{"id":13497,"date":"2013-08-20T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsider.com\/?p=13497"},"modified":"2019-07-15T14:23:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T21:23:07","slug":"3-tips-to-organizing-your-childs-study-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/20\/3-tips-to-organizing-your-childs-study-space\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Tips to Organizing Your Child’s Study Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KidVirginia Woolf famously said (In a wildly different context), that \u201ca room of one\u2019s own\u201d is necessary for a sense of identity and intellectual progress.\u00a0 She could easily be talking about any young mind that is in the process of becoming a self-directed student and thinker.\u00a0 While our children still need the guidance of adults, they also require a study space conducive to becoming their own person and developing the habits that will carry them through life<\/b>.\u00a0 Here are some sturdy guidelines to help your child craft precisely that space.<\/p>\n

1. Get The Balance Right<\/b><\/p>\n

As with so many areas of life, the key to creating an ideal study space lies in finding a <\/b>happy medium.\u00a0 In this case, your aim is to help create a zone that includes positive stimulation yet does not overload the senses with negative distractions<\/b>.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the study space should be something of a sanctuary:\u00a0 a place of serenity that naturally encourages concentration<\/b>.\u00a0 A busy decoration scheme is to be avoided, and if at all possible choose colors that encourage focus.\u00a0 In particular, green-hued walls <\/span>are likely to instill a sense of safety and focus.<\/p>\n

While you want to encourage a low-key mood, you also don\u2019t want to make the room feel like a minimalist dungeon.\u00a0 A few pictures of positive role models inscribed with inspirational quotes might do the trick or even positive affirmations.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. Make The Best of Technology<\/b><\/p>\n

If there is one villain in the war against dedicated study habits, it\u2019s the internet.\u00a0 Facebook and other social media sites and online games are one thing, but even the hyperlinked nature of the web can easily lead even the most self-disciplined student into an ADD-like spiral.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, the Internet is an immeasurable research tool, and within many tech-savvy school systems, classroom bulletin boards and homework submission sites such as Turnitin.com<\/span><\/a> are mandatory tools.\u00a0 So how should parents encourage beneficial internet usage without having to loom over students\u2019 shoulders?\u00a0 Start with open communication and a spirit of trust.\u00a0 If you begin to see a correlation between net usage and poor grades, you might need to set up a separate workspace for study-only computer time.<\/b>\u00a0 If your household won\u2019t accommodate this, you may need to resort to a filtering program t<\/span>hat will only allow access to study-appropriate sites.<\/p>\n

\"There<\/a>

There are plenty of years of school work ahead. Make sure your child is prepared. Image: chefranden via Flickr cc.<\/p><\/div>\n

3. Instill A Core of Organization<\/b><\/p>\n

Clutter is not only a visual distraction, but it\u2019s also a stumbling block on the road to efficiency.\u00a0 Therefore, from as young an age as possible, help your child develop an innate sense of\u00a0 having \u201ca place for everything and everything in its place.\u201d\u00a0 Physically, this can be done by providing file folders; organizational bins for pens, pencils, and other staples; and clearly marked storage containers<\/a> for a long-term organization.<\/p>\n

Among today\u2019s generation, a virtual organization is just as crucial as in the physical world, so desktop maintenance should be the Trapper Keeper of the computer age.\u00a0 On top of demonstrating the value of file folders and icon management, a walk-through of Google\u2019s one-stop filing system will give your child an excellent foundation for education and even future employment.<\/p>\n

Use Visual Planning… <\/b>Good study habits have as much to do with time as space, so provide easy-to-digest indexes of progress and highly visible pipelines for homework and projects.\u00a0 Using calendars, task lists, and timelines<\/b> will not just serve as a way for you and your student to track progress, it will also boost motivation and confidence by putting progress in concrete terms.<\/p>\n

If one thread runs through all of these guidelines, it\u2019s that parents must provide firm reinforcement and world-wisdom without becoming unyielding martinets.\u00a0 To put it another way, every parent must play an ongoing, flexible game of \u201cgood cop, bad cop.\u201d<\/b>\u00a0 Like children themselves, a study area is a work in progress that should adapt to emerging needs at the same time as it helps establish habits that will mature as the years go by.\u00a0 As the old clich\u00e9 goes, they\u2019ll thank you when it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer from Los Angeles, currently working with Soothing Walls<\/a>. Her writing covers everything from health and wellness to parenting, fitness, and design. Check more of her writing by following her Twitter<\/a> account today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virginia Woolf famously said (In a wildly different context), that \u201ca room of one\u2019s own\u201d is necessary for a sense of identity and intellectual progress.\u00a0 She could easily be talking about any young mind that is in the process of becoming a self-directed student and thinker.\u00a0 While our children still need the guidance of adults, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":13652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[208,11,212,7],"tags":[21,40,95,130],"class_list":["post-13497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-office-organization-tips","category-organization-tips","category-storage-2","category-tips-tricks","tag-back-to-school","tag-clutter","tag-kids","tag-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44726,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions\/44726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uhaul.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}