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4 Family Organizing Tips

While there are thousands of tips that families can use to get and stay organized, these four can help any family get started on the right path.

1. Hold Family Meetings. One of the best ways to keep in close contact with your immediate family members is to hold weekly family meetings. Set one day each week to sit around the table with everyone to discuss upcoming plans, fill in the family calendar, review upcoming family vacations, decide on weekly meals, address school issues, etc. Make this mandatory, even if your kids sigh at the thought. Try to keep it to 30 minutes or less.

2. Give everyone things to do. The household chores and errands should never fall on one single household member's shoulders. Make a list of everything that needs to be done each week, recurring and one-time-only. Then assign tasks among family members. And remember, even toddlers can help in one way or another. It's best to teach family responsibilities from a young age.

3. Get on the same page with your spouse. Kids need consistency. If you're always telling your kids to pick up after themselves, and your spouse lets things slide and picks up after the kids, then your kids are going to get mixed messages. When husbands and wives make rules that they both agree to and the kids must adhere to, there will be much less resistance and frustration.

4. Make it rewarding. If there's never a reward for doing something, what's the fun in that? Some families give kids allowances for doing their chores. Other families clean and organize together and then celebrate with a pizza party or a movie when everything is complete. Kids are generally thrilled to build 'stars' or 'stickers' for jobs well done, that they can turn in for prizes, like helping mom bake cookies, or going to the park with dad.

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