Pegs - A Way of Organizing Your Kids (Even When You Aren't)

So I was just about at my wits end with having to repeat things over and over to my kids and tell them every little thing that they needed to do. Have you been there?

One of my kids was having some “homework issues,” and as a solution, her teacher suggested a schedule of doing homework at the same time everyday. Now, I’m not good with schedules and routines. In my family, we just really aren’t “stick to the schedule” types. If you are, that’s great -- and you can probably stop reading this – yeah, that includes you, Jennette :-)  (She's the organized one of the two of us).  
But that just doesn’t work for me – maybe I’m just easily distracted? I like to see it as being flexible --- disorganized? . . . yes. . . chaotic? . . . at times, but flexible. So unfortunately, the home work at the same time doesn’t really work for us with errands, play dates, and everything else. And to be honest, if 3:45 is homework time and there happens to be a fresh snowfall, I say,” put off the homework ‘til later; kids were going sledding!” You have to take advantage of the daylight hours that there are in the winter.

A while before the homework problems, I had read something online about using “pegs” (I don’t remember where I saw it. If it was your blog please let me know so I can re-read your post and link to it.) The idea of the pegs is that you use one event as a peg to “hang” other things off of. For example, getting home would be a peg and hanging off that would be the things that the kids are expected to do right then - have a snack, do homework, do chores, and whatever else. It doesn’t matter if it is at 3:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m., the routine at that point is the same. I think we tend to do things this way a lot. One event in your day happens then you do thing A, thing B, and thing C. For the kids using “pegs” to have it clearly set out helps set some expectations and give some order to things. It’s like having mini-routines that are flexible enough to be moved around in the schedule as needed. So I made up a little peg photo and added the things to it.

So far, the “pegs” are working fairly well for us. I’m finding that I am having to repeat myself less (or not even tell them what they need to do at all) because once the “peg” starts one thing just flows to the next. And at this point the kids have the “pegs” memorized and for the most part things are flowing smoothly. [Quickly finding wood to knock on.]

Here is a blank “peg” form, if you would like to try it with your kids:

Blank Peg Form     Leave me a comment and let me know how it works for you.

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