We made it home. Sort of–our former home is occupied, our future home is occupied, and we are staying in the lap of mid-city luxe, courtesy of friends on vacation.
In any event, it’s good. Jet lag appears to be on its way out, along with night terrors, repacking every two days, and wasting water. In: pool visits, lounging in pajamas, and happily not doing much of anything.
We are considering giving up cable as a cost-cutting measure, so we may have lost our minds. But it would be nice to read more books. And we can always download shows individually instead of watching All the Crap That Exists on TV.
If anyone wants to pay me to write a post on traveling with kids, I’d be happy to oblige. Not so much the practical (“bring snacks and a change of clothes”), but more meta.
In the meantime…I need a favor. Long story short: Miss M appears to have come up with an ADD/ADHD diagnosis. We want to buy her furniture/storage/design her room in the new house in a way that will be the most helpful for her to stay organized and neat. Not pristine (because, wow, have you met me?), but easy for her to pick up/put away toys, books, clothes, etc. without feeling disasterously overwhelmed.
Anything would be appreciated; no tip too small.
How’s by you?
If you find a system, let me know
. C cannot clean up to save his life. Friends swear by the bins with pictures of what goes in them on the front, but it never worked for us. I would think that for a reader, some chalkboard paint, some bins and some labeling might help. What we have found with C is that the less stuff he has, the more likely it is to get picked up. We are down to legos, pokemon cards, and books in his room.
I am trying a new system with clothes this year, will let you know how it works. A sweater organizer with an outfit for each day put in there on Sunday, then there is no rummaging through closets and drawers in the am tossing things out willy nilly without time to pick up.
I had another idea, but I haven’t had my coffee yet and it left my mind while I was hitting return.
Welcome “home.” A friend went the no cable route for years, but then she added up how much she had spent on movie rentals and itunes downloads, and it turned out cable was cheaper
…
I had been tossing around the idea of some sort of dividers for drawers in an effort to keep things neat. No idea where I could find them–Ikea? Ikea has everything, right?
Or maybe I am just angling for a trip to Ikea for the kosher Swedish meatballs.
I was thinking of going pretty extreme for her room, putting up a small shelf with room for a few books (very few–there are built-in shelves in the wall right outside her bedroom) and a clock. Hoping to keep most of the toys downstairs in the basement.
The big debate we’re having now is between an American style dresser or an Israeli-style wardrobe–while the latter stores more stuff, they tend to go light on internal drawers and so much of it will be over her head it seems like the potential for “toss it in willy nilly” is very high. There are under-bed drawers in her bed too, but at a certain point I think she’ll have too many clothes to fit.
Instead of buying our kids wardrobe óff the shelf, we went to a carpenter who built us exactly what we needed for not much more in cost – and we asked for a lot of drawers. So the entire bottom section is drawers for their clothing and then above that shelves for toys.
I have boys so hanging rods were not a priority for me but i had him make it so that the shelves could be removed int he future to allow hanging of clothing in those sections.
Having dedicated clothing drawers did help a lot with organization though not a complete solution for my sloppy boy.
we dont pay for our entertainment, other than our internet connection and we have been fine for 4 years. Almost everything you could want to watch is online somewhere.
My little Bro was ADHD and my mom mounted hooks on the walls, about 6 feet up, and all the toys got separated into buckets. He got to play with one bucket at a time. One day he got down an additional bucket with the broom handle and he lost the contents of both buckets for 1 month. He also had a lofted bed, which gave him a “smaller” space (closer to the ceiling) to sleep in and he slept better.
Are you staying in the center of J’lem? Need a playdate?
She’s a fine sleeper (thankfully). If we manage to really pare down the furnishings potentially we could put in a chair/beanbag thing for reading.
LOL, we’re staying in Modiin. Luxe for the suburbs…kids are coming to Jm to play & stay with their grandparents/cousins while the actual move happens.
my kids are awful cleaners as well, but i have taken mesh baskets that screw into the wall and put them at kid height. every basket has a label so everything has a place. the kids can see what is in every basket, and since it is screwed into the wall, it is off the floor, but still visible.
things they do not play with (or i don’t want to clean up myself), i put in a cabinet they cannot get into and only allow them to play with those things during the last hour of shabbos.
E and N can clean up their own room now that I have stopped caring about separating toys. There are two big drawers under E’s bed and a laundry basket. Toys go in there so that at least they are away. Books go on the bookshelf. One shelf for shirts, one for pants, drawer for everything else (socks/underwear/tzitzit/kippot). That means that they can put everything “away” so the room doesn’t look like a disaster, and they can find what they need when they need it. Some adjustment of standards has been necessary. I vote for buying an aron, and not worrying too much about what it looks like inside. Also, now that I know how cheap & fast the sherut to Modiin is, can I come to Ikea with you?
Forgive the long comment and US IKEA links. We’ve found the small storage route to be most useful and the links to IKEA options seems like the easiest way to share. Try hanging cloth shelves for clothes and shoes like http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00193386. Each shelf can hold either an outfit or just a few clothing items so when looking for what she wants she won’t disturb an entire drawer of clothes. Go wardrobe! Dressers with big drawers just turn into messy black holes. A wardrobe with some shelves like this will be easier. Just get one that has two poles for hanging clothes. One up high for out of season/wrong size/formal clothes and one down low for daily clothes that she can be more responsible for herself.
