of his backpack or using “take home” and “go back” folders gives your child an easy method to transport homework, permission slips and lunch money to and from school. Stages of childhood organization A typical situation encountered by many families is varying organizational abilities between children. One child may be organized while a sibling is the picture of disorganization. “This same theory applies to mothers and fathers, and can make striking an organizational balance tough among families,” Collins notes. A child can learn at an early age. Since toddlers have the ability to differentiate size, color and texture, they can begin to absorb the message of organization. Reinforcing the message that every thing has a home, a young child learns that when bath time is over the dirty clothes are to be picked up and placed in one area like a clothes hamper. “Parents have to remain consistent and let a child do and learn for themselves. A lot of parents clean their child’s room for them because it’s easier than fighting with them or not having the room cleaned thoroughly. In turn the child never learns how to organize himself,” says Collins. Conversely, implementing tactics such as allowing only the number of stuffed animals that will fit into a storage bin, or the number of trading cards that can be stored in one album to remain in your child’s room instills the lesson of organization and the chance to feel rewarded by the secondary lesson of learning to send gently loved items to charitable organizations or children in need. Although the initial lessons of becoming and remaining organized may be painful for both you and your child, the outcome will be rewarding. Once the foundation for staying organized is grasped, your child will carry the organizational skills with him into adulthood and your household is sure to function more efficiently. Gina Roberts-Grey is a mom and contributor to several parenting publications. |
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