Who are Disorganized Students?

What was I supposed to do?

What was I supposed to do?

Why is it important to identify and help disorganized students? Who are disorganized students and what do they do differently than organized students? We all know adults who function adequately despite their disorganized homes or chaos at work (although many do not). If you asked them, they would probably tell you that they’ve always been that way, even as children. What they might be hesitant to share is that struggling with organization affected them mentally, emotionally, socially, and maybe even physically even when they were students.

It is important to understand that disorganized students are no different than any other students in the sense that they need love, understanding, support, encouragement, and confidence. As a parent, your goal is to help set your student up for success. That means understanding the specific strategies that will help the disorganized student to function in a more organized and less stressful way in all environments. It may also mean that he or she will need to develop coping strategies for the areas that present greater difficulty.

Previously I recommended that you begin to keep a notebook describing the behaviors that you observed in your student that demonstrate his or her difficulty with getting or staying organized. Now add information to this notebook (remember it is for the parents’ eyes, only) about the student’s predominant learning style. Notice if he or she tend to learn and remember information that is presented visually more so than auditorally. Or is the student what we call a kinesthetic learner? Some students learn and remember things better when they are hands-on and can do something with things.

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