How to Help Your Child Organise Their Week

Do you want your child to be more organised? Get these 5 tips for helping your child to organise their week and their schedule.

One of my kids is a very organised type. You know, the kind of child who likes to make lists and have things done in a particular order. My other kids couldn’t care less about being organised. But even so, they all still need routines.

That being said, all of my kids – organised or not – get joy from creating their own routine. It gives them a sense of ownership and independence. And it helps them, whether they know it or not, to build up the skills of organisation. Skills they’ll need their entire adult lives.

So how do you help your child organise their week or their own schedule?

In this post, we’ll walk through five steps to helping your child organise their week.

1. Give them a planner

The first thing you’ll need to do is to give your child a planner. This doesn’t have to be an expensive paper planner. It can just be a sheet of paper. Something for them to write their activities on.

With Paper Me Pretty, each month comes with a kids weekly planner which is perfect for this task. Not to mention a host of great items just for you, mama!

Your child simply needs to see the week laid out in front of them so they can see what’s going on for them in the upcoming week.

2. Let them review their regular activities

If your child has regular activities that they do (school, swimming club, scouts etc.), let them know when these events occur so that they can block them off on their planner.

Seeing when they have karate or ballet lets them know that they’ll need to make sure their uniforms are ready for that day. It also helps them to see where they’re likely to have free periods in their week if they wanted to have a play date with a friend or do something that isn’t on their regular list of activities.

This is also where your child can add upcoming tests or homework assignments, or even performances and special events related to their regular activities and groups.

Let your kid have some fun adding these items to their week by colour coding their activities!

3. Let them review their regular responsibilities

Depending on your child’s age and your family culture, your kid might have some regular responsibilities that they need to attend to. Is your child responsible for taking out the trash on Wednesdays? Or collecting the mail on Tuesdays and Thursdays?

This might even be setting aside a certain time each weekday to complete their homework. Adding in their friends’ birthdays so they can write them a card or send a gift. Or blocking off a half-hour on Sunday to see if an elderly neighbour is ok or needs errands running.

If your child has family or household responsibilities or even responsibilities outside the home, let them know what days of the week these are usually done and how long these are likely to take.

Also, asking them to get their friends birthdays on a list is a good idea to prevent those last-minute present buying panics.

Scheduling these responsibilities will be a big help to you so that you won’t have to constantly remind them every Wednesday to take out the trash!

4. Let them plan some fun activities

This is the part my kids love. And to be honest, they can get carried away! But allow your child to plan some fun activities into their week. Maybe they can plan a zoom call with one of their friends. Or a trip to the local playground with a friend or neighbour.

If there’s a space on their calendar, let them have fun.

You might want to limit their activities during school term time so they don’t burn themselves out. And if your kids are anything like mine, perhaps a list of activities they can do would help, allowing them more time in the school holidays to do more activities.

NB: you might want to remind your child to check in with you before agreeing to an activity to make sure it fits with the family’s schedule, or that you’re ok with 10 of your kid’s friends descending on your home en masse!

5. Help them set aside time for rest and planning

Now it’s time to add in a little maturity. Setting aside time for rest or planning doesn’t float every kid’s boat. But remind them that if they liked organising fun activities for themselves, these activities don’t happen by themselves, they need to be planned for.

This is why it’s important that they set aside a small chunk of time each week to plan an awesome upcoming week. Remind them that they don’t want to be surprised by a friend’s upcoming birthday or school test.

Getting your child to plan in rest is also super important. Now your child might consider 10 hours on the X-box to be ‘rest’. But help them think outside the box with this one (pun not intended!).

Ask them to genuinely think about activities that would help them feel rested and ready for the next week. Then have them slot in one or more of those in their week.

If your child is not used to taking some time out for rest and rejuvenation, you may need to remind them the first few weeks to take it. Eventually, they’ll see the benefit of this period and may even see it as an essential part of their week!

So there you have it! Five steps to help your child organise their week whilst enabling them to build the organisational muscles they’ll need throughout their adult lives.

Get planners delivered to your inbox!

Did you know that you can get a kids weekly planner, a daily planner for yourself, a goal planner, meal planners and much more delivered to your inbox each month? It’s all part of our new monthly membership called Paper Me Pretty which launches very soon!!

If you’d like to know more about our monthly digital paper subscription, Paper Me Pretty, click here to get all the details. It contains a selection of digital stationery you can print at home that will help you to become more productive and focus on the things that matter. Plus, since each month has a new beautiful theme and design, your stationery will never be boring again! Check it out today to secure our Founding Member price – the lowest price it will ever be!

Want a peek? Grab the Goal Planner from September’s Paper Me Pretty Bundle here:

Let me know in the comments which of these steps stood out most for you!