8 Ideas to Teach Children to Be Organized
While organization is important in adults’ lives, it’s even more important in children’s lives. In fact, it’s essential for proper development and assimilating into the world they’re beginning to discover. How can we teach children to be organized?
Everyone knows that children on their own aren’t organized. In fact, they’re often the opposite since they like to take all of their toys out. As a result, it’s important to establish organization techniques from a young age.
What to know why organization is so important and how you can teach children to be organized? In this article, we’ll show you some tips and tricks.
Teaching children to be organized: Temporal and spatial organization
Organization is important in a child’s life because it’s necessary for their learning. It also creates a sense of security and allows them to organize their thoughts and understand them. As a result, it’s necessary that their world is organized temporally and spatially.
Spatial organization
When we talk about spatial organization, we’re referring to the need for a child’s environment to be balanced. What does this mean? This doesn’t necessarily mean something aesthetic, but rather something practical and functional. It’s best to arrange things simply so that children are able to easily interact with their environments.
Organization in their space will give them some autonomy, and knowing where things are will help develop their independence. To do this, as a parent, you need to establish where things go so that your child can then organize and store things on their own.
If there’s no spatial organization in an environment, your child won’t learn to clean up independently. However, if everything is in order, it’s easier for them to know how to organize their belongings and keep things clean.
Temporal organization
You can establish temporal organization through schedules and routines from the time your children are young. For example, creating routines for eating, bathing, and sleeping are important for their development. Knowing the routine helps give children a sense of security. Therefore, they need to know that there are times to eat, play, sleep, and go outside and that they should respect these routines.
Ideas to teach children to be organized
Here are some ideas that you can put into practice with your children to teach them to be organized. Take note of them all!
Give them a personal space
If you have an only child, it’s easy because their room can be their personal space. However, if they share a room with a sibling, it’s important to reserve parts for each child. For example, you can give each child a closet, their own bed, and storage areas for their belongings. That way, they can respect and take care of each other’s belongings, in addition to their own.
Make a schedule for meals, bedtime, playtime, and bathtime
Every day is different and families usually have different schedules during the weekend so it’s okay to be flexible in that way. However, it’s important that you don’t make any sudden changes because this can be disorienting for children.
Make young children participants in household chores
You can have your children collaborate in tasks that they’re capable of. For example, giving them clothes to help you hang them up, helping you make the bed, putting away their shoes, and putting their dirty clothes in the laundry.
Sort toys by category
Inside their room, you can arrange their toys in drawers or containers depending on the type of toy. This will make it easier for them when they’re looking for a specific game. They’ll know exactly where to look. You can also do the same for books.
Organizing their space so everything is at their fingertips
You should arrange everything they use frequently so that it’s easily accessible to them. This way they won’t have to ask for help every time they need something since they can get it by themself.
Don’t pile up toys to teach children to be organized
From time to time, put away toys that your child no longer plays with to make room for what they do. This way everything isn’t all piled up.
Organize their clothes so they can pick them up and put them away
If your child can’t reach certain areas of their closet, they can’t put their clothes away. This can lead them to just leave clothes lying around. As a result, it’s best to make sure their clothes are at the right height for them to be able to access their clothes and put them away.
Teach them that before moving on to the next activity that they need to clean up
It’s best that your child understands they have to pick up their toys before moving on to the next activity, such as eating dinner, watching a movie, or going to the park.
The benefits of teaching children to be organized
You’ve already seen some of the important aspects of organization in children’s lives and how with a few simple tips we can teach children to be organized. Don’t hesitate to start working on this with your children since you’ll see significant benefits!