1. Packing Lunches
Whether you are a parent of a child or a teen/young adult yourself needing to pack a lunch for school/work, it can be a tedious process, and when you're in a rush, you may not have time to sit and make a full meal. Also if you are a parent, this is an easy way to teach your kids about nutritious foods and how to take responsibility for getting themselves ready in the morning.
1. Clear out some space in your pantry and fridge.
2. Find/buy plastic containers and label them. For young kids who can't read yet, (1,2,3 or easy symbols of cartoon characters they are familiar with), for older kids (label with the type of food inside).
3. When you buy grocery for the week, divide up your food stuffs into these containers for the week. Put cold items in the fridge in a bin, dry, in the pantry or other assigned area.
4. You can either buy pre-made items for your mains, or spend some family time once a week preparing these items with the kids who will be making their lunches. Kids are more likely to eat food they help prepare themselves, and they can tell you what they want so you're not wasting your time making food they won't eat.
5. Go through the steps with young children in particular, on how they are to pack their lunches each morning or the night before. They need to pick out an item from 1, 2, 3 or the labeled bins, and put them in their lunch sack. For young kids, you may need to help them with this process for a while until they get the hang of it. Bins also help adults in a rush, because you already will know where all your food stuffs are, and it makes quickly shoving them in a bag on the way out the door, a lot easier.
*A bonus of this process is that, you can easily check and see what's being eaten, and what's not, or check to see if your supplies are low.
2. Color Code Your Kids
If you have more than one kid or teen, save yourself a lot of headache and infighting between your kids, by color coding them. Assign each kid a particular color. Everything, say blue, will be one kids, everything red, another and so on. When you are writing on a family calendar and trying to figure out who's who and what's what, color code the writing as well, so you can look and easily see even from a distance, that you have a school event for Kid B, on Tuesday because it's written in Red. Use this system for organizing their rooms, desks, school supplies, laundry baskets, toy bins, lunches, you name it. How do you know Kid A has left his specific backpack on the floor and not cleaned up...because it's red and not on his red peg where it's supposed to be.
3. Create a Supply Closet Store
It is inevitable that your kids are going to break or lose some of their school supplies within the year, but rather than just constantly re-supply and re-supply them if it's a weekly or daily occurrence, teach them to be responsible for their stuff. If they need a replacement for school supplies they must work for it doing chores, jobs, and/or use their allowance to pay for new supplies. Also make sure you organize this area and make things easily accessible for yourself so that you know where your supplies are and what's been used up.
4. Pick Clothes Out Once a Week
Have children pick out their clothes for the entire week, once a week (if too young, obviously you'll do that). Go through it with them one day a week if young, or ask them to gather their own clothes themselves and place the full outfits, socks and underwear and all on a specific color coded hanger or labeled hanger with the weekday on it, for each day of the week.
The night before, you can put the outfit for the next day on a command hook or other easy to find area for the next morning. This will save you and them a lot of time and effort, because the outfits are made, you know where they are, and you don't have to hunt for socks/underwear. Shoes can always be put in a place nearest the door so when they come in after school, they put them away, and know where they are in the morning.
5. Create Before/After School Routines and Expectations
Sit down before school starts for the year and talk to your kids about your expectations for the school year. Create a list of goals with them, that they and you want them to achieve and outline consequences for negative behavior and slipping grades or failure to do school work. For younger kids, this can involve listing the rules in highly visible areas and creating reward charts for success, and for older kids, this can be in the form of a contract they sign and keep a copy of. Success can be rewarded with something they come up with, with you, for rewards. If you are not inclined to reward your children, do most certainly offer up your praise to them for meeting their goals. No matter old your kids are, they want and need to hear that you are proud of them.
Also make sure, especially with young children, you create a routine for them to follow. When you come in, in the afternoon, you expect them to wash up, have a snack, work on their assignments for an hour, and then they have play time, wash up, dinner, bath, bed or whatever you come up with. If they need babysitting, you can easily hand this list to a babysitter and they know what to do with your kids as well as your kids knowing their routine. Try not to frequently stray from this plan, because you want to create good habits in your kids as well as teach them responsibility.
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Thanks for sharing!