As a professional organizer, I spend a lot of my time teaching or transferring organizational skills to adults. Many of these adults have children who also need this help.
Diane Quintana (CPO, CPO-CD) and I have been aware of the importance of teaching young children organizational skills. Diane and I met when we were both working with the NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) in the schools program. This was a program that went into schools and introduced elementary children to some of the basic organizational skills. We were sad to see this program fold.
Taking matters into our own hands, we co-authored two books – Suzie’s Messy Room & Benji’s Messy Room. These books were written for parents and children to share. We took some basic organizational strategies:
Break projects down into small manageable steps
Sort like with like
Cull collections
Assign a place or home for belongings
Reward for jobs completed
We then applied these strategies to the task of cleaning up a room. These same strategies are applicable to any project the children (or parents) take on.
We have gone on to develop presentations for parents on teaching organizational skills to their children and have developed activities for the children. We feel this is also something that should be taught in the schools as well as at home.
For more information, please contact me – jonda@timespaceorg.com or 404-299-5111.
To order books, check out my web page – http://timespaceorg.com/books/ .
Jonda S. Beattie Professional Organizer
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