How to Help Students With ADHD Keep Their Backpack C.L.E.A.N.
- Sean McCormick
- May 30, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 8
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Is your child’s backpack functioning as a portable garbage can?
Maybe you’ve found pop-tarts, Halloween candy, and projects long overdue in that JanSport abyss?
In this post, you'll how to help your child organize their backpack and keep it organized using the C.L.E.A.N approach.
Table of Contents
If you’ve ever watched a student with ADHD unzip their backpack and unleash a paper avalanche, you already know this isn’t just a “messy kid” problem.
Backpack organization is one of the simplest, highest-impact skills a student can build because it directly affects grades, stress, and independence every single day.
A lighter, more organized bag makes it easier to find the right materials fast, move between classes without panic, and actually turn in work that’s already done (a concept that should not be controversial).
And over time, learning a basic system for keeping materials organized doesn’t stay in the backpack, it spills into how students manage their room, their routines, and eventually their work and relationships.
In this article, you’ll learn why backpack organization matters so much, why it’s hard to maintain, and how to teach a simple routine that sticks.👇
Why Should Students With ADHD Prioritize Backpack Organization?
There are many good reasons to prioritize backpack organization.
For starters, a lighter load means less strain on the body and quicker access to high priority materials.
Over the long run, kids who learn systems to keep organized have:
More organized homes
Better careers
And improved marriages
Having an organized backpack reduces the everyday chaos that quietly steals time, grades, and confidence.
When papers, folders, and supplies have a consistent “home,” students spend less energy hunting for worksheets, permission slips, and half-finished assignments, and more energy actually doing the work.
A clean backpack also:
makes transitions smoother between classes and home
cuts down on frantic last-minute scrambling
helps students show teachers and parents they’re capable of staying on top of responsibilities
In other words: fewer missing assignments, fewer “I swear I did it” moments, and a lot less arguing at 9:47 p.m. over a crumpled paper taco.
Why Don't Students With ADHD Keep Their Backpack Clean?
There are many reasons why students don’t keep their backpacks organized:
Maybe a teacher embarrassed them by dumping their mess out in front of other students at one point
A parent made a comment like “You’re smart but forgetful,” instead of teaching the missing skills
No one has ever taught them the skill and practiced it with them consistently over a period of time
Most kids with ADHD fail to keep their backpacks organized because they have no system in place.
It's not really their fault.
Organization of materials is usually a secondary priority after grades and content.
To overcome these barriers and maintain a clean and manageable backpack, I invite you to try the C.L.E.A.N approach.
This approach will lead to increased confidence, less stress, more productivity, and less rotten banana peels.👇
How to Help Your Student Keep Their Backpack C.L.E.A.N.
C: Create a consistent routine to audit the backpack
If you only do ONE thing after this article, please pick a consistent weekly time when you and your student can sit down together and “audit” their backpack.
In fact, the solution for most problems is to block out time and space to work on the issue, in which you can question and prompt your student to help them strengthen their executive decision making skills.
As Einstein said,
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper questions to ask."
If you're looking for a digital planner to block out this time, download my Student Dashboard to easily block out a time, plus have a place to track assignments and teacher contact information!
Once you’ve blocked out that weekly time and added it to your shared calendar, move on to the next step.
Did you do it?
L: Let go of 50%
Now that you are sitting down with your child, it's time to start letting go of all those unnecessary items, aka, "the crap".
As a first step, just put everything out on a table or on the ground if you are sitting together.
Your goal is to be able to see everything that was hiding in the back pack.
Once you have everything in plain site, use these questions to prompt your child to make executive decisions around what to keep and not to keep:
“If you could only keep one thing from this pile, what would it be?”
Kids with ADHD often struggle with saliency, or knowing what to keep.
This forces them to do the cognitive work of prioritizing what they actually need for school, which is a key executive function skill.
Then, repeat this question until they are only keeping about 50% of what was in the back pack.
How is that for taking the weight off their shoulders?
E: Engage through questions
Instead of waiting for dinner time to ask, “How was school today?” only to get blank stares and crickets, try these questions during the back pack audit.
Where do you think that paper should go?
