My 11 ds has been overwhelmed by homework. Alot of it has to do with his not finishing it in class. But also, he is soooo unorganized. He somehow manages to loose paper work from the classroom to his locker!!! He has had 7 zeros this week, b/c he can't find the papers. Is this normal for a boy? I am ready to wring his scrawny little neck. He is super intelligent (too smart for his own good sometimes), so it's not that he can't do the work. He is just so forgetful and unorganized. He comes by the unorganized part honestly, I need to be on "Neat" or Clean Sweep. Any ideas for helping him get organized?

One thing to help minimize paper loss is to have just one folder. You might want to try buying an expandable/accordion style folder. Use the tabs to label for each subject. Then he only needs to keep track of one folder & it can't be left in his locker/at home because he needs it for everything. I have used this in class for kids who often lose papers, and it has helped. Boys tend to be less organized in general, and are less wary of the consequence where girls tend to be super organized and worried about consequences.

Try 1 folder- have 1 place at home were he keeps his school work/backpack etc.
I am not sure organization can be taught. Don't they say that is the sign of a genius- being unorganized???

Also I believe at his age- he will learn that if he does not want bad marks or not to get in trouble with his teachers he will learn to keep his papers together. At some time we all must let them learn certain things on there own.

At our school, they require, from 4th grade up that all the kids use a 8 pocket folder. It's bound like a spiral notebook but has 8 pockets in it. I find them at the teacher supply store near us. It really works well for us and much better than the top entry, expandable type folder because we found that he would mistakenly put papers in the wrong slots, the tabs would fall off etc I have to say it really keeps my son organized. He doesn't have to remember *which* folder to bring home, because he has them all together in one book, so he just brings it home. He always has all his papers. If he wasn't putting papers in the folder, then we'd have a problem.

We also color coded books and spiral notebooks. So his science book has a green book cover on it and the spiral notebook that goes with it, is green as well. Same for math (red), English (blue) etc

Does your son use a daily planner to write out his assignments? Something else our school requires from an early age onward. It works really well. My 11 year has really mastered writing things down quickly, using his own abbreviations if necessary.

Have you talked to his teachers about his lack of organization and what they might recommend to help him succeed? You might just have to get in your child's head a little bit and figure out what's going on and why he's having so much trouble...

Good luck!

The folder we use looks like this:

http://www.holcombscatalog.com/produ...ducts_id=31147

I think it is normal for all kids that age!!! My dd is now 13 and last year she was just horrible about it!!! She would actually do homework and just forget to ever turn it in. She lost tons of assignments too. It took cracking down on her, meeting with her teachers and everyone bugging her (she also missed the end of the year field trip to the amusement park because she had missing assignments). But now she is much better. I don't know if it is just being a bit older or figuring out that it is no fun to be on every one's sh*** list.

Hope he gets better for you!!!

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thank you all for the responses. I did talk to his teacher yesterday at conferences. She recommended him bringing his homework folder to everyclass. Not taking the papers from class to put into his locker (then getting lost). I did like the idea of the 8 pocket folder. I will show it to him and see if he thinks that might help. I have also thought about removing him from some of the field trips and extra curricular stuff, as a punishment for not turning things in. The teacher thought that was a good idea. He has had to miss 1 field trip so far, maybe that will help be an incentive.