To begin with, Alex was failing social studies because the tests came from the notes the teacher wrote on the board. Copying notes from the board was so difficult that Alex couldn’t read them. If that weren’t bad enough, Alex had no idea what the teacher was saying because trying to write the notes was all consuming.

Secondly, he was failing English because of the papers he wrote. The teacher insisted on having his students write in cursive. Now Alex was penalized for poor penmanship and poor grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Thirdly, he failed math because he couldn’t keep numbers lined up nor read his own writing. Finally, he was failing science because his grade depended on written lab reports. So, Alex never did them—too much writing.

Alex is smart. So what’s going on here?

Alex has dysgraphia, a learning disability that makes writing difficult.
Children with dysgraphia can sit in front of a blank piece of paper or computer screen. Three hours later the paper or screen are still blank. These kids often have wonderful and creative thoughts but can’t get them onto paper or a computer. They can tell you what they want to say but are unable to write it. For some, writing is such a slow and tedious process that they don’t have the patience to sit still long enough to write.

Other kids will write fast and furiously, skipping words, getting sentences and paragraphs in the wrong order. Often they can’t read their own handwriting. The end result is the same: poor grades and an aversion to writing.
Often these children stop writing because, even if they can get the paper written, they’re terrified that their teacher or their parents will insist they revise and rewrite.

Some children may also have actual physical problems with writing that are related to poor eye-hand coordination or lack of fine-motor skills. These children tend to avoid writing, even something as simple as their homework assignment.

Symptoms of Dysgraphia :

• Poor handwriting
• Good ideas but difficulty getting the same thoughts onto pape
• Difficulty copying from the board or from a book
• Overly long time spent when required  to write a paper
• Difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar

A diagnosis of dysgraphia, a writing disorder, is not appropriate if the child does not have all the symptoms. Some children are simply poor spellers, some have poor motor skills and some simply haven’t learned punctuation and grammar yet. Because children can have different challenges with writing,  you’ll want to pick and choose from the list below to help them improve and learn to enjoy  writing.

Five Strategies for Writing at Home:

• Use a computer. Encourage your child to use a computer when at all possible. Kids who write too fast and whose handwriting is lousy often do well on a computer—especially as they become proficient at keyboarding.
• Set up short practice sessions. For young children, practice writing individual letters, words, sentences, or short paragraphs. Keep the sessions appropriate (in subject and in length) to your child’s age, maturity level and personality. For example, 5 to 10 minutes for 6 year olds because they are just learning how to write, 15 to 30  minutes for 7 – 10 year olds, 30 to 45 minutes for middle schoolers and and 60 minutes and more for high schoolers.
• Depending on their maturity level, personality and desire to write, more time is great. But for the struggling writer, more time may be counterproductive. My book  “How to Improve Writing Skills” helps children with writing challenges.
• Help with spelling. During a writing session, if your child has trouble spelling, spell the words for her. If the primary goal is writing, stopping often to look up a word interferes with the creative process. Or encourage her to ignore spelling until the draft is written. Use the spell-check function of your computer’s word processing program.
• Have your child tell you what he wants to write about. Then write his thoughts on paper. This can be in list form, on a web (main idea in the middle of a circle and thoughts are on spokes coming out of the circle), or outline form. Then decide together which ideas should be in the beginning of the paper, which should be in the middle and which should be at the end. Number the ideas and cross out the ones that do not belong. Then have your child write or type the final copy by writing one thought after the other.
• Try to avoid making your child rewrite excessively.  Forcing a child to do so is drudgery that often turns him off to writing. Remember your child’s maturity and appropriate skill level for his grade.

Dysgraphia can certainly affect children’s grades, test scores, and even their attitude toward school. If you suspect that your child may have dysgraphia, talk to your child’s teacher about modifications and accommodations that can be done in the classroom.

But how do you know if your child’s problems stem from a learning disability or something else? When Andrew struggles with the multiplication tables, it could be a symptom of a much bigger issue which hours of math-drill won’t solve. Better than math-drill is finding the real issue. Does Andrew have a learning disability? By ignoring the possibility of a learning disability, many children never get the help they need. As a result, they find the entire school experience difficult, confusing and frustrating. School can be hard enough for most children. When a child has a learning disability, it’s even more exasperating because it rarely goes away.

So it’s time to discover why your child struggles in school or in a particular subject and what you can do to help him attain school success. Start by finding out if your child has a classifiable learning disability. “Classifiable” means the learning disability fits into a category that’s on the “approved”
list. This entitles him, by law, to receive special school support.

