Denville, N.J.: How to start a preschooler with good organization skills?
Donna Goldberg: That’s a wonderful question. There are ways you can start a preschooler. Actually, organization starts with preschool, and even with toddlers. As parents, we give toddlers a routine of the day. If it’s time to clean up, you say to your child, “now it’s clean up time.” And make your child be a part of that process. While you’ll be doing 99-percent of the cleanup, and the child 1 percent, you’ve set the tone that it’s part of play. After that, it’s usually time for dinner, and after that, it’s usually bath time. After bath time, it’s story book time and then bed. And these are the precursors, children begin to predict and anticipate. They start to understand time.
So to start to repeat routines they will go through the day is the beginning of teaching your children to be organized, because they can anticipate what happens next, and the steps that happen. And that really is what organization is, it’s a step-by-step procedure.