Organization Skills

Parents often ask how they can help their child develop organizational and self-regulation skills. If disorganization is contributing to your child's achievement problems, try to think about the possible causes.

• Is he bored or too challenged?
• Is there a learning issue?
• Is he just not interested in school or cleaning his room.
• Is he overwhelmed because of perfectionism?

Is your child troubled by his lack of organization?  How your child views the situation will make a difference in how you can best approach a solution.

In any case, it's going to take time and patience to unravel the problem and address it. Here are some ideas to try:

• Sit down with your child and scan some study guides and strategies to see if he or she thinks any are worthy of a try,
• Have your child choose one to implement for a few days (or a week, if older), and
• Keep a chart to rate the different options based on their success and general enjoyment.

The more strategies your child has, the more successful he will be in handling different types of challenges. Involving your child in this experiment will work with his natural curiosity and encourage self-motivation.

More Resources

• Read Connecting for High Potential’s, “This Child is a Classic ‘Absent-minded Professor.’”
• Dr. Richard Shade and Patti Garrett have suggestions on to encourage your child to develop her own problem solving strategies, in “Teach Your Child to Think and Make Parenting Fun Again” from Parenting for High Potential.
• Explore the possibility that your child might have learning disabilities that make it hard for her to stay organized. ^{New content coming soon!}
• The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, developed these helpful study guides.
• Designed for older students (but modifiable for younger children), you'll find lots of ideas to try, including a self-quiz from the Virginia Tech University on "Where does time go?".