Most students have trouble in school at some point in their lives, but their problems may not be ongoing, severe enough, or specific enough to be considered learning disabilities. For example, Jessica keeps failing her social studies tests, Andrew can’t remember his math facts, and Cari cries every time she has to write a book report. According to the law, are these children defined as having a learning disability? Maybe?

Perhaps Jessica’s family is having problems at home, and Jessica is so worried about her parents that she keeps flunking tests. Maybe nobody showed Andrew a way that works for him to remember his math facts. And Cari missed a week of school when she had her tonsils out. Unfortunately, it was the week her teacher taught the class how to write a book report.

Just because a child has difficulty doing something in school doesn’t mean she has a learning disability. If that were the case, everyone would be classified as learning disabled!

Three Strategies for Managing Learning Disabilities

• Have your child evaluated. How do you know if your child has a
learning disability that meets legal criteria? It would be great if we could give them a blood test or a throat culture, but it’s not that easy. Parents, teachers and administrators have to rely on a combination of specific criteria. The school will do testing for learning disabilities. They will be looking for nonverbal learning disabilities, verbal learning disabilities, and other types of learning disabilities.

If you suspect your child’s school difficulties may be caused by a learning disability, consult your child’s teacher, school counselor, school social worker, school psychologist or principal for advice, or ask to have your child evaluated by the school. If you need to follow through, write a letter to your local school district requesting that your child be tested for a learning disability. This test is typically free, even if your child goes to a private school.

You can take your child to a qualified professional, usually  a neuropsychologist or psychiatrist. Or ask your pediatrician if she has a list of professionals who can help. And remember, it’s a good idea to get a second opinion.

• Become educated. If your child is classified as having a learning disability, learn what’s available to your child. Contact your state education department for information. You can also contact the Learning Disabilities Association of America (www.LDANATL.org ) for advice. Many strategies can help your child learn. Go online or go to the library or local bookstore to find books on helping learning-disabled students.

• Be an involved parent. It’s important to help you child but don’t make a career of your child’s learning disability. Accept it, understand it, make adjustments and move on with your lives. Too many parents become over-involved, some to the point of being obsessive-compulsive about their children’s learning disability. This is harmful to them and to their children.

What if, after testing, you find your child doesn’t have a learning disability? Our schools are filled with children who, in spite of having learning problems all through school, don’t meet the state or federal guidelines for having a learning-disability.

These children often aren’t provided sufficient support. They may be given remedial reading in the lower grades. However, for the most part, once they reach middle and high school, they’re on their own. They may not be able to keep up with the reading, writing, or math.

Now it’s up to you to step in. Ask the school for more support. Get tutoring. Do what’s appropriate to get the help your child needs. Your child deserves school success. The good news is that many school districts now have learning labs and other support systems in order to address these students’ needs, and most private schools provide additional support.

Here’s what 12-year-old Joey explained to me: “Those teachers are losin’ it. They get nuts if you forget a pencil! I’m talkin’ about a pencil! I have to remember which room to go to each period, how to get there, what book I need, if I have my homework, if I can get to the bathroom in those few minutes, and if it’s A, B, C or D day, and they want me to remember a pencil too?”

Joey’s not lazy or stupid or trying to annoy his teachers. He’s been classified with a learning disability.

If your child is experiencing some difficulties at school, don’t be too quick to blame him. Instead, find out what’s really going on. Your child may have a learning disability. Many become frustrated and angry with their children or with the teachers and the schools. They blame their child for being lazy, for having a low frustration level, or for giving up too quickly. They invariably lecture and punish her when she gets poor grades.

Here are three strategies to follow if you think your child might have a learning disability.

• Shift your attention to find the cause of the learning the learning disability. In order to solve the problem, you need to shift your attention from the bad grades to the more important issue: what is causing the bad grades. Once you find what is causing your child to struggle and find ways to fix or overcome that, his grades will automatically go up. You can think of this in terms of cause and effect. The bad grades are only the effect. Once you find the cause and remedy it, the bad grades will cease to be a problem.
• Become your child’s ally. When a child struggles because of a learning disability, it’s hard for both the child and the parents. In such situations, parents should behave as their children’s allies, not their adversaries. They need to help their children by trying to identify the causes of the problems, and then to help them resolve their problems through remediation and/or accommodation. Again, it’s not an easy task. But to insure school success, parents need to understand the real problems their children are experiencing, and then find the support they need.
• Find out what assistance is available for children with learning disabilities. The good news is that no parent or child needs to experience such frustration and anger. If your child is struggling, there’s plenty of help available, both through the school and through private counseling and tutoring. Talk to the teachers, counselors, administrators, psychologists, physicians, friends, relatives, and neighbors. Find out what assistance is available, and how to go about taking advantage of these services.

