Get Organized Pittsburgh

Rules and boundries can actually be comforting for children. They are looking to parents for love, care, support and limits. They need guidelines you living and these are not innate. The trick is you have them be part of the process so that they “own it”. I often encounter families without rules and there are several negative outcomes. A lack of protection is one that you don’t often think of. Rule protect siblings from eachother. It helps insure that one child doesn’t simply over run the others by helping themselves to whatever the household resources are. The second negative effect is that there is not a sense of community with out some rules. Kids need to feel like they are part of a group that works together toward common goals.

Imagine you were sitting on a stool in a completely dark room. In utter blinding darkness. When you were told to find your way out you were to just get up and search around for the way out of the room. Wouldn’t you find comfort in touching a wall that you could follow? You would probably have a much easier time in a small managable space instead of a vast expanse to wander through.

Ease your child’s journey with guidelines to show them the way in life.

It is a fresh start! Pristine new notebooks and binders, pointy new crayons, a cool lunch box, and those brand new shoes! It is like a transformation that happens every fall. All the mishaps of last year are forgotten and children are ready to meet their new teachers and new friend. Embrace this “newness” with your student! Be their support for what’s ahead without looking back on previous trouble spots. They know they exist, but NOW they are navigating new waters and need you to support this new journey! Just think about how it would feel to walk into a your job every fall to find a whole new system, a new boss and new co-workers! That’s a lot to navigate. Student need to feel like they have some control over their environment. So develop systems together. Let them tell you how they use their locker, how they want to organize their back pack and where to put papers when they are home. Now this does not mean that you can’t make suggestions, just try let them come up with ideas with in you parameters. Be a good listener and don’t point to past failures. You will be amazed what a child who feels comfortable and safe to share will tell you! Sometime this will unlock the mysteries of where breakdowns occur.

So this is your chance to get on your students team. Keep an open mind, be positive and let them tell you what they need. You get to provide support and accountability and they get feel proud about taking responsibility for their school work.

Hopefully these are lessons that last a life time!

I was just considering some of the hurdles kids have to overcome every school year when it is time to go back to school. Just think how hard it would be at your job to get back into the groove every year if you switched rooms, schedules, bosses, coworkers and rules. What if you also knew that it was going to continue to get harder. Would you dread returning to work? Just think, this is what we do to kids every year!

This year try to avoid those back to school landmines to set your child up for success.

THE BACKPACK
I is important to teach kids that backpack are not for storage! They are for active traveling paper. Teaching them to prioritize what they carry is a great lesson in organization. Take time to go over how they are using their backpacks and how to out with them weekly until they get in the habit of doing it themselves. Do this with the mindset of teaching because these skills are not innate. Keep it positive.

THE LOCKER/DESK
These are important components of the paper flow system as well. These are vehicles for storage and children need to learn simple ways to make then work. Just separating morning and afternoon classes in a locker help kids get what they need quickly and more successfully. Simply loading desks, lockers, and backpacks with items in largest to smallest order is extremely important in for being able to find things in a hurry.

THE BINDER OR ACCORDION FILE
Taking time to build this system from the start might be the best thing you do all year. Do it with your child and let them have input. This will help them have “buy in” and there will be subtle agreement on where and how papers should travel and be stored. It will give you a chance to explore your child’s ability to process what is important to keep. This system will need to be tweaked as the year goes on. This is a good thing. Being organized is being able to adapt to changing needs.

PAPERS AT HOME
We recommend a desktop file that mirrors the section set up in the binder. This help keep the binder de-cluttered because papers that are needed for later review have a home! For older students computer files can also be set up in the same way. Don’t forget color! Try to keep one color per class for even easier retrieval!

So now you can look forward to more successes by setting up simply systems from the start that help student prioritize!

OK, I’ll admit it, I really don’t like 3 ring binders! This is a huge confession coming from a professional organizer! Organizers LOVE binders. Professional Organizers will “binderize” anything that is not nailed down! I always found it laborious to punch holes in hand outs and those jaw-like clips scare me! More things would lay on top of my binder than get in. But the point was driven home when i was reading Donna Goldgerg’s book, The Organized Student. She addresses the student’s organizational style and suggests that binders don’t work for some students. Her main point was that LEFT HANDED students can’t write on paper that is attached to a binder. Well call me slow, but I AM LEFT HANDED and I really never realized that all of you RIGHTIES were actualy writing in those binders. No wonder I can’t stand them. I guess on some level I knew because LEFTIES even have trouble with spiral notebooks, but I felt so much better after seeing it in print! So Mothers of LEFTIES, please don’t make your child use a binder if they resist. Use an accordian file or folders and you may see them have more success!