7 Tips to Help Your Child Stay Organized

Do you have trouble making your kid organized? Do you want to help your child but don’t know how? How often have you asked or uttered these words to your child?

“Brush your teeth.”

“Where is the pencil?”

“Where did you keep your uniform last evening?”

“Where’s your other shoe?”

These and more such questions have now possibly become part of your lexicon. You wake up early morning every day as a cool-headed person and by the time your child gets ready to board his bus, you are already mad and screaming.

And it’s not just how your day begins; it’s the same story across houses that have young children.

Here Are 7 Tips to Help Your Child Stay Organized.

If you can help your child organized, it will make life easier for both you and the child. But it is no easy task. With a little faith, a lot of patience and these tips, you can have your child’s day pretty much sorted.

1. Help Your Child Break Tasks into Smaller Steps

The first step to help your child organize his/her day is to split home or school work into easy-to-manage, smaller tasks. This way your child gets to know that all tasks, regardless of how big or small they are, have a beginning and end and need to be completed. For example, if your child has to prepare his school bag for the next day, tell him he has to remove unwanted text and notebooks and put the books required for the next day. He has to this every day until he gets familiar with this task.

2. Make A To-Do List

It’s important to make and hand over to your child a “to-do” list so that he/she knows what is expected of them throughout the day. Start with something as basic brush and bathing and include wearing school uniforms, shoes, completing homework and other tasks you deem fit. On the weekend, the to-do list can contain tasks that one normally does over the weekend. Tell your child to keep the list in a place where they can see it easily. You can also use a blackboard or whiteboard to write the daily ‘to-do list.

3. Teach Time Management Skills

You must teach your child time management skills. It’s easy to start at this age than to teach them at a later stage. You can start off by asking your child to write down important tasks of the day in a notepad or digital device. Once the task has been written, you can then estimate and assign the time required to complete each task. As soon as your child completes a task, ask him/her whether or not the time estimated was accurate. If required, you can make adjustments for the next tasks.

4. Create Regular Schedule

In order to help your child better understand the daily routine, you must create a regular schedule that he/she can follow. To help your child achieve this, you can use a timer or reminder on your phone.

5. Colour Code Tasks and Subjects

In order to help your child finish his/her tasks on schedule and with ease, you must color-code all tasks and subjects. For example, you can put a blue color tag/paper in his/her book to help him find the book with ease. Similarly, you can put a red-color tag/paper in his/her mathematics note and textbooks to help him find these books faster. For assignments in long ruled or blank papers, you can purr them in a clear and transparent folder and insert a piece of color paper to help him/her pick the right folder for school.

6. Organize Their Workspace

If you want your child to work without interruption, you must create a space that’s free of distractions.  For example, give him a table where he can keep his books, stationery, and bag. Ensure the table is not used for keeping his/her clothes/uniforms and toys. Keep everything organized and in the right place where you or he/she can find it easily.

7. Help Your Child Plan Ahead

Just before your child hits the bed, tell him/her of the plans for the next day. For example, you can tell your child that he/she has to wake up at this time, followed immediately by brushing, shower, wearing the uniform and shoes, and going to school. You can also tell beforehand that he/she will have only two hours of playtime, and two hours of study time. This is to ensure that the child is prepared.

Getting organized can make a lot of difference in the learning and thinking abilities of children besides making their life easy. Making children organized certainly takes a lot of effort and patience in the beginning, but it’s worth the time in the long run. Imagine your child getting ready for school all by himself/herself and all that you do is to cook him/her a delicious meal. This is what happens when you put in the effort to train him/her in getting organized.  

Conclusion

It’s crucial to remember that developing good organizational skills is the main ingredient— whether at school or home or professional life, so long as one is organized, one will always succeed.

While some people are more organized by nature, anyone can be trained to become organized by putting in the right routines and systems in place and this includes children.

At Orchids The International School, we teach your child get organized in several ways with our experienced teachers and innovative teaching methodologies.