By Nikki Kinzer
Recently, I had the opportunity to work with my youngest client yet, an 8-year-old young boy! The mother had called me thinking that bringing someone outside of the home would help her son think about organizing in a different way. I was thrilled to take on the challenge.
I started the process with conducting a needs assessment with the young boy.
I asked him the following questions:
1) What do you like to do your in room?
2) What are your favorite toys?
3) What do you like but do not play with very often?
4) What do you want changed in your room?
5) What should stay the same?
6) Is there anything in the room that does not belong?
I was amazed of how articulate he was when talking about his interests and sharing with me his ideas on how he would like the room to be set up. I asked if he had any questions and briefly told him how we would go about organizing his room.
The next session, together we worked on sorting his toys and categorizing the types of toys. He was a great helper in getting all of the Legos together and placing other toys that he felt should go together. Anything that did not belong in the room, we placed in a relocate box.
As we talked about placement of items, it was important to him to know where his Legos were and to have easy access to them. The systems we created were very simple and easy. They were easy to get out and easy to put back. He helped make decisions on the other toys on how they should be stored.
We talked a lot about doing a nightly clean up of the room and getting into the routine of putting your toys back as you are done playing with them.
I even gave him a little quiz at the end to make sure he knew where everything went and what habits he was going to develop to keep the room clean. I had the same conversation with his mom, just to make sure the whole family was on board of the “new” rules for the room.
I share this experience with you because it is so valuable to involve your child in the organizing process. If they are old enough to talk, they are old enough to have an opinion. Now, there were a few items, which mom had to step in and say no, we weren’t keeping something. But for the most part, my client had a choice on what to keep and how to place it in his room.
Because of this choice, he had instant buy in to the process. He saw the benefits he was going to receive and appreciated them.
He was invested.
He was empowered.
Will his room get messy again? I am willing to bet it will! However, with the daily clean up routine and the systems in place, he will have a much easier time putting it back together.
I encourage you to get your children’s opinion and buy in to the process; you may be surprised of what you find out!
Happy Organizing!
http://www.takecontrolorganizing.com
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this post with simple to follow instructions on how we can help our kids (and ourselves) get organized. One thing I find challenging is that my kids like to make big productions with their toys. For example, they’ll get out lots of different things and spread them out and want to leave it out for days at a time saying that “oh it took so long to set up and I want to play with it more tomorrow.” I usually let them leave stuff out if it is that important but then I forget and of course they forget and in a few days there is stuff everywhere and they’ve gone on to something else. Any suggestions on how to stay organized when they are so spread out?
Hi Jennifer,
Thank you for your comment.. I can totally relate to what you are saying, my
kids are constantly building forts and my son will occasionally practice his science, which ends up in all kinds of random things in the house.
I have three ideas which may help you….
First, is to set a time limit, especially if what they built is in a busy part of your home, for example; your living room or kitchen area. I believe there is a way to acknowledge their hard work and honor what they did but still have a boundary around the home. I will tell my kids it’s ok to have the fort up for one full day, but tomorrow at bedtime, it will be time to clean it up.
With my son’s science projects, I tend to let him have them a bit longer, but I let him know up front there will be a time limit and it will also have to move on.
The second suggestion is continue with your follow through, just like with the daily clean up, if you miss a couple of days, we all know what can happen, the messes get bigger and bigger. If you need to remind yourself, put it in you calendar or place a note where you will see it to remind yourself.
My third suggestion, especially for more meaningful projects, take a picture. My son is very into legos and some of his masterpieces are really terrific, so we will take a picture of him with the piece. This also allows him to not feel guilty if it gets broken and he doesn’t feel bad about building a new one.
I hope you found the suggestions helpful! Good Luck… It’s always a work in progress!
Happy Organizing!
Nikki Kinzer would love for you to read….Update on TCO & Friday Review!
Thanks for the suggestions. I just need to focus on the follow up. Sometimes it’s easier to just pick up their mess than to remind them of my rules:) I know, I know, they never learn that way!