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ADHD Advice: Helping Your Child Overcome Their Organisation Problems

Just the other week, a regular patient - along with her mother - went to our clinic to seek for some help and advice. The mother was concerned about her teenage daughter about her lack of organisation. The teenager - nicknamed "Patty" - has been diagnosed with ADHD in October of last year. After five months of proper ADHD treatment, 15-year-old Patty has seen some encouraging improvements. However, there is still one issue that hasn't been resolved up to now, according to her mother. That problem has been her daughter’s ability to organise, especially her room.
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ADHD Advice: Helping Your Child Overcome Their Organisation Problems

09/03/2018
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A Mother’s Concern

In her own words, “Patty has been taking medication for her ADHD for the past five months. During her treatment, most of her ADHD symptoms have drastically decreased, and she has shown signs of improvement. However, it seems that she still isn’t able to organise her room in a way that she’s able to locate her stuff. From her clothes to her makeup, she just loses everything, and I’m having trouble coping up with her on that end”

ADHD Advice Organisation Problems

As an ADHD clinic that cares for the improvement and welfare of its patients, the ADHD Centre seeks to help people answer their ADHD-related problems by answering the concerns of its patients and posting it on our blog post. For this case, it seems that Patty is dealing with organisation problems despite her already taking some aid for her ADHD. Let’s discuss why this is happening. We’re pretty sure that Patty’s mum isn’t the only one having this problem, so we hope the advice that we give will help give you some ideas about managing your teen’s problems.

For many people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, organisation can be a difficult challenge to deal with. Having problems with organisation results in losing a lot of items, leading to frustration and unnecessary stress. The reason why this happens is that despite having medications or not, ADHD will remain in a person’s system. It can only be contained and managed, but it will eventually trigger from time to time.

People with ADHD will find organising things hard because they quickly get distracted and confused. When they do think about organising their things, they start with all the enthusiasm in the world backing them up and making sure they get their tasks done. However, this feeling won’t last, and they’d soon find themselves clouded by their ADHD impulses. They will find themselves in the middle of nowhere, and before they know it, they are already procrastinating not to organise their rooms and will be contented just to leave it as it is.

Getting Organised

It’s important to keep in mind that organisation problems happen to any person, whether they are 14 or 40. So your teenager is just among the victims. What you need now is a way to get your daughter organised and start building better habits. Getting organised is not going to be easy, especially for someone diagnosed with ADHD. However, the results are worth the effort.

Also note that for your teen to realise about getting organised, you should spearhead the campaign in making them aware of it. You should supervise them at all times, keeping track of their progress and making sure their rooms are always organised. Make them feel that you care for them, and eventually, they will start making improvements.

Solving Your Teen’s Organisation Problems

To begin, there are two basic principles of getting organised: grouping like with like, and everything needs a home.

Problems With Storing & Finding Their Things

For people that have ADHD, organising things and remembering where they are placed is easier once they are grouped up under the same category and are placed in a container that they prefer. So if your teen has a makeup collection, help them get organised by putting all of their cosmetics in a single case — make sure she is the one who selects the container. Doing so will increase the chances of them getting into the organisation vibe, and in turn, will make things easier to remember. They will be able to recognise where their makeup is placed just by remembering the container that they placed it. In addition, to make this system more effective, keep the container near the area where she applies her makeup, preferably on her dressing table.

Problems With Getting Clothes Jumbled Up

These organisation concepts also apply to other areas, like clothing. If your teenager likes to collect different types of apparel yet is too unorganised to even place them properly in their drawer, work towards helping them get organised now by looking at the situation of their drawer. You might assume that it was really messy and filled with unfolded clothes. Help your teen fold all of their clothes and keep similar items together in their drawer. You can also utilize an open shelf – if you have one – for greater visibility and convenience. The more they see their clothes organised, They more likely they are to keep it that way. You can also separate and categorize their clothes according to colour. There are different possibilities and strategies that you can utilize to help your kid get organized with their things.

Problems With Losing Homework

If your teenager is constantly losing their homework, you can remedy that by telling them to place their homework immediately on their bag after they’ve finished doing it. Supervise your teen for the next three days on their homework. Tell them that returning their completed homework to their backpack is part of their homework process. Explain and make them understand that they are not done with their homework until it’s back in her bag. If the task proves challenging for them, incorporate reinforcement like using a reminder alarm to let them know.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, we can only do so much to help out teenagers with their organization problems. The willingness to be organized is still in their hands. However, with your keen supervision, as well as the strategies you use, your teen’s organization problems will be resolved.

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We have been diagnosing and treating people with ADHD since 2009.

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