Always remember that your goal is to insure that your child experiences school success.  If it takes navigating around a few more bumps than you had anticipated, that’s okay.

Happy navigating.

Michael believed that if he tried hard and kept working at something, he’d succeed.  He could succeed at school. He was sure of it. He said that nobody had told him this—not his parents, not his grandparents. How did he know?  It was the message in his fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant–so it must be true.

It’s a cute story but in Michael’s case, luckily only partly true. In fact he had wonderful support from his parents and his grandparents. They cheered him on every day as he struggled with severe language issues.

Although Michael could speak when he was five, nobody could understand him. His family was concerned with school and worried about his future. By the time I met Michael, he had been through three years of neurologists, audiologists, pediatricians, and speech therapists.

I started working with Michael when he entered kindergarten and continued meeting with him through high school. Between the school and hour-long weekly tutoring sessions, Michael succeeded. Sure there were rough times. At times, Michael became so frustrated that he would pound his fist on the table because he couldn’t retrieve the words he needed to express himself. But, through everything, Michael’s family never walked away.

They accepted his strengths and weaknesses, supported him daily and respected his needs. He’s in college now, wants to be an engineer. He’s an amazing math student! And he now talks up a storm!

Michael’s story shows that even with odds stacked against him from the get-go, with the proper support, success in school and beyond is attainable. However, it takes a great deal of effort on three main fronts: the child, his parents and his teacher.  But it starts at home with you.

All parents, like Michael’s, want their kids to do well in school. How well children do in school and beyond is determined by their own special genes (nature) and experiences (nurture). Sometimes their genes contain special “gifts” from the past. For example, they may have inherited their Great-Grandpa Joe’s dyslexia or Grandma Sue’s love of reading.

Some children are extroverts like their dad and get A’s in class participation, while others are introverts like their Aunt Sally, and are very happy just to listen and take it all in. Many parents have a fantasy of a child they want their child to be, but it may not be the child they have.

To ensure school success and beyond, you need to

1. Accept your child for who he is.
2. Support your child in any way you can.
3. Respect your child so that she can reach her full potential.

These are three of the most important factors in school success. Since you—Mom and Dad—are the most important significant others in your child’s life, your acceptance, support and respect are essential to her emotional, social and intellectual growth.

In fact, these three factors are the building blocks of positive self-esteem, which is of the highest importance to ensure school success.

Kids (and adults) who don’t get enough sleep can’t function properly. Sleep restores energy to the body, particularly to the brain and nervous system.
When your child doesn’t get enough sleep, she has trouble concentrating on her schoolwork and remembering what she’s learned, even controlling her temper. The amount of sleep people need varies. Most kids and teens need at least eight or more hours of sleep. Monitor your child to be sure she’s getting enough sleep, especially if she’s a teenager. Many teens suffer in school because they’re sleep-deprived. They stay up late and then get up early to be in class by 7:30.

Research has shown that this early school schedule isn’t in step with the biological clock of teenagers. They need early morning sleep and aren’t getting it.

 Symptoms of Sleep Deprivation:

• Your child is constantly sleepy.
• Your child is cranky or sad.
• Your child has trouble concentrating.
• Your child gets hostile or weepy over small things.
• Your child reacts irrationally over the smallest decision, problem or assignment.
 
 Three Strategies to Combat Sleep Deprivation:

1. Review the daily schedule. Work with your child to adjust her schedule so she doesn’t always end up doing homework late at night. Since children need to play at some point during the day and many teens are busy with after-school activities, this isn’t always easy. If your child continues to do homework late in the evening, go over her schedule and see what activities she can drop or move to a different time so she can get her homework done earlier.

Many parents encourage their children to get homework done as soon as they walk in the door, but many kids need to do something physical after school to unwind, and others need to relax and have some free time. Still others have trouble doing homework when their siblings or friends are out playing. It’s important to gauge what your child needs. Determine together the optimal time for doing homework every day. Help her stay on this schedule.

2. Make up for lost sleep. Allow your child to sleep in on weekends to make up for lost time during the week.

3. Work to have school open later. It’s a long shot, but talk to your school board members to see if it’s possible to shift the school day a little bit later. High school students in particular need a later school start. Starting school later has met with great success in some school districts. It sounds naive, but if enough parents and kids support this shift, it’s possible.

