tokenadult

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/ed...hp&oref=slogin

hallomar

After reading this article, I found myself wondering, for all the money these services must be costing, why parents can't do what the consultant does. Are they too busy? Are they not organized themselves? Are they in such a pitched battle with their kids that the kids won't listen to their parents but will listen to a "neutral"?

1of42

Probably a combination of the first two reasons.

sueinphilly

because for some kids(like mine), when it's Mom's idea they don't want to listen. I set a good example by being ultra organized, my son wasn't impressed.

by the time my son got to HS I wasn't able to know what and when everything was due. I would buy him all the notebooks and folders and binders and day planner. And every piece of paper would end up in one folder.

Somehow he must have managed because he graduated :-)

Off to college he goes (with all the right supplies and no one to badger him into being organized). I get a call a few weeks into the term, he says "mom you'd be proud of me, I just put all my papers into their own folders". I silently cry out with glee.

No matter how smart a boy is (and on paper my son is pretty smart), he can still be prone to scatterbrainedness and stubbornality disorder (I coined those phrases myself).

For my son, I think the fact that I'm NOT there cajoling him into being organized is actually what prompted him to become more organized by his own volition. For him, it works better if the idea came from within himself and not told to him (by me)

I think I need to write a book "What Dr Spock wouldn't tell you about raising kids (because then you would be too intimidated to even try!)

great lakes mom

A guess-some of the students who would most benefit from this counseling are kids of divorce, as staying organized while shuttling between two houses is not always easy, if more essential. Parental organizational attempts every other week are less effective than consistantly applied structure. I'd think an outside source of information and structure could make it easier for these kids.

Singersmom07

MOS (Moms of sons) understand. You have to choose where to to place your own energy and where to get help. when I did it it was a battle. When the tutor did it it was a neutral third party. Tutor woudl also take them to the library to teach organizing a paper and since they were also a teacher, could talk to other teachers easier. Things harder for me to do without complete resistance. Taking one battle off the table left room to have good conversations about other important things. Worked for us for 3 sons. DD did not need it.

And there was no question my husband could not do it. You have the clashing of old stag young buck going on and anything my husband suggested was immediately rejected.

They did graduate, go on to good schools, not involved with alcohol or drugs. I was entirely happy with the arrangement.

hallomar

This is a message for the Moms - do you find that when you suggest it, it's brushed off as irrelevant, but when Did suggests it, it's the best idea since sliced bread?

UriA702

I think it's a complete waste to pay $100 an hour for a tutor who is labeling themselves "ORGANIZATION CONSULTANT" to raise rates.

sueinphilly

My son has never met his father (nor did I ever receive a penny from him), so if he didn't listen to me there has never been 'dad' to turn to.

so that makes me a MOS and a SMBC (single mother by choice)

Singersmom07

UriA702 I should have clarified. We did hire a tutor for much less than $100 per hour and the tutor not only did organizational things but also work breakdown and other skills for major projects and research and writing homework assitance. Also helped with S1 and S2 on slight LD issues while they learned alternative strategies. So not quite the same thing, but a big part was organizational and planning skills.

As for Mom vs Dad? See my other post - no way were they listening to Dad.

menloparkmom

Hallomar
YES! But now that he has been away at college for 2 years he is [slowly] realizing that mom isn't so dumb after all!

avoidingwork

glm writes
I know this was just a guess, but it does continue the false belief that a two-parent household is one that runs smoothly and the many other variations - two-household families, SMBC, etc. are somehow lacking. My sons were raised in two households, and we routinely reviewed their schedule so that they could have the most continuity in school while at the same time living with both parents. During their high school years, we had a two weeks on / two weeks off schedule. Just because my sons were at one house or the other, did not mean that the other parent was not in communication with them.

With respect to turning in homework and being organized for school, my sons learned fairly early on that this was their responsibility. Of course they learned from the experiences when they weren't organized, but isn't that part of education? When they encountered issues with teachers, my sons had to deal with the teachers first and if needed, we parents got involved only subsequent to that discussion.

Like many households, one parent (me) did the majority of organizing the college application process, but their dad was also involved in the process.

As for the topic of the article, I believe that multitasking is falling out of favor as an effective work approach. That offers some hope for the students of today.

1of42

With all due respect, I'm not actually sure that the "two parent household kids do better than kids of divorce" generality is one that you should be applying too much. As a child of divorced parents, I did pretty well without any educational consultants, and frankly I think the "shuttling" made me both more organized and more independent.

07DAD

Actually, my S got the benefit of seeing the organizational styles of his father (me) and his Mom since we are long time divorced and, therefore, one of us was not "covering" for the other in the course of daily existance.

By the way, ex and I co-ordinated with each other to make sure one (and usually both of us) was available to give advice/assistance if our S asked for it in the admission process.

Anyone out there who got along with their EX think the kid didn't have to be MORE organized than in both parent households where the kid didn't have to keep up with where his or her stuff was and which parent was going to do which things?

toledo

This is the kind of help my daughter is receiving at school, since she was diagnosed ADD and an IEP was developed. Other things we tried, with some degree of benefit, were having teachers check her assignment book daily to make sure she wrote down assignments and hiring a local college student to come in during the week and work with my kids. This was the best $10/hour I ever spent. Our school just started using a new computer program this year so we can just log on and see what assignments are missing and how they did on the last test/quiz. Our school (public) also requires incoming 7th graders to take a one day study skills class just before school starts and then as a full semester class during 7th grade.