Debbie Lillard - Absolutely Organize Your Family. Simple Solutions to Control Clutter, Schedules & Spaces

It's no secret that there are many books on organizing because, frankly, there are a lot of disorganized people in the world. I believe the reason for our disorganization is we have too many choices. Goods and information are so readily available to us that we are gluttons for punishment, as my mother would say. All you have to do is look in the bread aisle of a supermarket to realize the number of choices we have with everything we buy. We want it all, and we want it now. And we want it all for our children as well. It's not enough for them to go to school and play with friends. They have extended sports seasons, music lessons, academic enrichment tutors more than we ever had when we were children. Not all of this is bad, but it certainly is hectic. Once we have it all, where the heck do we put it? And how do we keep track of it?

Pile on top of those choices the growing pace of technology and the global market, where competition is fierce, and you've got one stressed-out, cluttered society. Face it, the world our children are growing up in is vastly different from what we knew. They have more stuff, more opportunities, and more distractions than we did in the '60s, '70s, and even the '80s.

So here we are with a book on how to organize your children. There's no way around it, we as parents have to unclutter their lives and help them focus. The first step is to be a good example, so I've got a self-checklist for you. Once you are on board with your own organizational skills, we'll talk about how to teach them to your children. In order to do that, we've got to step back and see things from their perspectives. If we are exceptionally organized parents, and, in our opinion, our children are messy, then maybe it's our teaching approach that needs to be modified. On the other hand, maybe it's our expectations that need to be adjusted. What looks unorganized or messy to us may be functional for our kids. We have to become comfortable with good enough. In order to do that, we've got to look at our goals for our kids. Do we want a tidy room or do we want a happy child? Do we want a clean backpack or do we want a successful student? Do we want a servant or do we want a responsible child who pitches in with his share of the housework? Maybe we want it all, but that is not always possible.