School starts in two days for all of my children except my college-aged and my kindergartener. We did a little school-supply shopping yesterday and it wasn't too painful!
Hoping to help my middle-aged children be a little more organized this year, I read Organizing the Disorganized Child by Martin L. Kutscher & Marcella Moran. If you're looking for an easy solution for your child's organizational problems where all you have to do is invest in some supplies and a one-time explanation of how to use them, this isn't it. As they explain in the book, if that approach had worked, you probably wouldn't be reading this book.
I like their explanation of why children are so frequently disorganized: it's that darned frontal lobe which doesn't finish developing until well past your 20th birthday. Your frontal lobe helps you use foresight, remember what happened when you didn't use foresight, not get distracted by less-important tasks, make a plan for the future, etc. All those things you wish your children did a little more consistently! Their philosophy is that "sink or swim" is not a very good method if your child has absolutely no idea how to swim.
They have a chapter of supplies to buy, with very specific recommendations. I followed that list somewhat and bought file boxes and hanging files (remember I love file boxes!) I also bought the plastic folders, one for each child. One side of the folder is labeled "Take Home"; the other is labeled "Take to School". We have quite a few extra binders to keep notes in and I'm hoping to find some cheap planners. The basic idea is that the folder holds all the papers the child touches at school; it's brought home and notes are filed in the binder and homework is completed and put in the "Take to School" pocket. Once a week, you file away papers that you need to save but no longer need at school in the file box. The parent is the supervisor to make sure that all this happens. You have to supervise as long as they need it; hopefully they will need less and less supervision as time goes on.
They also recommend a planner to write down all the assignments with a back-up buddy to call if those assignments weren't written down correctly. If kids hate planners then they have ideas about other things to use, such as tons of Post-It notes. (Do they own stock in Post-It? They sure seem to love them!) I'm not going to buy everything they suggest though. That would cost me a small fortune for multiple children.
The rest of the book contains tips on note-taking, test-taking, and improving morning routines, including where to get extremely obnoxious alarm clocks that children can't ignore. If you're struggling in those areas, you might take a look.
Since I haven't tried it yet, I don't really know how effective their methods are going to be. It sounds like the co-authors have worked with a lot of organizationally-challenged children with good results. I'm not sure my children need this method so very badly since it is not an area we've had a lot of trouble, but I love to get new ideas for improving organization and give my children some tools so we'll see how it goes and I'll try to report back in a few months.
Hoping to help my middle-aged children be a little more organized this year, I read Organizing the Disorganized Child by Martin L. Kutscher & Marcella Moran. If you're looking for an easy solution for your child's organizational problems where all you have to do is invest in some supplies and a one-time explanation of how to use them, this isn't it. As they explain in the book, if that approach had worked, you probably wouldn't be reading this book.
I like their explanation of why children are so frequently disorganized: it's that darned frontal lobe which doesn't finish developing until well past your 20th birthday. Your frontal lobe helps you use foresight, remember what happened when you didn't use foresight, not get distracted by less-important tasks, make a plan for the future, etc. All those things you wish your children did a little more consistently! Their philosophy is that "sink or swim" is not a very good method if your child has absolutely no idea how to swim.
They have a chapter of supplies to buy, with very specific recommendations. I followed that list somewhat and bought file boxes and hanging files (remember I love file boxes!) I also bought the plastic folders, one for each child. One side of the folder is labeled "Take Home"; the other is labeled "Take to School". We have quite a few extra binders to keep notes in and I'm hoping to find some cheap planners. The basic idea is that the folder holds all the papers the child touches at school; it's brought home and notes are filed in the binder and homework is completed and put in the "Take to School" pocket. Once a week, you file away papers that you need to save but no longer need at school in the file box. The parent is the supervisor to make sure that all this happens. You have to supervise as long as they need it; hopefully they will need less and less supervision as time goes on.
They also recommend a planner to write down all the assignments with a back-up buddy to call if those assignments weren't written down correctly. If kids hate planners then they have ideas about other things to use, such as tons of Post-It notes. (Do they own stock in Post-It? They sure seem to love them!) I'm not going to buy everything they suggest though. That would cost me a small fortune for multiple children.
The rest of the book contains tips on note-taking, test-taking, and improving morning routines, including where to get extremely obnoxious alarm clocks that children can't ignore. If you're struggling in those areas, you might take a look.
Since I haven't tried it yet, I don't really know how effective their methods are going to be. It sounds like the co-authors have worked with a lot of organizationally-challenged children with good results. I'm not sure my children need this method so very badly since it is not an area we've had a lot of trouble, but I love to get new ideas for improving organization and give my children some tools so we'll see how it goes and I'll try to report back in a few months.
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