The daily life of special needs parents can be particularly demanding. In addition to typical household and parenting responsibilities, parents meet with professionals, coordinate and travel to services, complete tasks required by specialists (adding to parents' homework base) and stay abreast of new medical resources. Whether you are a one or two working-parent family, organization is essential. Organization is the ability to think things through in an orderly fashion and follow through into action. This fall issue provides some basic how to's to enhance what you are doing or to get you started.
Home Organization
Cluttered homes result in lost items, wasted time, increased frustration and distractibility, which may exacerbate a pre-existing internal disorganization in your children. Here are some helpful hints:
Re-organize
Without getting crazed, clear clutter and make personal space for belongings of each family member. Learn to say good-bye to excess stuff. Remove/recycle toys that are no longer age appropriate. Ensure hooks are at the right height for your child and designate a place for knapsacks and shoes so they are easy to find in the morning before school.
Keep Areas Clear
Have clean and consistent work and play spaces with child friendly shelves and bins for toys, games and books. Create daily clean up time for your child to return things to their proper place. This task helps respect material goods and further reduces the need to replace misplaced toys.
Family Organization
Organization is both a mental and physical skill that is not easy to maintain. Here are ideas for keeping your family life running smoothly:
Self-Reflection
Recognize you may be buying into society's message that doing more is better. Accomplish more by doing less. Over time, one becomes comfortable with saying "no" and doing less.
Schedules
Create daily, weekly and monthly calendars for household chores, school-related activities, sports, invitations and so on. For families with more than one child or very different routines, color-code your child's activities on the calendar. Establish priorities regarding overlapping events which might require postponing an extra-curricular activity.
Family Time
Family meetings, mealtimes and outings lend themselves to meaningful communication and problem-solving. Many creative lessons in organization, compromise, negotiation, cooperation, and responsibility, such as goal setting, can be incorporated during family time. As an added bonus, research shows that family mealtimes promote children's social behavior, important for both typical children and children with special needs.
Minimize Morning Madness
Model thinking ahead. Review plans for the next day with your child before bedtime in anticipation of any changes, or in the morning as reinforcement. This helps your child feel secure knowing what lies ahead that day and as a valued participant in the planning process.
Use time-saving strategies
You may want to consider setting your breakfast table, preparing clothes and pre-bagging lunch the night before or try waking up before your child.
Paperwork
Practice File, Act or Toss. For paperwork tasks, ask yourself "Do I file it?" (i.e., bank statements, paid bills), "Should I act on it?" (i.e., field trip permission slips), or "Can it be tossed?" (i.e., junk mail)
Keep a binder in one location for all Individual Educational Plans, professional reports, resources, and meetings.
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The daily life of special needs parents can be particularly demanding. In addition to typical household and parenting responsibilities, parents meet with professionals, coordinate and travel to services, complete tasks required by specialists (adding to parents' homework base) and stay abreast of new medical resources. Whether you are a one or two working-parent family, organization is essential. Organization is the ability to think things through in an orderly fashion and follow through into action. This fall issue provides some basic how to's to enhance what you are doing or to get you started.
