How to Help Kids with ADHD Stay Organized

Let’s be honest: When a room gets messy and disorganized, it’s pretty overwhelming for anyone to get started. But when your child has an ADHD diagnosis? The struggle to get your kid to focus on staying organized and the frustration you feel is—as they say—real. Why? It largely comes down to challenges kids with ADHD have with the executive functioning skills that many unconsciously use every day.

Think of executive functioning as the CEO of your brain. It helps you pause, see the bigger picture, and make connections between ideas. In short: “When our executive function center is on, we think before we act. When it’s off, we act before we think,” says DFWChild Mom-Approved counselor Laura McLaughlin, M.Ed., LPC-S, RPT-S, ADHD-certified clinical services provider and founder of HeadFirst Counseling in Dallas, Texas.

When it comes to staying organized or cleaning a messy room, children with ADHD may have challenges with executive function skills that include the ability to control thoughts, actions, emotions and focus. They may also struggle with remembering things in the moment, aka working memory, initiating tasks, particularly when distracted and overstimulated, as well as planning and time management.

With these challenges, it might seem like keeping your child more organized is a lost cause. But with the right strategies, they’ll develop those skills and learn to keep things picked up.

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4 Ways to Tackle the Mess

But what are those strategies? Try these on for size to see which one your child responds to best:

1. Break things down into smaller tasks. When you tell a kid to clean their room, it’s too large of a task and they don’t know where to start. And if you give them a list, chances are they’ll only remember the last thing you said. So give them one step at a time until their room is picked up.

2. Work together as a team. Whether you’re in their room giving them one task at a time or working together, children are motivated by that sense of connection. Plus, “having you by their side will help them to stay focused and help it feel more like quality time than just a chore.” says Brianna Henderson, MS, LPC, RPT, founder of Lily Pad Child & Adolescent Counseling in Frisco, Texas.

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3. Make it more stimulating. Changing up tasks just enough to make them feel new and exciting can help sustain your kid’s focus and attention a little longer, McLaughlin says. Some ideas?

• Set a timer and ask your little one how much they can get done in 2 minutes.
• Turn off the lights and have her use a flashlight to put everything in their room away.
• Challenge him to do a rainbow cleanup, putting things away one color at a time.
• Put on a fun song and tell them they have to pick up and organized as much as possible while the music is playing.

4. Create a checklist. It’s hard for kids with ADHD to remember verbal requests, and they respond better to visual cues, McLaughlin says. For younger kids, create a picture list to prompt them to tackle specific tasks, but keep it to no more than three to four or it could get overwhelming. With older kids, try a chore chart with short reminders they can check off: make your bed, dirty clothes in hamper, stuffies in basket, LEGO bricks in bin, etc.

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6 Habits for Getting Ahead of the Mess

In an ideal world, there is no overwhelming mess in the first place. So what can you do to help prevent it?

• Set ground rules for all the kids in the family. Some parents choose to set limits like only two toys can be out at a time to help mitigate the mess. If your child has LEGO bricks and dolls out, one has to be put away before the trains come out.

• Try a minimalist approach. It’s hard for anyone to keep an overloaded room, desk backpack, etc. organized, so having fewer things in general is better. If you have the room, consider keeping toys in a separate room. At the very least? Purge your kids’ toys, clothes, books and shoes as they outgrow them.

• Rotate out the toys. If your child has a lot of toys, chances are they don’t play with everything all the time. It may be a good idea to put some toys in storage for a few months and rotate the stock. Sure, it’s going to take up some of your time, but it’ll cut down on how much they have to clean up.

• Create routines. Kids with ADHD thrive on structure and routine, Henderson says—whether that’s one task per day or Saturday mornings are for cleaning. But remain flexible when things come up, like an invite to a playdate when they’re “supposed” to clean.

• Add storage in their room. Make it easy for your kid to know where things go with a storage bin for each type of toy. It’ll likely be more helpful for your child if the room is less visually stimulating, McLaughlin says. Just make sure they don’t get too big; the bigger the tote, the more stuff can be shoved in, the more chaotic it can get.

• Determine your non-negotiables. In an ideal world, your child’s room is always spotless, but that’s just not realistic. Instead of aiming for perfection, Henderson suggests deciding on a few non-negotiables—like making the bed, blocks picked up—and focusing on those rather than getting upset about every little thing that could be out of place.

Remember: It’s OK to Feel Frustrated

A mess is guaranteed to annoy any parent, especially when it feels like you’re nagging your kid to just pick up their toys or clean out their backpack. When you’re feeling at wit’s end, first, give yourself some grace. “Just because you know that your kid has ADHD and has these struggles doesn’t mean it suddenly becomes easy to accept it whenever it happens,” Henderson says. “You’re still allowed to feel frustrated.”

Then take a moment to take a deep breath, pause before reacting, reset your expectations, and focus on achieving those non-negotiables you already determined.

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