Life Skills for Teens, Greater Sanity for Parents

As a professional organizer working with the chronically disorganized, I see teens everywhere who could use some help in getting organized. It’s a skill set schools tend to overlook, but one that parents know is crucial for success in every area of life.

In the blink of an eye, those teens will turn into adults who find that just getting out of the house on time each morning, planning a meal, paying bills by due dates, finding needed items and working a job all require persistent organizing skills. Why are so many of us at a loss? It helps if we expose some common myths.

The truth is that disorganization is not an inherited trait. Organizing is a skill that anyone can learn given the right instruction, methods and tools. Being organized need not be synonymous with being neat. In reality, being organized is more about how a space functions, not how it looks. And though most of us feel we don’t have any time to get organized, time spent organizing actually saves time. Too often family members find themselves wandering aimlessly about the house trying to find car keys or glasses. It’s a common problem.

The teen years are the perfect time to talk with your children and get their buy-in on the idea. No one can force someone else to get organized anymore than we could force them to stop smoking or drinking. But parents can help young people see the practical advantages. Benefits may include finishing homework faster, time to hang out with friends, and more free time for activities they enjoy. As a bonus, the more independent a child is, the less nagging parents do!

Three steps will help parents and teens work together for an all-around better experience. As a benevolent dictator, it’s a parent’s job to set parameters. The teenager’s job is to learn to make good choices.

Step One: Align current reality with a goal. For example, if homework is always completed in a rush at the last minute, the agreed goal might be to decrease the overall time spent on homework each day from three hours to two hours and complete assignments at least a day in advance. Diagnosing the problem could reveal the need to concentrate on a particular area, such as writing down the assignment, gathering necessary information, making or following a plan for completion, or simply finding a good place to study.

Step Two: Bail out of the current reality by creating a doable plan of action based on what’s currently happening and what all parties would like to see happen. Have the teen write down, type up, draw pictures, or in some way document the plan that’s taking shape. For example, if the basic challenge lies in the ability to gather information for a school paper and get it in on time, have him first choose a manageable assignment. Then discuss what information might be needed. How many books or articles? Will data come from the internet, library reference books or other sources?

Next jointly decide how long to allot for information gathering. Maybe three hours on the internet and five hours in the library would be adequate. Given past experience, how long might it take to actually write the paper? Starting from the due date and counting back, target how much time the teen needs to devote to this project each day. That will determine a starting date. Then, add about 25 to 50 percent more time since most of us are prone to underestimate the amount of time a task takes.

Step Three: Conquer the action plan. Starting the plan might mean setting a timer for one hour on day one and researching appropriate topics on the web. Day two could be taking two hours in the library reading recent magazine articles. The following day there might not be any work done on the paper since day two included two hours of work. Providing structure such as a timer, with breaks every 30 minutes, and a reward at the end of the week if five hours of work have been completed all help ensure that the project stays on track. If a slip in schedule occurs, then it becomes necessary to revisit the schedule together. Remember that any improvement in organization works to reduce stress and increase efficiency while helping a project move toward completion.

Or, let’s take another typical example. Say a child is always late for school because she has “nothing to wear” in the closet. The goal could be to choose an outfit with all accessories the night before. Identified obstacles might be a lack of clean clothes, disorganized drawers and closets or difficulty in making decisions. An effective action plan would tackle teaching the young person to do her own laundry, helping her organize her bedroom in ways that work for her and examining the process to see why decisions seem so difficult. Again, choosing a project completion date and breaking tasks down into manageable steps itemized on a schedule will go a long way in resolving the tardiness problem. But behold the benefits: a peaceful morning with no yelling!

Giving teenagers compassionate guidance and structure mixed with freedom for them to make choices both helps to increase their independence now and assures greater success in their future. Everyone wins.