Keeping Your Child Organized

Sheila Guiney, M.Ed.Northshore Education Consortium

September 2015

Disorganization

Disorganization is a problem for many school age children. If you want them to be organized you must help them learn an organizational system. Your job is to teach them the system. Their job is to use it.

Executive Skills

• Brain-based skills required for humans to effectively execute, or perform tasks and solve problems.

• Regulate behavior when faced with temptations or distractions• Emotional control• Task initiation – any task – even getting a glass of milk (put container away,

close refrigerator door..• Time management• Organization

Task Initiation• Task initiation, according to Dawson and Guare (Dawson, Peg, and Richard

Guare. Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention. 2nd. The Guilford Press, 2010. Print. ), is the ability to begin a task without undue procrastination, in a timely fashion.

• Task Initiation is required for everything we do.• We can help our teens strengthen their executive functions skill of task

initiation by using the following strategy, BEGIN:

• Break down task into smaller steps• Establish a schedule• Gadgets to trigger start time• Incentive of preferred activity when done with task• Natural consequence of first things first (e.g., homework then video games)

Your style matters, too.

• Look at your own strengths and weaknesses with regard to executive skills.

Remember….• Stay on your child’s team, don’t play against them.• Stay positive and keep an open, respectful

relationship• Your feelings of anxiety & frustration are

understandable BUT..reacting to your children out of these emotions will be ineffective.

• Your job is to help them learn how to be responsible

• Your child’s lack of motivation might be anxiety or shame about academics & schoolwork.

Define the problem

• Where is area of weakness?

Loses stuffLate turning in assignmentsForgets equipment for sportsCan’t get started on homework

Tackle a specific daily routine

• What is one thing, that would improve you & your child’s life –

1. Getting ready for the bus on time2. Bringing home assignments everyday3. Keeping track of sports equipment, etc.

Create a plan

• Modify environment• Provide incentives• How will I know it’s working?

Motivate your child

• Want kid to be on board with your plan• Incentives• Let your child make choices- and face the

consequences. When your child makes a poor choice, hold him accountable by facing the natural consequences that come with it.

• “When you” rule – when you finish the homework, you can______.

Homework• Check Teacher’s websites for homework assignments• Don't Leave School Without....Emphasize the daily routine of checking the assignment sheet before

leaving class to make sure all the necessary materials are in the backpack. Help your child establish a list of partner classmates or "study buddies" with whom he can check

• Set Up a homework Routine - Set a specific time that is homework time. keep that schedule as consistent as possible each day. give your child a snack, some brief down time if needed, and then get started.

• Designate a Homework Location• Be Your Child's Coach - Review the assignments that came home for the day with your child before he

starts to work. Separate the tasks into discrete sections and decide upon a time allotment for each section.

• Help Her Get Started - Children with ADHD often have a hard time getting started on new tasks. Read the directions together for each segment, highlight key words in the directions, discuss how to tackle the first problem/item. Once your child knows what to do, LEAVE HER to complete

• Use a Timer - When the timer indicates that 20 minutes have past, allow your child to move, walk-around, jump-rope for 2-3 minutes in between sections of work. Large motor movement enhances alertness

• Take Breaks, Refocus• Praise Effort• Reinforce task completion with specific verbal praise. Let her know how impressed you are with how

hard she has worked. Be as specific as you can. • Create a Home for Completed Homework - kids are famous for misplacing homework between home

and school. Create a “school staging center” at home that contains a homework folder for all completed homework. When the assignment is done, it goes straight into the folder, which in turn goes into a designated pocket of his backpack.

Have a Plan for Long-Term Assignments

• The toughest challenge for many kids with ADHD, is the long-range assignment.

• Go over it with your child. • Write the due date on a master calendar, and break

the assignment into parts, each with its own deadline.

• If his assignment is to write a book report on a 200-page book, and it’s due in two weeks, he can plan to read 20 pages a night, and use the last four days to write and proofread the report.

Make a home-study kitA lot of homework time is wasted looking for pencils and paper. Having materials on hand makes being organized much easier, so put the necessary tools in place. A shoebox will do. Keep the following in your child’s kit (let him help you shop for these items if he's interested):• paper: lined, blank, and graphing• pencils and pens• ruler• crayons• marking pens• Dictionary• Calculator• timer

Tools

Smartphone apps• myHomework Student Planner• Homework stopwatch• My Video Schedule Kids can learn structure, time management, and motivation with

this scheduling app made especially for kids and adults with special needs.• TextMinder SMS text reminders -Handy way to send reminders to yourself or your kid• Time timer app

Calendars Whiteboards Timers Color coding Highliters and colored pencils Dedicated Space for papers(on fridge, in a folder, etc.)

Calendars

Wipe-off White Board

Executive function skills are life skills and there’s lots you can do at home to strengthen these skills. Help your child break down chores into component parts. For example, clearing the table after a big family dinner can seem overwhelming. But if your child breaks it into smaller, sequentially related tasks, it becomes much simpler: Put all dirty dishes in the sink (and/or into the dishwasher).

Put leftovers into containers and then into the refrigerator.

Put condiments (salad dressing, ketchup) back into their rightful spots in the fridge or cupboard.

Throw all trash and recycling into the appropriate bins.

Check your work -- is anything still out on the table or not put away? By breaking the task down into more manageable chunks, it makes the overall task less daunting at the onset and more of an accomplishment when it’s finally completed. To reward your child for taking this effective approach, maybe hold off on dessert until dinner has been completely dealt with, then offer to take on that cleanup yourself!

Forwards or backwards chaining?

You can teach the steps by moving forward – teaching the first step, then the next step and so on, backwards – teaching the last step, then the second-last step and so on.

Most of the time, it’s better to use backwards chaining (doing the last step first). This is for a couple of reasons:

* Often the most rewarding thing about a job or task is getting it finished.* There is more likely to be a natural reward for finishing the last step – for example, ‘I finished putting my shoes on, so I can go play’.* These natural rewards keep your child motivated and help him develop the skill of planning to achieve a goal.

Forward chaining can be useful for some things, such as remembering a phone number. But with many tasks, even when your child is successful with the first step – there’s still a long way to go until the task is finished.

But there are no rules about when to use forwards or backwards chaining. Think about your child, the task and what might be easiest for her.

Take pictures of different steps in tasks .You can use the pictures with your child while you’re teaching him the chain and also as a reminder once he has learned the task.