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:
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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:
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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.
Routines Impact Behavior
In general, managing the flow of children's needs is challenging. Organized routines instill a sense of rhythm and sequencing which positively impacts behavior. Strategies include:
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Drawing the Line
Limit the choices of activities your child is involved in so there is ample downtime, physical exercise and transition time. This is especially important for children with voluminous homework or for children who over-extend and cannot self-modulate. -
Decreasing Tension
Take your child's temperament and traits into account when you want to encourage appropriate behavior and responses. For example, does your child need to learn to downshift when over-stimulated or changing activities? Consider your style and compare it to your child's. What might be done differently to support your child's temperament which in turn balances behavior? -
Creating Visual Cues
Posters for morning, after-school and evening routines, and household responsibilities are simple and effective tools. They can be represented with words and corresponding symbols for children too young to read or who have difficulty with language. Give your child control by allowing him to determine the order of the schedule, decorating the poster and helping to find the best placement for it. When making the poster, have a list prepared of everything that needs to be done so nothing is missed and tasks are agreed upon. When your child forgets, or is out of sync, refer to the poster. This visual aide diffuses tension and minimizes arguing while promoting accountability. Update posters to reflect your child's new routines and responsibilities. -
Modeling
Consider making one for yourself as an example for your children!
Rewards and Consequences
Better organization makes for better behavior and minimizes stress throughout your household.
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Rewards
First, offer your child both tangible and intangible rewards for responding to change and establishing good habits. Tangible rewards include picking a movie, choosing what's for dinner, or earning points towards a special gift. In conjunction, praise your child at the moment good behavior occurs, such as when he puts his belongings in the right place. Eventually you will be able to lessen the tangible rewards in exchange for solely intangible compliments and praise. The outcome is the inherent good feeling that comes from developing self-discipline and internalized organization. -
Consequences
The consequence for not following through on an expectation needs to be logical, consistent, timely and directly related to not performing the expected behavior. The idea that "this needs to be done before such-and-such can happen" is a logical consequence directly related to the remaining task at hand. For example, homework must be completed before playing games on the computer. Teaching that life has natural consequences is ultimately more effective that being punitive.
Changing and adapting to new ways is difficult and may cause challenges. Like any learned behavior, organizational skills can be nurtured and enhanced with practice. Parental modeling and establishing home organization increases your family's and child's likelihood of attaining success.
Jenny Frank, CSW, and Roberta Omin, CSW-R, are clinical social workers in Westchester County, N.Y., who have extensive experience working with individuals, families and children with special needs.
This article is a reprint of the Winter 2004, Vol. 3, No. 1 edition of Special Parenting Matters of Westchester. For more information, write This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