Does this completed assignment need to be uploaded to Google Classroom?
What can you use to keep these papers tidy in your bag?
By sitting with your child to review all the various papers that have been stuffed in the back pack, you can guide them through the cognitive task of categorization and prioritization.
The back pack audit is an opportunity to create meaning from the things they are carrying around and learn more about the projects and tasks they are working on.
A: Action-ize the process
As a young chap, I did a volunteer program called City Year in which one of the mantras was “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”
The unpacking process is an excellent example of a crisis that you can use to identify key action steps and create solutions.
Keep either their planner or Google Tasks out while unpacking their bag, so they can create action items from what they "discover" in their back pack.
For example, they might find a completed assignment they hadn’t turned in.
Instead of having them put it back in the bag, ask them,
“Do you want to take a picture of this and upload it to Google Drive?”
The audit can be used a weekly or daily check-point to guide them (not do for them), key tasks like turning in completed work, that can quickly improve their grades and self-confidence.
N: Note progress
Lastly, make sure to note the progress, not just outcomes.
Our brains are wired to respond to rewards. Celebrating the completion of small accomplishments leads to the completion of larger goals. According to research by Teresa Amabile from Harvard Business School, people who tracked their small achievements every day enhanced their motivation.
Celebrating progress might look like:
Going for a walk together after unpacking and re-packing the bag
Listening to a favorite song together
Giving them a hi-five and letting them know you are proud they are organizing their materials
Remember, not everything has to earn them sweets or TV.
Genuine attention and guidance can be the key ingredient kids need to grow.
Bonus Tip — For Teachers!
Teachers, to encourage good organization, I encourage you to build in time to your classroom routine for students to organize their bags before they leave your class.
Routines are the soil for executive function skills to grow and your students will remember your investment in their planning and organization skills when these habits become a part of their adult lives.
FAQs
How often should we do a backpack “audit” so it actually works?
Start with once a week at a consistent time, because consistency beats intensity every time.
If the backpack is truly out of control, do a quick 3-minute reset daily for two weeks, then drop back to weekly.
What if my student refuses to clean their backpack or gets defensive?
Keep it short, neutral, and collaborative: “We’re not judging the mess, we’re making tomorrow easier,” then offer a timer and a clear finish line.
If they still refuse, do a “minimum viable clean” where you only remove trash and put papers into one folder, then try again next week.
What supplies do they actually need to keep the backpack organized?
You can do a lot with one sturdy folder, one zipper pouch for small items, and a simple “turn-in” pocket or folder.
Fancy organizers won’t fix a missing routine, so start simple and upgrade only after the habit sticks.
The Bottom Line
If you are finding those banana peels in the backpack try the C.L.E.A.N approach.
C.L.E.A.N. stands for:
Create a consistent routine to audit the backpack
Let go of 50%
Engage through questions
Action-ize the process
Note progress
Hope this helps 🤙🏻
This article is a part of the larger category of:
Related articles:
P.S. If you want to work on executive function skills with your students, consider joining hundreds of other educators and parents who have completed my Semester Success Blueprint Course. In less than 2 hours, this comprehensive course will teach you and your student the system I developed to help hundreds of students learn how to manage school effectively and raise their self-awareness and engagement with school.
About Me
Hey! I'm Sean 👋
I'm a former public school special education teacher who realized that executive function skills are more important than knowing when George Washington crossed the Potomac.
Since then, I've made it my mission to teach anyone who will listen about how to develop these key life skills.
In 2020, I founded Executive Function Specialists to ensure all students with ADHD and Autism have access to high-quality online executive function coaching services. We offer online EF coaching and courses to help students and families.
Realizing I could only reach so many people through coaching, in 2021 I started the Executive Function Coaching Academy which trains schools, educators, and individuals to learn the key strategies to improve executive function skills for students.
In 2023, I co-founded of UpSkill Specialists, to provide neurodivergent adults with high-quality executive function coaching services.
When not pursuing my passions through work, I love spending time with my family, getting exercise, and growing my brain through reading. You can connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want me to speak on executive function skills at your event? Learn more about my speaking topics here.