Hello everyone and welcome to the Your Village podcast, Parenting Beyond Discipline,

the place to learn about all things parenting and get your questions answered. I'm your host,

Aaron Royer. Over the next several weeks, I'll be discussing some common New Year's resolutions around parenting.

This week, I'll be talking about family organization. New Year's seems to be one of the times of year

that we all want to reboot and get a handle on organization. But with families, it's a lot more than not misplacing the car keys

or cleaning out the kitchen junk drawer. When it comes to family organization, it also overlaps

with another very important and very common parenting resolution of becoming a more patient

and more peaceful parent.

For some tips on peaceful parenting, you can go back and listen to episode number eight,

tips to being a peaceful parent. Or, you can also check out the two classes we have on the website,

Peaceful Parenting Part 1 and Part 2 at Your Villageonline.com

under the Modern Parenting tab. When we are organized, can find what we need when we need it,

have a schedule and stick to it relatively well, life will always throw curve balls after all. But when things go smoothly

most of the time because we are organized and prepared, we are a lot less stressed and can also

save a lot of time, which gives us more time to stay organized and more quality time to spend with

our family.

So this is a positive cycle.

We also teach our kids how to be more organized with both their time and their things.

We pass off that responsibility in age-appropriate ways as our children age, from putting

their own toys away at a very young age,

to dressing and cleaning their rooms, to keeping track of their own belonging, such as

sporting equipment and homework as they grow older. These are great life skills that greatly

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