For toys and craft supplies we like the shelves that have tubs like http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80063673 then add shallow or deep bins for what you need. We go with broad categories like ‘all soft toys,’ ‘all play food and dishes,’ ‘all craft supplies.’ The idea being that to play one would only need to get out a bin or two at a time, not all of the bins at once. That part takes some training.
We don’t have cable anymore and stream whatever we want to watch on Netflix. I don’t miss cable at all! Sorry, I don’t have any room organizing ideas, I need help in that area too. I did buy a bunch of see thru containers/small bins to put groups of toys in to keep in the closet (for the 4 yr old’s room) and so far (it’s only been a week) he’s been doing pretty well at cleaning up and putting stuff away. Before that toys were stored in large buckets or tubs and he’d just dump them all out on the floor trying to find a toy he wanted.
I’m not sure if this is helpful for ADD/ADHD, but we live in a smallish house and I have a lowish tolerance for clutter, so….
I swear by bins/cubbies to store toys. It makes clean up super easy, unless you’re a bit obsessive (like me) and insist that each toy has a “home” cubby. I’m working on letting that go…. (But in my defense, that does help me find toys.)
We have different colors for different rooms in the house, and also sometimes for different types of toys. I.e., green cubbies are for kitchen toys in Pumpkin’s room.
I’ve also bought plastic paper boxes, and am trying to enforce the rule that if the box is too full to hold the new piece of paper, then some other piece of paper must go. I’m still working on that, too.
To be honest, toys are not really the biggest issue for us because much of what we have (magnatiles, large-ish legos, blocks, games, etc) has an obvious clean up solution and the rest does have bins. Which I need to sort through after the move, but a huge percentage will reside in the basement instead of the kids’ room or living room, so I won’t care as much. Exceptions potentially will be AM’s beloved cars/trucks, but he is very good about clearing them up when asked, before dinner/bed, etc..
I need Miss M to be able to find a pair of socks without a) needing my assistance or b) upending an entire drawerful of clothes. Etc. Putting away clean clothes shouldn’t take 40 minutes. My hope is that by minimizing books actually in her room, she won’t feel overwhelmed and will actually be able to put them away–because the request to put one away for every one she takes out is clearly impossible for her.
I have boxes for drawers-that can be just as easily put on shelves- (that I got in Ikea) – one box for socks, one for underpants and the tzitzit and kipot go near the box so it’s all in one place. you can also use plastic “baskets” which can be bought in dollar stores or keter stores or those shuk type stores that sell plastic crap (buckets, containers etc.)
I also have the boxes from Ikea for socks/underwear/bathing suits. It helps. She knows where to find those items and exactly where to put them away for me. They weren’t expensive at all and fit into her non-Ikea dresser just great, several boxes per drawer even.
For books, depending on the clutter that is made by them, and how often you want to do it…I was thinking for us of making I dunno, Tuesday is Book Day! meaning we’re going to focus on putting books away every Tuesday and Thursday or something. My child can never put anything away EVER because she’s always using it – something apparently her father used to do as a kid, too – it’s always set up for tomorrow or the next chance she can get to play with it so don’t put it away ever ever ever…fun arguments we get to have…So I’m thinking of breaking it down a little more simply for her and tackling certain tasks on certain days of the week. A compromise of sorts. Though I do consider it a win that at least her 20-some weekly library books do have a shelf of their own and she sometimes manages to remember to put her library books back there so they don’t get lost.
Just had a thought on the books – probably works better if books are kept in living room (not in her room), but even in her room. Make place-marker cards, maybe about 4 x 6 inches, laminated. Each one is good for one book. When she retrieves a book, she puts the card in the spot where it came from. When she puts the book back, she takes the card. Could even make two-piece sets (held together with Velcro?) a 4×6 card to go in the shelf and a smaller strip to act as a bookmark for that same book. Match up sets by color, or by theme (cat bookmark goes with cat shelf-card, flower bookmark with flower card, etc.)
With this system, you can limit the number of books she can “check out” to some number great than 1 (I think 3 or 4 is reasonable) without the overwhelming (to her) task of having to locate and count her checked-out books before taking a new one. If she has an unused shelf card – she can take out a new book. If she doesn’t, she has to find & select a book to return. And putting the book away will (I hope) be easier, since all she has to do is match the bookmark to the shelf-card and it will be in the right spot.
I would even suggest implementing this system for both kids so Miss M doesn’t feel singled out (always a danger for ADHD kids, who are more sensitive to criticism than the average kid). Maybe make 10 card/bookmark sets total. Each kid starts with an allowance of three bookmark-card sets. They can earn an extra one or two (and maybe also lose, but I would not drop below a two-book allowance) based on behavior; maybe the “extra” times out after a week?
*brain exploding*
Too complicated and way, way, way too many books to implement this.
But sounds good for you guys, maybe?
I’m not sure I understand your “too complicated” reaction. I think maybe I suffer from overexplaining and offering too many options. Can I have a second chance to describe?
