When our kids were little, I spent many hours, with the utmost patience, training them on the art of folding clothes. It made me wonder who was spitefully praying for me to have patience! (BLESS YOU, whoever you are!)  Not only were the clothes folded into what resembled a wad that needed to jump right back into the dirty clothes hamper, but it had a domino effect on the order of things. The wad went into the drawer in an uneven stack. They went to get a shirt at the bottom, and the stacks fell over. (This happens no matter who folds and stacks it.) The drawer got messy very quickly. And ultimately, the clothes had to be put into the dryer to get out the wrinkles or, worse, re-washed. That was enough to drive me crazy!

So we tried rolling clothes and putting outfits together. NOPE! Something would invariably happen that they would need to get a shirt or pants from a rolled outfit. They would get out  the roll and get the shirt they needed. Like magic, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is demonstrated in one fail swoop. The extra article of clothing would end up on the floor or wadded and back into the dirty clothes hamper again.

We devised a better solution that brought sanity and a little autonomy into the equation. I went to the store and bought enough kid-size hangers for each child’s pants, shirts, and dresses.

In about 1 or 2 sessions of hanger practice, we were up and running! I had them lay their underwear flat in the drawer and stack them as best as they could. Since folding socks was easy, it didn’t matter if they threw them in the other side of the drawer. Then they could practice their folding on pajamas without much of my oversight.