Get teachers behind the move. Be prepared. Do a search for the latest information. Since school principals and other administrators will want to see the research, bring several copies with you. Better yet, have copies of the research distributed ahead of time to everyone on the school board.

Remember that sleep deprivation not only gets in the way of school success, but can also cause health issues. When kids don’t get enough sleep, their immune systems are weakened. They get more colds and are more vulnerable to the flu and other illnesses. Then they miss school on top of it.

How do you get your kid to go to bed early enough? Please let us know. Our readers love to read your comments.

Jen, a fifteen-year old, was listening to music, too. As she got settled. I asked Jen if this kind of multi-tasking goes on all day. She confirmed my suspicions that multi-tasking goes on while she does her homework, including all the social interactions on her computer.

I’d bet your teens are doing this kind of multi-tasking too.

Life on this “fast track” doesn’t leave Jen or your kids enough brain cells for homework. It’s not that kids aren’t doing their homework. They are. It’s not that they don’t care. They do. But they’re doing everything at once: e-mailing, texting, phoning, watching YouTube, chatting on MySpace or FaceBook . . . and their homework. Surely multi-tasking has a down side.

Discoveries about Multi-tasking

The latest research on multi-tasking shows that performance suffers when people do more than one thing at a time. In fact, when people go from one task to another very quickly, they’re slowed down. Little research has been done on multi-tasking and the teen brain, but we can probably infer from research done on adults.

Scientists have learned that no matter how great you are at multi-tasking, you will accomplish the individual tasks less skillfully if you’re multi-tasking than if you concentrate from start to finish on the same task. In other words, when we try to do many things at once, performance suffers.

David Meyer at the University of Michigan has spent the past few decades studying multi-tasking. He found that multi-tasking causes a kind of “brownout” in the brain. Meyer uses an analogy comparing the brain to what happens when the electric company reduces the voltage during peak summer consumption hours and all the lights go dim.

Similarly, because there just isn’t enough “power to go around,” the brain automatically shuts down some of the connections. In order to restore those connections, people have to repeat the thought process that originally created the connections which takes additional time and effort.

As an aside, many teens insist that they study more efficiently if they listen to music while doing schoolwork. They may be right. Having music playing in the background may actually improve their performance. Because they aren’t concentrating on the music, they aren’t really multi-tasking. So, if the music keeps them from getting bored, or distracted from their studies, it improves their efficiency. This is often true for ADHD kids.

Talk to Your Teens

Hopefully, the examples I’ve used will help you drive home the message to your teenager that multi-tasking impacts negatively on his performance of individual tasks. Consider using the example of driving while texting. Even the best multi-tasker would require additional time to react to a sudden emergency. That fraction of a second could easily avoid a serious accident. Someone your teen loves could be injured or die in this catastrophe. It’s exactly the reason many states have passed laws against driving while talking on a cell phone.

Let us know what you think about multi-tasking. Is it affecting your kids negatively? Do you do it too?

 Naturally we all want our kids to do well in school. We want them to succeed. However, some kids are driven. They become fixated on getting nothing lower than an A.

 In itself, getting all A’s isn’t a problem as long as it doesn’t create emotional problems. However, if you see signs that your child’s natural ambition for excellence is becoming problematic, you need to step in.

Staying up night after night until 2 AM studying simply isn’t okay. Teens need their sleep.

 If your child is doing very well in school, it’s unlikely that she’s compensating for an overlooked learning disability. However, you will want to rule out a such a disability.

 Symptoms of Being Driven:

• His highly competitive nature causes him to revel in the failures of others.
• Constructive criticism from you, teachers or friends causes her to be hostile and stomp away angry or in tears.
• He begins cheating in order to maintain his grades.
• She can’t accept making mistakes, so she makes up excuses in order to cover up.
• He stays up all hours of the night studying.
• She has meltdowns when she gets below an A.

 Three Recommendations to Help Your Child Succeed without being Driven:

1. Focus on learning. Talk to your child about school, what he’s learning, and what he enjoys. Ask questions and show an interest in his whole school experience. Take the focus off grades and tests.

2. Explain failure. Tell your child that failure, or in Leslie’s case less than perfection, is part of learning. Failure is okay. Getting a B is perfectly acceptable. It happens to the best of us at one time or another. Share a time that you failed, in or out of school, and what you may have learned from the experience.

