parenting

04 Apr

Journey of a Montessori Parent

The very first article I read that sold me on Montessori did not have the word “Montessori” anywhere in it. Seven years ago, when our first child was at the cusp of transitioning from baby to toddler, my husband and I walked into a Prospective Parent class at a local Montessori school. Until that evening we had understood Montessori to be an alternative method of education worth investigating. We walked out with several handouts, one of which was written by the founder of the school, Donna Bryant Goertz, and titled “Owner’s Manual for a Child.” It is written from the point of view of a child in the first plane of development and begins with these words, “Dear Parent, I want to be like you. I want to be just like you, but I want to become like you in my own way, in my own time, and by my own efforts. I want to watch you and imitate you”. I still possess my copy from that evening: creased, tear-stained, and printed on green paper.

At the time of my initial reading of “Owner’s Manual for a Child,” I had just (barely) survived my first year of motherhood. After having overcome the challenges of a baby turning up a month before the due date engraved in our minds, nursing difficulties and postpartum depression, our family of three had slowly and painstakingly started to find its rhythm. Yet, there was a deep chasm. It was a void of not knowing exactly what we were supposed to “do” with our child. Nothing I saw or heard in the way parents around me were raising their children seemed to resonate. Their enthusiastic “Good job!” sounded hollow; their homes overstimulated me even at 30 years of age; their children meandered from toy to battery-operated toy without any sense of purpose or satisfaction.

As I read “Owner’s Manual for a Child,” I felt every muscle in my body slowly start to relax; I could hear the words in the voice of my own child; I could sense the clutter of all the parenting jargon I’d encountered melt away. Through the green sheets of paper was a child so simply informing her parents of what she needed for her own self-development. The void was now filled with a vision.

A few months ago I asked a fellow Montessori parent and photographer to take pictures of our home to accompany an interview for a Montessori blog. As Emmet photographed, he commented, “I can’t believe you were ever anything other than a Montessori mom.” The words struck me with great poignancy. What if we had not found Montessori? Would we have eventually found our way as a family, or would we have carried on with a sense of being adrift in a world rife with parenting how to’s? Certainly there were many families who had started off their Montessori journey at the same time as we did, but sooner or later acclimatized to a more mainstream family culture. Conversely, as we reap its benefits, our commitment to Montessori keeps growing.

As I pondered the reasons our family has thrived at being quintessentially “Montessori,” I realized I could sum them up with six main tenets.

My husband and I have been aligned in our desire to understand and adapt to a Montessori way of being. Our date nights have been attending a parent education class at school followed by dinner, where we discuss what we have just learned. In seven years I can honestly say we’ve been to the movies twice. Life is (hopefully) long but the child-rearing phase of life goes by in a flash. There will be a catching-up-on-fine-films phase, some day. “We are both so fortunate that within me I have a secret plan for my own way of being like you.”

We attended classes and practice using non-violent communication with each other and with our children. The models we use are Faber and Mazlish’s “How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk”, and Sandy Blackard’s “Say What You See”. Using this style of communication has been the biggest challenge in our parenting journey because it is so antithetical to our culture of origin. “Slow down when you speak. Let your words be few and wise.”

We discovered a style of parenting described as “authoritative.” I like to explain it as having firm boundaries, but with huge amounts of warmth. “Just get down to my level within a foot of my face, get my attention, and look into my eyes before you speak. Then let your words be few, firm, and respectful.”

We slowed life down. Way down. We have made the necessary adjustments to live on one income while our children are young. Young children move very slowly and we match their pace whether we are building legos, helping them get dressed, or involving them in getting dinner on the table. “I don’t want you to do it for me or rush me or feel sorry for me or praise me. Just be quiet and show me how to do it slowly, very slowly.”

We observe our children, and then adapt our home to match their needs. Our home is prepared in such a way that both our toddler and our eight-year-old can independently be fully contributing members of our family. Inside the house all the materials available to them are intentional and purposeful. The same holds true for the outdoors, to which our children have easy access. “Please take the pressure off both of us by creating my home environment so I can do my work of creating a human being and you can stick to your work of bringing one up.”

Our children’s access and exposure to screens is close to zero. “Owner’s Manual for a Child” was written before the advent of smartphones and tablet computers, but the same principles the author addresses hold true today. From our own experience of trying different things to see what works, we’ve found that screens take away from the richness of the real-life experiences we desire for our children. As I go about my daily life I see children in strollers on a beautiful day mesmerized by a phone but oblivious to the birds; at a concert staring at an iPad, eyes glossing over the instruments; enthralled by digital entertainment while foregoing the learning that will come from observing an older sibling’s gymnastics class. Such sightings, as well as other research, strengthens our resolve to protect our children from the desensitizing effects of technology. “TV makes me distracted, irritable, and uncooperative. The more I watch, the more I want to watch, so it creates issues between us. If you can’t say no to a daily TV viewing habit for me now, where is my example for developing the strength to say no to other bad habits later. Besides, the more I watch TV, the less I want to be like you.”

