Organizing My Tween Or Teen's Room
What are the special challenges of organizing an older child's room?
I think the biggest challenge of organizing an older child's room is to take into account all the technology. You know, the iPod, the computer, if you allow the child to have gaming units in their room, there's just a lot of cords and units and things to consider. It's about figuring out where all that goes and how to house all the components for all of that, printers and scanners and everything. So older children's rooms are no longer just rooms where they have their clothes or their music or anything, there's just so many other things to think about.
What tools can help me organize my tween or teen's room?
I think the best tools that can help you organize your tweens room I mean there's a couple of things. I think a bulletin board is a great tool because one it's a great thing for them to put things on that they want to have visual access too but also it's a great way to put up reminders. It's almost teaching them the idea of you know keeping track of things making lists you know maybe they put like to dos on there whatever it is. It's a form of expression for them so it's really great for them to have something that they can you know put pictures anything they want on. A calendar is a great tool for them to have . I think if they have a computer which most kids now days do is teaching them how to store things on the computer. Whether that's photographs that they're taking you know with a camera and learning how to you know make files for those photos and keep track of them or burn them on a disk and keep track of them that way. I think in generally really with older children it's not so much about containers as it is about systems. And I think you know when kids are younger you really just want to teach them the concept of putting things back where they belong and when kids get older you want to teach them how systems work and how systems can help them to you know further in their life. Whether that's time management or organization or whatever it is. So I think it's really about systems with older kids.
How likely is my teen to use an organizational system?
I found older kids actually to be quite responsive to having systems in place. Within; but I've also found that you have to let older kids sort of be a little more free. So I think it's just important to remember that the systems may not be adhered to, to the T. But the idea is to just get a system going. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's okay.
