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How organized should a 16-year-old be?


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This is kind of a funny rant (I am not mad, just frustrated) and kind of any other moms going through this.  My 16-year-old is the most wonderful kid.  I thoroughly enjoy being her mom.  She is, however, extremely disorganized.  An example of this would be that she teaches piano.  She has been teaching piano for a long time (3-4 years) and has gotten better with time.  At first, I would help her send out bills each month and divide up her money between saving and spending.  This year I told her I was going totally hands off.  She has been in charge of everything and I don't think she always gets paid.  She just doesn't seem to care.  I don't pay for her fun stuff.  She pays for it, so once the money is gone, its gone.  She is not allowed to touch the savings until college.  I go in her room and there is trash everywhere from candy wrappers to contact lens containers.  I find money in pants pockets, in little zipper bags, all over furniture, under the bed, in bags with half-eaten popcorn containers, and in the closet.  A few years back she lost $300 in her room and found it about 6 months later.  I don't do her laundry, so she simply doesn't do it until I insist that it is disgusting and she wash her clothes.  A few days ago, she misplaced her phone and really didn't try to look for it until today.  She keeps her license in her phone case, so now no phone or license.  And this phone was her grandmother's old one because she dumped hers in water last summer at an amusement park.   Ahhhhh!!  I love her so much!!  She is such a light in my life!!  Does anyone else have this problem?  Does it just take maturity?  She is better than she was, but man, its killing me.  I also laugh at all of this, because I am hoping one we will laugh together about how crazy she made me with her disorganization.  As a side note, I used to always lock my keys in my car-- like it would happen every other month.  I locked the kids and the keys in the car on a couple of occasions.  I finally said, enough, and that was it.  I didn't lock my keys in the car after that.  I found a method of keeping my keys with me.  I had to, however, be in some really uncomfortable situations before I made myself keep track of my keys.  A lot of walking was involved.  Maybe it will be that way with her.  She will finally decide that she wants that money (license, phone, whatever) and needs it and won't leave it all over to get lost.  I am trying to let her handle all the consequences of these choices, so she will make better choices next time, but I am not sure it is working.  As a second side note-- she goes to a school for homeschool students and is making straight A's with little problems with disorganization in her classes, so I know she can do it.  It seems to be a matter of will. 

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It sounds like she's able to organize part of her life successfully, but not all of it at once.  That's very common for people with an executive function deficit in the area of organization.  Her main goal needs to be to get all her schoolwork done and do her job of teaching lessons.  On weekends, though, she needs to take care of the rest: laundry, room clean-up, sending bills, recording all payments received for tax records, depositing checks, etc.  Help her brainstorm ways to make all that easier for herself.  For example, it might be easier for her to handle sending bills and receiving payments if she billed people for a quarter of the year at a time in advance (Sept-Nov, Dec-Feb, March-May, June-Aug).  A dry erase marker and a checklist of daily tasks in a sleeve protector might help her remember everything else she needs to do.  

  

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I totally agree there is a time and place for letting the consequences teach a person, and that we don't want to be rescuing hellicopter parents, BUT...  I disagree that it is "a matter of will". It sounds like DD needs help in developing some basic TOOLS and SKILLS first before you cut her completely loose, in order for her to have a chance at success. Perhaps consider reading through Smart But Scattered TOGETHER, and together figure out the techniques that will help her strength executive functioning skills. Then you can give her a little bit of scaffolding support as she implements some of the techniques. And finally, once she's up and running, you can slowly step back in one area at a time and let her handle it. BEST of luck to you both. :)

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Oh, please, scaffold and help!

A 16yo is still pretty immature.  I used to sit down with mine once a week all throughout high school and we'd talk about our weekly to-do lists and what needed to happen on both our parts.  No judgement, but it was enough to help him focus and organize his days. Also having house expectations helped a bunch, too.  In our house it was expected that laundry (including sheets), vacuuming, and tidying bathrooms would be done at least weekly.  Having that expectation kept the house running smoother - and he thanked me for it when he went off to college. 

