6 Tips to Teach Your Children to Stay Organized

Being organized is a learned skill that can be strengthened with time and practice. What better time to start learning to be organized than as children?

Try implementing some of these six tips with your children to teach them how to become organized in the short term as well as throughout their lives.

Kids thrive on routine

When your children follow a routine in the morning as well as after-school and bedtime, your life will become a lot easier, and so will theirs. Not only will your children feel more secure and self-confident, they will also learn to organize other parts of their lives to achieve the same feeling. This may take some trial-and-error to find what kinds of activities will fit best in your routines, but once you find it, consistency is key.

Teach them to make a list

To-do lists aren’t just for adults. From a young age, children are capable of understanding the concept of a list. Even young toddlers can benefit from completing tasks on a list, even if they can’t read it.

For example, you can create a list of 3 daily tasks for your young child. They could be as simple as making their bed, picking up 3 toys, and brushing their teeth. Write these tasks on a list and hang it in a convenient location. Every day, go through the list with them, checking off each item as they go. As they get older, you can modify the list to include more age-appropriate activities.

Invite input

It’s important that you teach your children to be organized, rather than organizing everything for them. Make the process a discussion rather than a set of rules. Ask them what is important to them or how you can help them, and then make a plan together on how to accomplish what needs to be done. Teach them techniques for time management, money management, etc., and follow-up with them to see what works. Encourage them to try their own methods and to teach you what they find.

Give them a designated work area

Help your children focus on the tasks at hand by giving them a designated work area to do their homework or other important tasks. Help them keep the area organized and tidy.

Do a regular purge

Teach your children the importance of service and charity along with organization by encouraging them to donate toys or items they don’t regularly use. Help them categorize their belongings so they can easily identify items that don’t seem to belong or are not often used. Consider implementing a “one-for-one” rule, stating that for every new toy, t-shirt, etc. they acquire, they must donate one in exchange.

Prepare

Lastly, teach your children that preparation is perhaps the easiest way to stay organized. From simply laying out the next day’s clothing to organizing a school fundraiser or event, learning to prepare for what lies ahead will help your child as they progress into adulthood. You may have to remind them to get ready and to prepare, but after a while they will develop positive habits. Soon they will come to prefer the feeling of preparedness over the feeling of procrastination. This means that you will have to let them learn that lesson on their own, but they will thank you for teaching them while they were young.

Your children learn best by watching what you do, so set a good example of organization and start teaching them at a young age to do age-appropriate tasks and organizational activities. If you do so, they will grow up with a propensity toward order and structure, which will benefit them in all aspects of life.

Author Bio

Kyle Cade is a freelance writer that contributes to multiple online publications. Recently, he has worked with Flow Wall. He loves to write about home organization and design. When he is not writing, Kyle loves to travel, and cook.