The Organized Child: An Effective Program To Maximize Your Kid's Potential—In School and in Life

According to child psychologists Gallagher, Spira, and Rosenblatt, creators of the Organizational Skills Training (OST) program at New York University's Langone Medical Center, 15 to 20 percent of children struggle with deficits in organization, time management, and planning behaviors. Help is at hand for parents of children who forget to write down homework assignments, misplace their backpacks, and cram for tests at the last minute in this step-by-step guide to tackling some of the most common challenges. Offering strategies that were successful for students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the OST program, the authors assert that age seven to 13 is a crucial period in a child's life, when parents can help prevent bad habits from becoming ingrained. They promote a coaching-role approach for parents, which involves first looking in the mirror at their own example (and correcting). Each chapter provides forms to help parent and child organize, as well as prompts for constructive conversations.