 3. Look at Your influence. Ask yourself honestly if you might be putting pressure—spoken or unspoken—on your teen  to get straight A’s, to get into an Ivy League college. Be aware that an overdriven teen may be the result of an overdriven parent. Keep your child’s emotional and
 physical health in focus. Accept your child for who he is.

 A lot of pressure is put on teenagers right now—from school and from friends, even from the media. As parents,  it’s our job to help them weather the storms.

Does you child have a meltdown when they get a B? What do you tell them about success. Share your ideas with your readers. Use the comment box below.

“All the teachers care about is if I did my homework. They don’t even ask me about my life. My dad lost his job and my mom has cancer. Homework is the last thing on my mind.” Lori is stressed and it’s not about school.

Everyone has personal problems sometimes. Some are serious like Lori’s, others not so serious. Sometimes minor problems are blown out of proportion and appear to be more important than they are, impacting on more important things such as schoolwork.  Big or small, we need to pay attention to how our children think about their lives and what’s worrying them.

Some minor issues come and go. Maybe your child had an argument with a friend or a teacher, or he can’t decide what to wear so he’ll fit in. She’s worried about whether to join a sports team.

Some issues, while not catastrophic, are more persistent. For example, some kids worry so much about grades they can’t think about anything else. It doesn’t matter how important these issues are in your eyes, they can cause real stress.

An over-stressed child may have trouble concentrating, relaxing, studying properly, sleeping and, as a result, achieving in school. Research has shown that stress actually changes the way our brains function. When we’re stressed, we can’t think very well.

In many ways students have more stress than adults, even though adults seem to think today’s kids have it easy.
Since most parents aren’t trained psychologists, it’s normal if you don’t know what to do when you think your child is “stressed out.” Don’t be embarrassed to seek professional help. After all, mental health professionals seek help themselves when they are stressed out.

Symptoms of Stress:
• Your child is so worried that he can’t think clearly.
• Your child blows minor problems out of proportion.
• Your child isn’t eating or sleeping well.
• Your child has trouble concentrating.
• Your child is afraid to go to school.
• Your child cries easily and complains of stomach aches or headaches.
• Suddenly your child is blinking a lot or biting his nails.

Three Recommendations to Lower Your Child’s Stress

1. Are lines of communication open? Establish quiet and calm times to sit with your child to a talk about problems that are bothering him. Together come up with options to solve the problems.

2. Are you causing stress and too much pressure? Examine your own behavior to see if the stress your child is feeling is actually coming from you. Behavior may come from actions, words, or simply the high standards you represent, without you saying or doing anything.

If school-related pressure seems to be the issue, check if you or your spouse is putting too much pressure on your child, intentionally or not. This isn’t easy because most parents don’t actually know what their child is capable of achieving. We all think our kids are the greatest and can do whatever they decide to do.

Unfortunately, that’s not reality. Everyone’s potential is different and everyone’s personality is different. What may have been easy for you or for your other kids may not be easy for your child who’s experiencing stress overload.

3. Are you having fun? Some kids are so stressed out from school, and their parents so stressed and unhappy, that nobody’s having fun. Kids are denied the kind of fun that should be a natural part of childhood. Share funny stories at meals, go to the movies together, play computer or board games, or just tell jokes. Kids like you to have fun with them, to laugh together.

Just as with adults, stress causes illness and poor performance. It can cause bad grades and poor test scores. Help your kids get rid of stress. Sometimes it helps to just slow down. Listening helps too.

What causes your kids to be stressed out?  What do you do about it. Let us know. We love to get your comments.

“Jessica, you’re so careless. You do this all the time. Look, you failed the test because you added when you were supposed to subtract. Didn’t you see the minus sign? Then you multiplied 6×7 and put 40. You even wrote 54 instead of 31 when you recopied your answer onto the next page. What’s wrong with you?”

Jessica isn’t really careless. She’s got dyscalculia., a math disorder. Unfortunately, characteristics of dyscalculia are often not picked up as being a math disorder. Kids with dyscalculia are usually diagnosed as being carelessness, unfocused and going too fast. It’s exactly what happened to Jessica.

Math is frustrating for many children. Whether it is due to having trouble remembering the number facts, multiplication tables, understanding concepts, or any of a large number of other issues, many children experience difficulty with both computation and application.

These children may have dyscalculia. Researchers believe this involves the visual and language processing portions of the brain. Evidence suggests that the causes may be genetic or environmental such as prenatal or environmental toxins like lead paint.

A reassuring note is that it’s not uncommon for the weakness to be in a specific area or skill, which, if compensated for, allows these students to operate at or above the level of their peers.

