Organizational Skills in Homeschooling

Confession time- I am super organized. I have lesson plans, folders, books sorted and post-it'd. I have year long goals, and month long goals, systems and set-ups that keep us on track. I am generally six weeks ahead in lesson planning and have a good idea of how the rest of our year will play out, even though it's only January. I meal plan on Saturday to shop on Sunday for the week. I have multiple calendars, all synced and color coded. I'm not obsessed- my house doesn't have labels on the shelves and paper on the counter doesn't throw me into a panic. But we have a system and the system works!

I've come to a shocking conclusion in the last two months. Organizational skills are sadly not coded on DNA and are not inherited genetically. In fact, it may be that organizational skills in the kid are inversely proportional to the organizational skills of the parent. It's been a rough adjustment as I've realized that yelling, getting mad and forcing weekend make-up work still isn't going to change the sheer lack of organizational skills on the kid's part.

All of this came into full focus recently when my son jumped up from the computer at 8:57am and said "We need to go to school right now! I have to take a class picture in three minutes!" Sorry buddy, we live 10 minutes away- so that's not going to happen. The conversation went something like this:

"We have to leave now!"
"Why didn't you write this down? Or put it on your lesson plan? Or send me an email? We can't possibly go now, I'm not even in work clothes."
"You're so mean! You're ruining everything! Let's GO!"
"No. We are not leaving. You have work to do. Next time plan in advance."

Angry meltdown ensued because letting down the Yearbook teacher is far worse than an angry mom, and he couldn't quite wrap his head around why we didn't promptly jump in the car and fly across town. Never mind that I was still in yoga pants and a sweatshirt- not exactly work attire. We did not go, but it wasn't for a lack of trying on his part!

After absorbing all of this information and thinking through how our first six months of 6th grade have gone, I came to the conclusion that I really need to explicitly teach organizational skills. He has all the tools of the 21st century at his disposal, and yet he's missing the most important one- the one that says "Hey, I better write/post/stick this somewhere so I don't forget." These skills are often learned through force, with natural consequences in a traditional classroom. If you don't write down your agenda, you forget your homework and you get a poor grade, then you get in trouble (at home or school or both).  In homeschooling, quite often if he forgets, he just does it later with few consequences, beyond me feeling stressed and annoyed.

And so we are embarking on the next six months with a goal.

Make a plan, keep it up to date and use it.

I'll let you know how that goes!