Habitually Unorganised

Being organised both at work and at home is a challenge even for grown up people. Children therefore are no exception. They too find it difficult to effectively handle work, play and responsibilities within their realm without proper training.

Unorganised children have a hard time completing many small tasks such as putting toys away when they are finished playing with them, making their bed, setting the table, folding washed clothes, sorting socks, etc.

Mess and junk accumulates on the study table and work places of these children. Things just float aimlessly around, landing wherever they are left for the moment until they are moved to a different spot. Such children do not keep back things in their proper places after use. Parents or other elders are hence always forced ultimately to clean up the study table, bathroom and other places that unorganised children leave in a disarray.

Once children come back from school they throw away their belongings helter-skelter, leaving them for their parents to take care of. Next day they end up wasting a lot of time searching for pencil boxes, ties, books, diaries and such other articles. Children could have easily saved this time had they kept the items in an ordered fashion the previous day.

Unorganised children run the risk of losing costly accessories such as watches, calculators, keys, etc., inside school premises, in the park or inside the movie hall as their disorderly behaviour prevents them from keeping their belongings in their right places.

If children are not given training when they are toddlers and just beginning to learn doing things, the disorderly habits in them get set and tend to be difficult to correct later on in life. Consequently, these children remain habitually unorganised and fail to think orderly. They end up building proper thinking skills later in life. Therefore, the above problem needs to be dealt with seriously.

• Children find it difficult to do many small tasks such as putting toys away when they are finished playing with them, making their bed, setting the table, folding washed clothes, sorting socks, etc.
• Mess and junk accumulates on the study table and work places of these children.
• Parents or other elders end up cleaning the study table, bathroom and other places that these children leave in a mess.
• Once children come back from school they throw away their belongings helter-skelter only to waste a lot of time searching for pencil boxes, ties, books, diaries and such other articles the next day.
• Unorganised children quite often lose costly accessories such as watches, calculators, keys, etc., inside school premises, in the park or inside the movie hall, etc.
• These children fail to think in a orderly fashion and build proper thinking skills even later in life.

Remaining habitually unorganised is a behavioural problem. It is deeply related to how parents organise their own workspace. Children learn by experience or their environment and are profoundly influenced by the conditions at home.

Living an organised life is an acquired skill. If parents are unable to organise and perform their job in an orderly fashion, children are also expected to lack in arranging and planning things in a systematic way.

Training children to remain organised should begin early when they are still toddlers. Let them build organisational skills as they learn doing small chores. Although it takes longer for small children to, say, sort books or clothes than older children, the long range results are worth the effort. Praising children for their success in doing simple tasks in an orderly manner will encourage them to continue in that path.

In case children continuously come up with negative results in spite of repeated advice, try creative and smart ideas to handle the situation rather than getting cranky with them.

When, for example, your children have a habit of leaving toys and paper currency inside pockets and you have difficulty at laundry time, you can place a container on a shelf over the washing machine and tell your kids that anything found in pockets would become Mom's property. Children can retrieve a toy by doing an extra chore, but money would stay in the container for a treat for parents. You can notice how this smart way of teaching organisational skills to children works.

Look for ways to make it easy for children to do what you ask of them. Keep the laundry hamper in a location that children can reach. Try putting a small hamper in their room or in the place nearest to where they change clothes. Leave the lid off so they will not have to struggle with an unnecessary barrier to get the job done.

Keep shelves and rods of clothes low enough for the children to reach. Place small one-step stools in strategic places in the house so that children can reach for things they need. Place the school supplies where children can use them and put them away again. While you are asking them to cooperate, you need to do your part as well as enable them to do theirs.

Keeping the children's room clean is usually a bone of contention between the mother and the children. The reason for the accumulation of mess and junk is the lack of a particular storage place. So, for getting an orderly room, parents need to collect different receptacles and boxes with levels into which various articles inside children’s room can be put.

These containers can be had without investing large amounts of money by making use of old container-boxes, baskets, cans, shoe and cigar boxes, plastic jars, etc. Stackable vegetable bins (the solid plastic kind without holes) make great storage containers for small toys, balls, tiny dolls, etc. Label the containers so your children can readily put things back where they belong. For smaller children, you may use pictures of appropriate categories of toys instead of labels.

When the containers are ready, you can begin to sort out things into them. Allow children to keep whatever they wish as long as the things are contained in an orderly fashion and no loose toys roam around the room.

Large toy boxes are not advisable as children have to dig around for a particular wanted toy, and the result is a mess that is left on the floor while they go happily on their way to play with their found treasure. Instead, the use of shelves and small baskets or other containers is more comfortable for children to dig into and reach out for their toys.

Rather than storing puzzles in their assembled state, try storing the pieces in individual zip-type storage bags, and label each bag with the name of the puzzle or include a picture of the puzzle cut from the original container in the bag. The bags can be stored in a box, a plastic dish pan, or other labeled container. This way, the temptation for younger or visiting children to just dump the puzzle and leave it scattered is lessened, which usually means less lost pieces.

Older children can begin to keep a small notebook or calendar for their responsibilities. It is never too early for them to begin keeping up with their own ball practices, music lessons, projects, etc. They can begin to set simple goals, keep a journal, or record assignments as appropriate. This not only builds a sense of responsibility in them for their own affairs but also helps to shift the load from Mom's shoulders to their own where, in the end, it belongs.

In case, you have tried all the above suggestions and still have questions on lack of confidence in your children, you can get a practical solution from Jiva. Jiva makes use of the know-how of its expert educationists and the wisdom of Ayurveda to provide you consultation for these kinds of problems. Please feel free to contact Jiva at 0129-4088152 or write to us at asksteve@jiva.com. We will try our best to give a solution to your child’s problem with our expertise.


 

Back