Teaching her how to organize - and how to save our sanity...

Hey, guess what—kids don’t automatically know how to do stuff. Who knew!

Note: This beautiful girl does NOT know how to organize. Yes, it's true.

Case in point:

We have had trouble with Kaitlyn getting her school stuff organized the night before and have spent countless mornings running around looking for books, packing snacks, and generally just trying to hold it together without flying into a rage! Ha.

Why can’t she get her sh*t together the night before? Well, because we’ve never taught her too. Shocker. Here and there we remind her that she needs to put her books back in her bag, pack her snakc, etc. Yes, we never stressed upon her that it’s important, it’s her job to get this stuff together and have it all ready to go. I kind of feel bad because you can tell she was upset that she couldn’t find everything and she couldn’t figure out why we were so upset with her. So, Jason and I were at our wits end after the latest morning craziness and we had differing opinions about how to resolve this. Jason said that she needs to be grounded but I said that she needs to be taught how to be more organized and responsible. So, we talked to her and we told her that yes, you need to get your school bag ready to go the night before. Yes, you need to lay out your clothes the night before. Yes, you need to brush your hair every, single. Morning. Yes, you need to be clean all the time. Yes, you need to be responsible.

Today was the first morning after our discussion and things went better. She got up and got dressed. She had packed her school bag and snack the night before. The morning was a delight.

You’re probably asking yourself—are you really this surprised that this would work? Well, no. I am just THANKFUL that it did. It’s so easy to forget that kids don’t understand what it means to be organized, to be responsible, etc. Especially at 6 years old.

YOU NEED TO TEACH THEM.

Next lesson: how to do your own laundry. ;)