Get organized: As school starts, parents need to remind kids to manage their time

Peggy Umansky's son thought his first year of middle school was going to be a breeze — his teachers hardly gave him any homework.

Then Umansky went to an open house and picked up syllabuses for all her son's classes. "I asked him, 'Do you realize you have to do five history reports and 10 English papers? It's all on this syllabus.' He'd never seen a syllabus before and had no idea what to do with it."

She helped him space out the assignments so he wasn't cramming at the last minute. It apparently clicked: When she went to visit him as a college freshman last year, he'd plotted his semester's assignments on a wall calendar.

"Many students don't succeed their first year in college because of lack of time-management and organizational skills, not because they don't have the intelligence to be there," said Umansky, founder of the St. Louis-based It's About Time. "They lack the self-discipline and knowledge of how to pace themselves."

Even before college, schools increasingly stress the need for such skills, to the point where some hand out day planners to elementary-school students. However, experts say there's no one right way to help kids get organized. The most effective methods capitalize on a child's learning style and personality.

Too often, schools introduce planners but "don't develop the skills with kids," Umansky said. "They don't take the extra step of how to prioritize and how to break down longer assignments."

Time management isn't just for overscheduled yuppie parents who set kids up with personal digital assistants. It's about life skills: setting goals, prioritizing, planning ahead, budgeting time, meeting deadlines, caring for possessions and taking responsibility.

While these skills become increasingly important as children juggle schoolwork and activities, parents can start with preschoolers.

"If parents don't teach children organizational skills early on, they're doing them a disservice when they get out in the work world," said Umansky, an organizing consultant who holds a master's degree in education.

It's important to start now at the beginning of the school year, said Cheryl Carter, executive director of Organize Your Life! and author of "500 Ways to Organize Your Child." "Often, parents don't step in until the problem gets bad," she said. "By then, students have to break habits."

Even if parents set up all sorts of planners, charts and calendars, they shouldn't be surprised if they still find themselves nagging. "Children age 12 and under have a tendency to get distracted," said Carter, a former teacher.

Carter's son, 12-year-old Jarrett Carter, used his PalmPilot to list everything he needed to do for a report on Pennsylvania, from asking his dad for a ride to a regional library to tracking how long he needed on a shared home computer. He recorded due dates and electronically checked off activities as he finished them.

Jarrett, who co-authored "A Kid's Guide to Organizing" with his younger sisters Janae and Jolene, also sorts his school books by subject, with math books on one side of his desk and science on the other.

Organized kids make it easier for busy parents to stay on top of what's going on. Consultant Audrey Thomas asks her children to set permission slips or graded papers on her dinner plate.

"It's a great time to review their work and talk about projects," she said. "I move the papers off to the side, but it leads the dinner conversation."

Stephanie Dunnewind: sdunnewind@seattletimes.com