Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Organizing your family is kid stuff

Enlist children as young as 3 to help keep the household running smoothly. A book by a mother of four teaches how.

By Katherine Snow Smith, Special to the Times
Published January 31, 2008

A 3-year-old loads his plate and fork in the dishwasher. A 9-year-old unpacks the cooler and puts it away after road trips. And a mother never tears the house apart looking for her car keys.

Sounds utopian? Maybe a desperate housewife's true fantasy? Well, one mother of four boys has made it a reality and has written a book to teach others how to do the same.

Managing Life With Kids: Simple Solutions to Organize Your Family and Home by Mary Caroline Walker is a guidebook for moms to help them organize their house, their kids, their activities, their calendar, their vacations, their holidays and yes, even the laundry. It's kind of like a Real Simple magazine dedicated to simplifying lives and households filled with the fun and chaos of kids. If getting organized was your New Year's resolution, this is worth a read.

Walker lived in St. Petersburg from 1998 to 2005 before moving back to her hometown of Charleston, S.C., with her husband and four boys, ages 10, 8, 6 and 4. (She was featured in the St. Petersburg Times in 2003 because at the time she was raising three boys ages 5 and younger with no television in the house. The family does have a television now but it is only used for special viewing.)

"My oldest was 5 1/2 when my youngest was born. So having four kids so close together when each child was born I had to get more efficient," Walker said recently in a phone interview. Her book encourages mothers of one, two or three children to have their kids take on the responsibilities that children more typically have in larger families.

"Through the years, people have always kind of joked with me that I ought to write a book," she said. "I started to realize other people weren't using the (organization and management) systems that I had been doing."

Tips and planning

The book offers everything from room-to-room reorganization plans to little tips to get out the door on time. If you have a two-story house, for example, keep toothbrushes and toothpaste in a downstairs bathroom so kids don't go back up to brush their teeth, get sidetracked and leave the house late.

She makes the most of every moment. While kids are in the bathtub, she cleans the bathroom sink or does sit-ups.

The laundry room is a key place to reorganize and make as bright and welcoming as possible, whether it's a true room or just a closet. Try to fit in baskets labeled with each family member's name. So when the laundry comes out it can be folded and put right in those baskets. From there it's the family member's job to take it to their room and put it away. Even a 5-year-old can be taught to put clothes away, Walker says.

Giving kids responsibilities is an important part of making the house and mom's job run smoother.

"There is so much to do, you really can't do it all yourself," Walker said. "People do shy away from having their kids do things because it does take extra time to teach your child to do it and they may not do it exactly the way you would have done it." For example, Walker keeps plastic containers in a low cabinet so that after she's done emptying glass and silver from the dishwasher even a 3-year-old can empty the plastic.

Another key component of making a busy life run smoother is planning.

"My Franklin Day Planner is my life. When you sit down and write what you need to accomplish and a time line, it helps you stay focused," Walker said. "Planning the night before like what you need to take with you for the next day makes the whole morning go smoother. People lose a lot of time from being unorganized, looking for the keys or papers they need to sign for school at the last minute."

Control what you can

Of course, an organized life doesn't happen overnight, even if you do read Walker's book cover to cover. There are still going to be things that get left undone. Walker says sometimes she just closes the doors on her kids' messy rooms because she's not the one who lives in them.

"If I have one place that I always try to keep clean and organized it's the kitchen - think how much time you spend in it," she said. "If you can't tackle the whole house, just having your kitchen or your own bedroom makes you feel more like you're on top of things."

In her book, Walker also suggests trying to keep the entry area of a house clutter-free so you're not overwhelmed right when you walk in the door. And unless you have babies or toddlers who play with toys while parents get ready in the morning, she suggests the parents' bedroom should be a "no-toy zone." She even goes as far as to say her bedroom doesn't have pictures of her boys in it, though they are throughout the rest of the house.

"I read that in a book a long time ago and I was surprised, too," Walker said. "But it's good to teach the kids that it's not all about them every second."

Managing Life With Kids is a quick read with plenty of concrete ideas that are easy to implement. And somehow, the reader doesn't end up feeling intimidated by Walker as if she were the Martha Stewart of mothering. She easily admits pitfalls and imperfections in systems and her own family.

"This is an ongoing thing. It's not like my whole house is done, or every day is easy," she said. "Every stage of your children's lives you have to tweak how you do things."

Katherine Snow Smith is a freelance writer in St. Petersburg.

- - - 

The book

Managing Life With Kids:Simple Solutions to Organize Your Family and Home, by Mary Caroline Walker (BookSurge Publishing, 184 pages, $15.99).

Advice

Walker has a Web site, www.TodaysUltimateMom.com, and a blog that offers weekly organization tips, recipes and health advice. Here are some recent tips from Walker's blog:

- Pick one or two rooms a week to reorganize. Note them on your calendar and stick to your plan.

- Go through each item in the room and decide if it needs to be 1) donated 2) sold on consignment or at a garage sale or 3) thrown out. Have a big bag for each category and fill it up.

- Then organize the room so it can be maintained easily. Are there enough bins for toys, shelves for books? Do you want a magazine rack so magazines and other clutter won't cover the coffee table?

- Explain new organization systems to the whole family so everyone can do his or her part.

- Organizational cleaning is an ongoing process. Once you've done your major overhaul be sure to maintain it.

[Last modified January 30, 2008, 18:17:44]