My sons are in high school and starting to accumulate things that adults do. How do I help them organize their stuff? What's really been challenging is for my oldest son who is a senior and receiving all kinds of college application stuff. Not to mention all his ACT copies, senior pictures brochures etc... I could do it all for him, but I feel that I should be showing him how to organize himself, as well. What do you do?
Overall Rating: votes
-
Posted 1 year ago #
-
You are right on making sure they each learn those organizing skills. We encouraged our kids to have checking accounts starting about when they got their driver's licenses. That way they have some supervision before college on how to handle the finances.
As to organizing the paperwork and college info, first make sure he has tools to do the organizing. This system should serve him through his first independent years, as well, if he includes folders for bills, lease agreements, vehicle records, etc. A nice hanging file box, some hanging files and plain files, a good fine point Sharpie, maybe labels? A small supply of envelopes, including some 9x12 manilla envelopes suitable for mailing, and a legal pad can stock the first file folder.
Help him set it up by broad categories: high school, college information, car, banking, etc. Don't forget the ones for receipts and TAXES. When he gets done choosing and applying to college, weed out the no-longer-needed information (the lesson on discarding should be as important as the one on what and how to keep stuff).
Within each broad category (hanging file) can be placed the plain files with subdivisions on them.
If he's interested, let him pick out the supplies, but that would be more of a girly thing, maybe?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Paperwork for and from prospective colleges can get overwhelming pretty quickly, so you might want to encourage him to keep that separate from his other papers to avoid mixing them. When I was a high school student looking at undergrad schools, I used a multi-pocket expandable file with alphabetical tabs on the top, and each university's paperwork went into one pocket. He might want to include a slip of paper with login information for online applications, as well. My own personal paperwork (such as SAT/AP scores, rec letter info, etc.) I paperclipped together in the front.
It worked well for everything except date-sensitive stuff, which should be somewhere visible.
Posted 1 year ago #
Reply
You must log in to post. If you do not already have an account, you can register here.
