The new school year is a fresh start. The chance to challenge yourself to be on time, and to help your child meet the goals that you began addressing last spring. With this fresh start brings new hope, the hope that this year will be different. Your hope that you will be on time, and that you will meet those goals for your child.
I am here to tell you that, you CAN, you can be on time, you can see your child meet their goals! You can FEEL successful, you can BE successful. Here is how: LABEL, LABEL, LABEL
This will be done in stages, first and foremost if your child is anything like mine, he forgets things. He forgets his hat on the bus, his coat in the lunch room and his shoes. Wait? Where are his shoes?
Step 1: Yes you have heard it before, you are hearing it again. Write down your child's name on their things. I take this one step further in my house and I write down my phone number. If your child's privacy is being respected having his or her name on their coat is not going to get it back to you. Because, when someone finds Joe Smiths coat at the park, they are not going to be able to get it back to Joe Smith. Unless of course he has a phone number listed. Which no one does anymore. Although, you are going to write your phone number directly on it. Don’t stop at their coat, write on their hats, gloves, backpacks, lunch boxes, masks. Can it come off your child? If your answer is, Yes, then it can get left behind. Would you like it back? If so, you should label it : Name + Phone Number
We all know labels help idetnify the owner. Labels can bring back lost items outsdie of the home. However they dont make pagers to attach to coats so we can find them in the house. Or do they? Of course that would get lost to. So what do we do so that we can stop losing items at home?
Step 2: Have a home for everything, AKA organize and LABEL. Have you ever reorganized your closet and a month later its back just like it was? Yeah, me to. So, what was the problem? I loved how simple it was, how everything had a place, how "organized" it looked. How did it go from organized to chaotic in such a short amount of time? Likely answer is that we forgot where things went, or at least someone forgot. Perhaps we knew where everything went but did your spouse, grandma, the kids? No. No one else knew, because, it wasn't labeled! Find a way to "hold" the items in place and find a location for your label. This does not have to cost you anything more than the cost of labels and your time. Recycle containers, boxes, bags or purchase clear storage solutions so that you can see inside. Then LABEL. Give everything a home. This will improve the ability to find things when you need them an it will teach your child how to organize, categorize and best of all it will increase your chances of real change coming from your newly organized area.
What do you think labels do for your child's reading success? Do you think that having your child see the letters that represent "long sleeve shirt" will help them develop phonemic awareness of the "l" and "sl" in the words? The quick answer YES! The long answer, Yes, having a print rich environment most certainly helps your child develop reading skills. But what if your child is older and doesn't need reading skills what skills does labeling improve? Associations, making associations and seeing similarities and differences among things helps develop critical thinking skills. Categorization, by placing items in the area they belong, can help improve vocabulary and cognitive skills. Executive Function, by teaching your child how to organize, plan and put things away you are helping them develop critical skills that will help them throughout their lives.
Step 3: Pick one problem area a week or a month and tackle it! The problem area does not have to be a physical area it could be a time of day that is hard. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with how much there is to organize and label. This is ER for your home and day. We are going to triage and choose, the unhealthiest area of your home or your schedule and start there. Choose the area that causes the most frustration for your child, or the area that requires the most help from you to clean or find items. Organize, categorize, sort and LABEL. Put everything that is needed for an activity into a bag or bucket and label it. Before you throw your hands up and say forget it I am not organizing this room again. I need you to remember that this time when you clean it WILL BE different. By organizing your home and your child’s things you are helping their speech and language skills. This time the room or bag of activities and tiems will stay organized, your child will need less reminders, and you will increase their independence in finding the items they need. The label is what will change your life.
Think of a classroom, have you ever wondered how teachers keep their rooms so clean and tidy with 15 -20 kids per class! They organize, and the LABEL. Every child, new, old, young or a senior in the class knows exactly where things go without even needing to ask the teacher. Class rules, schedule and expectations are an ever present reminder on the wall.
Step 4: Don’t stop with your child’s areas. Once you learn the power of labeling and visual organization and cues and organizing you may start to label more things in your home that need to be written down. Giving visual reminders throughout your child’s day and routines can increase their independence. Your goal here is to identify a way that you can increase the visual cues you provide and reduce your child’s reliance on you “reminding”, AKA “nagging” “scolding” or even “yelling” at your child to remember the items that they nearly always forget.
Have fun! Check out Take Home Speech LLC store for my visual strategies and fun tools to help your child increase their independence and speech and language skills at home!