- You want Miss M to have only three books out at a time; once she has three books off the shelf, she MUST put one away before she can take another.
- You give Miss M three stiff cards, each representing one “book pass.”
- When she takes a book off the shelf, she must put a book pass in the spot where it came from.
- When she wants to put a book away, she can find the proper spot more easily by locating the book pass. She reclaims the pass when she puts away the book.
- When she is out of book passes, she may not take a new book down without putting one away.
This system offers a tangible warning of “too many books are out; you need to put one away” without you having to nag. I suggested the bookmark pairing because it could make it easier for her to locate which book goes away where. I was trying to address this: “My hope is that by minimizing books actually in her room, she won’t feel overwhelmed and will actually be able to put them away–because the request to put one away for every one she takes out is clearly impossible for her.” I don’t think the location of the books is as much of a challenge as the multiple steps involved in “put one away, take one out.”
I also don’t see how the total number of books you have affects the system at all.
I think there is something to be said for being able to see things. And maybe this would also work with a wardrobe where you can finally just close the big doors. I’m in favor of trays or shallow bins that can be taken out. Color coding of the bins (if not see-through plastic) would also help. Then you could say, Miss M., go get a pair of socks out of your green bin. Then Miss M would know to get the green bin out of the wardrobe, get socks, put the bin back. I think these bins have to be shallow because otherwise things will get lost, no one will be able to see what’s in them, and it’ll be the big dump.
I’ve been slowly slowly working on getting rid of big everything bins because even though things might look picked up, this doesn’t help Tot know that 1) everything has a place and you can quickly find it and 2) we treat our toys nicely. (The big dump is inevitable and not a nice way to treat things.) We actually use a bookshelf for Tot’s things so he can see everything in its tray (or at least that’s the theory — we’re not there yet). Here we’re taking a cue from Montessori — the visual calm of a Montessori classroom with everything in its place is very mellowing for us of the ADD persuasion. I suspect that that ADD-ers are very affected by visual chaos and sensitive to beauty versus ugliness.
So that’s my vote: shallow bins and trays with everything separated. Match the colors of the bin/trays to the dominant color of what’s in them.
I’m late. I know. Sorry. I’ve been pondering.
I think I strongly agree with this for clothes: one wide, shallow bin for each type of item. Or wide, shallow drawers. It doesn’t really matter which. The point is, if everything inside is in a single layer, she should be able to see each item with zero digging. She won’t ever *need* to dump the whole thing out.
If you get the widest, shallowest thing you can find and you still can’t spread all her socks or shirts out in one layer, personally, I think that means *she has too much for her to stay on top of.* Give some of them away. Or if that kills you, put some away for 2 weeks, then rotate them back out and put away the first batch.
As for books, there are ways to store them besides a bookshelf, if that’s not working. Maybe the display rack method (which I guess is the analog of what I suggested for clothing?) Basically, you get something which stores the books face out, in a single layer. She can ‘put them away’, and yet still see each title.
Here’s some examples: http://tabletonic.blogspot.com/2011/03/ikea-bekvam-spice-rack-hack-another.html
You need to have fewer books in circulation for this, yeah, but it sounds like that’s your plan anyway. Again, maybe you can put the excess away and rotate it out later?
It sounds like a little more work for you, I know. But if it leaves her with a number of possessions she can actually MANAGE without frustration, I think you’ll end up coming out way ahead.
I am also thinking about implementing a system (for myself AND the kids) where there are two distinct “clean up” phases. Phase 1 – everything that is out of place goes into a bin (exception made for items that can be put back in place with minimal effort – but if it takes more than literally TWO SECONDS between “pick it up” and “put it down in the right place”). This phase rids the space of visual clutter, which can create lots of unnecessary background noise/distraction. To keep things efficient, create a set path for gathering objects: start at the door and work clockwise; start at the foot of the bed and spiral outwards; start in one corner and pace back and forth collecting things directly in front of you. Keep moving the bin along so that there is no chance for distraction between “pick up object” and “put object in bin.”
Now go do something else. Phase 1 can take place, say, before dinner. The idea is to create a separation so that the mind can forget (a little) about the mess it just saw.
Phase 2 is to go around putting away objects AS THEY COME OUT OF THE BIN. No digging through “to find all the books because I’m already in front of the bookcase” – that way distraction lies. If there are objects in the room that belong in a different room, there can be another (small) bin just inside the door to collect these so they can be taken out of the room after EVERYTHING else is away.
A slightly more complex system involves a step between the two phases, call it Phase 1A, when out-of-place objects are sorted into broad categories: books, toys, apparel, other (or whatever makes sense). Benefit is that the mind can focus on one category at a time in Phase 2 (less likely to get overwhelming); drawback is that
I also endorse uberimma’s suggestion of lowered standards. Underwear does not need to be folded. If there are only a few varieties of socks/tights (white, pink, blue, brown) and all are the same brand (so match each other), there is no need to pair up socks and keep them balled/folded – divide the drawer into 4 sections (cardboard is good enough, and I think Miss M would be happy to make the dividers), split socks by color, done.
You have met me, right? My standards are low, but not dismal.