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yep, weekends or off-days is where my dd has been told to spend some time organizing....this helps a lot.  She's not as disorganized as your dd, but we definitely have to set aside a day/time where she will sit down and clean, or organize, or whatever.  Doing so many things, on the fly, every day, along with real life...just doesn't really work out :)

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How organized should a 16-yr-old be? Well, probably not more organized than her adult mother, lol.

I get that you are trying to help her and have her learn from your mistakes, but it sounds like the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and it is going to take her time, perhaps a good deal of time, to learn organizational skills to the level you are talking about.  She is much more likely to learn and internalize organizational skills if she is supported and scaffolded over time, as opposed to failing again and again. I'd say that most kids cannot organize their lives at 16, and your dd is operating a small business in addition to full-time school, laundry and miscellaneous responsibilities, family life, social life. Even a kid with some natural organization ability might get overwhelmed.

It's not a matter of will, and her academic grades do not correlate to being able to organize her entire busy life. Rather, she probably puts most of her organizational ability and energy into schoolwork, which is a very responsible choice, and doesn't have much left over for everything else. 

She needs training and scaffolding and ongoing support. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. She's quite young, and even most adults benefit from support and oversight. That's why management is a job. Nobody gives their employees a list of goals and says, whelp, you're on your own, see you next year! Managers meet with their employees, they discuss whether goals are being met, they point out where they are going off-track, they offer support and additional training as needed. So, no, I have no problem with a teenager being offered that kind of support. 

You want to build habits. Don't wait until her laundry is disgusting and tell her she has to do it; make a schedule (2 loads every Tuesday evening) and then help her stick with it. Try to tie each habit to a trigger: if you guys go to the gym every Tuesday, that's a trigger. She starts her laundry after going to the gym, before taking her shower. If she has a specific social commitment every Friday night, she does laundry before leaving for that. Bookwork for the piano lessons, have a set time to meet with her each month, I don't see the benefit to being hands-off with this when it's clearly not working. It's pretty amazing that she can teach and earn all of the money for her fun stuff, I think that definitely deserves some support once a month! 

Think about how you learned to finally not lose your keys, and consider how you might help her use similar strategies. 

I'm poking a bit of fun at you, please don't be offended. I just want you to realize that both you and dd are doing a great job, needing some support is very typical, and it is very much going to slow and steady progress. So slow that it's sometimes hard to see, but she is doing better than she was, the progress is there. I think you just pulled the trigger a little too soon ongoing hands-off; she still needs ongoing support. 

 

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I was like this as a teen and your key story is familiar as well!  Now I'm kinda OCD about not locking my car unless my keys are right there in my hand!  I suspect it's a bit of Add.  And yet also was capable of getting good grades because school was structured enough to overcome some of the deficits.

no real advice just commiseration. I think it's especially hard when our own skill sets are poor to compensate for our kids also being deficient in the same area.  I feel like I'm already going all in just keeping myself in order without having to make up for someone else who can't!

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Sounds just like my daughter.  She is slowly getting better and I have been hands off since she went away to college, but I do give her advice and help when she asks or seems receptive. She can only work on one area at a time it seems, so she got her academic house in order first, then at college got her personal hygiene, laundry, etc in order, and is now working on exercise and healthy eating.  All of those areas were a complete disaster until around 16 when she pulled the academic side around first.

She will always lose things though.  I never lose anything, but my husband, an very organized successful person in his professional life, loses keys, wallet, ID, sunglasses, and recently his apple pencil.

My dd lost her wallet last quarter for five days -- tore her room apart, asked downtown where she had eaten, never found it.  Then after a week she found an old email from her dorm office that it had been found and turned in.

She has lost her earbuds four times this year (always found them, once actually on the hook that she had bought to hang them on! She assumed they wouldn't be there and tore her room apart).  She has lost her ID two or three times.  But to be fair the FB page constantly has students posting ID's they found on campus - she is definitely not the only one!

The hook for the earbuds was our suggestion. Always putting wallet, keys, etc in a particular pouch in the backpack, ditto.  Little tidbits that have to be given at the right time:-) I remember my parents doing the same for me, such as always put your purse next to you on the bench in a booth at a restaurant so that you will hit it when you leave.  I never left my purse in a restaurant again! 

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