3 hints to keep your child organized over the school year

Being organized isn't something that always comes naturally to kids. Here are three hints for teaching your child how to keep his or her room and workspace tidy during the school year.

[Image credit: iStock.com/mnbb]

It isn't reasonable to expect a young child to maintain library-like order in their room.  What's more, trying to impart order will only add stress to your child. Instead, to help defuse the stress, encourage your child to adopt a kid-friendly organization system.

• Organizing books by colour is a great way to make it easy for your child to re-shelve his books, and it's even easier for them to figure out where to put new arrivals.
• Another fun way to organize books is by size: small books on the top shelf, medium books in the middle and big ones on the bottom.

Be sure to provide several fun bookends to keep books from falling over, and your child will be able to organize and sort books easily on his own.

If you want your child to develop strong study habits, make sure there is a neat desk nearby.

• Work with your child to choose useful school supplies to keep in the desk. Items such as notebooks, folders, a dictionary and index cards can stay; toys and games get moved to the toy chest.

After the drawers are neatly organized, pull them out of the desk and remove the contents. Then, use masking tape to mark the outline of each item on the bottom of the drawer.

• Label the tape in permanent marker for school-aged children; for children who are still too young to read, tape a photo of each item inside the tape outlines.

Once your child knows where everything belongs, the labels make clean-up a snap.

• With the exception of a cup for pencils and perhaps a lamp, the desktop should remain empty to provide a clean work space.

Is your kid's backpack a black hole of unfinished schoolwork? To set your child up for success, provide him or her with clearly labelled folders: a red "to-do" folder and a green "all done" folder.

• The "to-do" folder is for papers they must complete for homework or notices they must give you. This folder should be emptied every day at home, with or without parent supervision, according to your child's age.
• Finished homework goes into the "all done" folder and your child will use it at school to make sure assignments go straight to the teacher.

If the backpack has a divider, use more masking tape to label the inside of the pouches, marking one compartment for folders and one for books.

• The small pouch should be used for things like keys, pencils and a cell phone. These sections can be labelled, too, and every weekend your child should clean out the backpack and refill it to match the labels.

Being systematic and tidy will help your child stay focused on his or her schoolwork. Plus, it saves a lot of time when you know where you'll find what you need. With your help, your child can be organized throughout the entire school year, which is key to success.