 Symptoms of Dyscalculia:• Avoidance of math work.
• Inability to keep numbers in columns.
• Confusion with math concepts.
• Difficulty with word problems.
• Crying while doing math homework.
• Switching to addition while doing a subtraction problem
or visa versa.
• Forgetting addition facts and the multiplication tables.
• Difficulty remembering math steps.
• Changing the sequence of numerals when copying them.

How to Help Children With Dyscalculia: Seven Tips
 1. Use Lined paper. If your child has trouble keeping numbers in columns, show her how to turn lined paper sideways so the lines become vertical guides. Or, encourage her to use graph paper to keep columns of numbers lined up.

 2. Cover up columns. Have your child cover up all columns except those he’s working on.

 3. Use a calculator when appropriate. If a child is being tested for concepts and understanding and has difficulty with computation, have him use a calculator for those tests or assignments.
4. Circle signs. Suggest that your child circle the + , –, or other arithmetic signs before doing the computation.

5. Color-code. Color-code fact families and multiplication facts for your young child. For example you could write or color 2+3=5, 3+2=5, 5-2=3, 5-3=2 in green, and 3+4=7, 4+3=7, 7-3=4, 7-4=3 in blue.

6. Write what you want. When your child is working on a word problem, tell her to write down the information and what she’s trying to solve for. Encourage her to use whatever method works best for that task such as making a list, drawing, or underlining.

7. Sub-vocalize. Suggest to your child that she talk to herself out loud or sub-vocalize.

Kids with dyscalculia can master math, but they need help. Talk to your child’s teacher. Find out what resources are available at her school. Your child can enjoy success at school, even in math.

Do you have arithmetic challenges at your house? Do you have any tips that have helped. We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comment below.

It’s not just ADHD kids who are disorganized? Kids who don’t have ADHD sometimes can’t remember to bring homework home either. Can’t remember to take the homework back to school when they did bring it home. It’s not intentional. He really means to get his homework done. He just forgets.

Maybe her school materials are poorly organized. Maybe he has poor time-management skills. With all the distractions bombarding kids today, it’s not surprising that they forget so much and are so unorganized.

Without some basic organizational strategies, kids do poorly in school and their grades plummet. Some kids end up cheating or lying–whatever it takes to survive school with a minimum of criticism and punishment. Disorganization and forgetfulness get in the way of success at school.

You can teach your child how to be more organized. Maybe you’ll even find some of these tips useful around your home.

Seven Tips to Help Your Disorganized Kid

1. Color code: Help your child organize his school books and notebooks by color-coding them. Use colored book covers, stickers, labels, stars, or markers with one color for each subject. You can also color code the books by adding colored stickers.

2. Clear book covers: Consider using clear book covers to cover books so that your child can always see the covers.

3. Locker organization: Help your child organize his locker. Brainstorm with him to come up with the best solution. Often locker organizers or locker shelves help a lot. Put morning  books on one shelf  and afternoon books on another, or math and science on one shelf, language arts and social studies on another, for example. Label the shelves.

4. Extra set of books: Keep an extra set of textbooks at home. Before you buy them, ask if the school can provide them. Check the web too for companies who rent textbooks.

5. Organizer: Help your child develop daily schedules. Some schools provide daily planners. If your child’s school doesn’t give out planners, you’ll need to buy one or a PDA (personal digital assistant) from an office-supply store. While you’re there, you and your child can look around at other products that help with organizing.

6. Structure: Offer to help your child organize her homework time. As soon as she gets home, go over the list of assignments due the next day as well as any long-term assignments. If you wait until later, it may be too late to get an assignment from a friend or a book from school. Help her decide which assignment she’s going to do first. Then help her figure enough time for each assignment.

7. Home organization: You and your disorganized kid need to decide on one place to put finished homework. One place to put everything that needs to go back to school including his lunch. One hook for his jacket. And keeping his room uncluttered helps also. Have him set a weekly schedule for cleaning and organizing his room. For some kids, they’ll need to do this every day for awhile until organization becomes a habit. Just as you did for his locker, find shelves and cubes to put things in. Color coding helps here also. You may need to help them at first.

Kids will do best at this new organization routine if it’s simple, and they’ve had a say in deciding what will work and what won’t. Disorganized kids can go overboard with color coding, labels, and stickers which only leads to more disorganization because it’s too complicated. They may need help in making it easy.

Being organized gives kids a sense of power and control over school and their lives. As they begin to feel good about themselves, they’ll start doing better in school.

How do you help your kids stay organized? Other parents will appreciate you comments.