1 Year to an Organized Life - September Week Two

This week you can:

• bring order to your child's bedroom
• calm the elements in your child's bedroom...books, toys, dvds
• introduce paper problem solutions to your kids

Isn't this an awesome pic???  I love this room!  I wish I would have had something like this as a kid.  Heck, I wish I had it now!  If you have been with us since January, you should be getting really good by now at organizing and space saving.  This will be a piece of cake...even if your kid has one of those rooms that make you dizzy just looking into it.  

First you need to decide what you want your child to use his room for.  Does he have his own room with plenty of space?  Or does he share a very small room?  I shared a room with my sister growing up and looking at that size of a room now, I do not know how we did it.  There was room for two twin beds and a dresser and barely a path to all three.  Obviously our room was just for sleep and storing our clothes.  There was no playing in here or doing homework.  

I actually kind of like that idea, especially if your kids don't seem to get enough rest.  The bedroom should be just for sleep and relaxing.  If it is big enough, maybe give them a comfy chair and a bookcase, but leave the desk and computer for another place in the house if you can.  First of all, there is the light that a computer gives off even when powered down most have a little light somewhere.  Second of all, you don't want your child tempted to get on the computer late at night after everyone else has gone to bed.  If it is someplace else in the home it makes it a little more difficult.

Growing up we had  "toy room".  It was just a space in the finished basement that didn't really have a use, on the other side of the laundry area.  My dad made a piece of wood into a corner desk kind of thing and we placed book shelves on either side.  He also put up a huge piece of cork on the wall next to it....it rolled out almost like really thick wallpaper.  We could tack up schedules, artwork, etc.  This was all before computers, so if I were to have that room today, I probably would build out the desk longer on either side maybe with countertop material to have a writing place separate from the computer space.  The other side of this area is where we had our "toys" or games to play with.

If your child has a large room like in the picture above, and you want to have his desk and computer in there, I might suggest a hutch like cabinet on top of the desk that can be shut to block any light from the computer.  If your concerned with your child being on the computer at night, you can always put parental controls on it and shut it down before you go to bed then he can't log on and play around when he should be sleeping.

The rest of the chapter has great ideas for storage for all the things our kids have today.  Modify them to fit your child and his space.  Also, just like every other room you have done.  Do the speed elimination first WITH your child to decide what he really needs and what really needs to go!

Until Next Time.....

Franny