Teaching Kids How to Organize: Part 3

By the time your child has been in school for several years, he’s learned the drill and labored over his share of homework assignments.  At school, teachers start increasing the workload, assigning projects and doling out letter grades.  And at home, it’s also time to bump it up a notch and give your child more responsibility for his belongings and the choices he makes.  Your child is capable of stepping up, being more independent and helping out the family in many ways.  So it’s only appropriate that you should expect him to start exhibiting some of the organizational skills and time management skills you’ve helped him to cultivate along the way.

Exercise Your Child’s Organizational Skills

Age 9 - 12:  Increase Responsibility

• Give your child “adult” planning tools.  Provide your child with a planner, calendar and/or white board.  Show your child how you use these tools to organize your work and the household schedules.  Explain how he can use the tools to record homework assignments, create schedules and track project due dates.  Planning ahead and taking control of his own life activities will give him a sense of independence and control.

• Involve your child in household planning activities.  Ask your child to assist you with creating the weekly menu plan, checking the pantry, refrigerator and freezer and making the grocery list, planning errand runs and shopping.  Let your child help plan the next family outing, vacation or holiday event.  Have her help with the to-do list.

• Teach life skills.  At this age, kids are capable of handling more complex tasks.  Show your child how to do laundry from start to finish; how to operate the washing machine, what settings to use, and how much detergent to add; demonstrate how to clean the dryer’s lint trap.  Put your child in charge of your family’s recycling effort.  If you have a dishwasher, show your child how to load it, what items go on the top and the botton, where to put the dishwashing detergent and how to operate the machine.  Get your child involved in meal preparation.  Start with cooking simple items like scrambled eggs or pancakes and work your way up to more complicated dishes.    Now is the time to begin life skills training with your child - daughters and sons alike - not when they’re ready to move out of the house.  If they don’t appreciate it now, they will thank you later!

• Let them take control of their routines.  As kids become more involved with friends and extracurricular activities like sports, band or clubs, their schedules may get tight.  If your child wants to change up her routines, give her some flexibility to do so, as long as she understands homework and chores must still get done in the time available.  If she can successfully balance school work, extracurricular interests and social activities, it will be good life practice.

• Let them experience real life consequences.  Stop reminding and nagging.  If your child leaves his assignment on his desk at home - do not deliver it to the school, even if it means he will lose a letter grade for turning it in late.  If he leaves his scooter outside, and it starts to rain - do not run out to retrieve it.  At some point, your child needs to keep track of his own belongings and be responsible for organizing himself.  If you’re always there to remind him, or step in and do it for him, chances are…he will never do it.

Teaching your child organizational skills is a process.  With your guidance, your child can keep building on her skills as she grows, gradually handling more and more responsibility, and eventually developing into a confident, independent and well-organized young adult.

To read the entire series on teaching children organizational skills, read Teaching Kids How to Organize (preschool age) and Teaching Kids How to Organize: Part II (ages 5 - 8).

For more tips on organizing with kids, see Back-to-School: Organizing the Entry or Hall, Back-to-School: Setting Up a Homework Area, and Teaching Kids Time Management.

[tag] Organizational Skills, Time Management Skills, Teaching Kids Organizational Skills, Organizing [/tag]

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