One may argue that these are just examples of a family culture that works for some, and has nothing to do with Montessori. But if you visit my children’s Montessori school you will see elements of every one of my six points in action. Consider, as an example, the greeting the children are received with at school. Each morning, every child is met with eye-contact, a firm handshake, and an authentic “Good morning.” Sometimes it takes a pause, and the adult gently saying, “May I see your eyes?” before the connection is made. It is in these interactions that I see all of our parenting at home being melded into school and creating a true partnership. How enriching and comforting for a child to experience consistency between school and home. How much more peace for the parent who glances at her child in the rear view mirror, walking into the environment where she spends most of her waking hours.

It would be remiss of me to leave the impression that our family life is smooth sailing a hundred percent of the time, because that is simply not true. On the days things are going awry I am tempted more than anyone to take the easy way out, and occasionally, I do. In many of those moments I recall the voices of my teachers, the ones who have worked tirelessly for decades so my children can have this Montessori life. I can hear Donna Bryant Goertz say, “There is pleasure, as well as pain, in the arduous path of worthy parenting.” I re-read “Owner’s Manual for a Child,” and these words are my greatest inspiration to pursue the arduous path: “I know my needs are great and many. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but you are all I’ve really got. I love you and I know you love me beyond reason or measure. If I can’t count on you, who can I count on?”

When it is all said and done, if we can’t give our own children our very best effort, who will?

03 Feb

Gateway Parenting

by Wendy Calise | Montessori Blog

80 Comments

The theory goes something like this: if you use legal drugs such as tobacco or alcohol, or even what some consider “soft drugs” like marijuana, you are more likely to slip down the slope to using “hard drugs” like amphetamines, cocaine and heroin, than people who never get started using soft drugs in the first place. The starter drugs are often referred to as gateway drugs because use of them is seen as the first step through the gateway to even more dangerous behaviors.

But this is not an essay about drug use. Nor is it about some of the bad choices young people make. Rather it is a veteran educator’s ruminations about 21st century parenting – or what I call, Gateway Parenting.

To my knowledge, the words gateway and parenting have not been paired together. But parenting a young child is rife with opportunity to make troublesome choices that seem harmless at the time, notwithstanding the nagging feeling that something is amiss. And much like that only-experimental, peer-pressure-initiated, totally-innocent first puff of a cigarette, oftentimes it leads to more.

So what does Gateway Parenting look like? Does it start with something like you throwing your coat over every puddle so your child doesn’t have to get his feet wet? Or making four different dinners each night before you find one she is willing to eat? Unfortunately not. I say unfortunately because if it started with ridiculous acts such as these, few of us would be guilty. That would be akin to starting out on heroin.

This is what the slippery slope actually looks like. More often it starts with something like this: “Let me help you cut that.” “Sure you can have a bagel while we walk through the grocery store.” “How was school today? Were all of the children nice to you?” “I will tell Grandma you don’t like chicken.” “She was just misbehaving because she had so much sugar.” Or gluten. Or because the other children excluded her. Or the teacher is impatient. Or she fell off her bike earlier in the day.

Listen up. Those are the sounds of your first puffs.

As you read the article, if you are like most parents, you will irrationally assume the article is about you. Not because it is, but because we all participate in these activities at one time or another. And more often than not, thankfully, we see our children in some setting independent of our homes, and we realize that they are capable of much more than we are asking of them. We realize that we are spoiling them, to borrow an old fashioned word. Some of us, however, will continue on to the hard drugs. Some of us, too many I am afraid, are doomed to the life of a junkie. Stressed out and strung out and sure that if we do it one just more time, we promise it will be the last.

Perhaps you have heard horror stories in recent years about parents who show up to job interviews with their children. Or call college professors about a grade on a term paper. Or call their children’s employers about better pay or benefits.

How does that happen? How does a parent get to that point? I can assure you that we would not find among even the most hardened enablers a parent who would believe that he will be the one fifteen years from now to call a college professor. But some of you will. Because once you start doing for your children what they can do for themselves, there is a tragic feedback loop which receives from and expresses to both parties, parent and child. The less your child does for himself, the less you think he is able to do. The less you think he is able to do, the less he thinks he is able to do. The less he thinks he is able, the more convincing he becomes to you that he is not. I am feeling anxious just writing about it.

It goes from having a sippy cup in the car so the children won’t get too thirsty on the seven minute ride home, to carrying their backpacks for them, to dropping off the lunch they forgot in the car, to the quick conversation with the teacher to inform her that she is not handling the social struggle in her class quite fairly, to calling him out of school because he had a lot of homework the night before and worked really hard to get it done, to a quick call to the English professor. Just this once.

And therein lies the real danger of Gateway Parenting. Like many drugs, it is addictive. We all swear we can stop, we just don’t want to. Parenting language equivalent: “I will stop when she is a little older. She’s just a kid. It will be easier later when she can better understand why.” Except it won’t be easier later. It will only get harder. As you continue to intervene, the opportunities for your child to build his skills to manage challenges are passing him by. And with the loss of those opportunities goes the loss of his skills. He doesn’t get any better at solving problems and facing challenges. He gets older, but the problems just get harder and the consequences more dire. And he seems to always be one step behind. And you feel forced to always stay one step ahead.

So what to do? Just say no. No to alternative dinner choices. No to skipping soccer practice because it is raining. No to calling the teacher to let her know that your son would like her to tell Janie that she is hurting his feelings. No to extra allowance. No to driving her to her friend’s house three blocks away instead of having her walk. No to helping with homework. Say no. There is no substitute. There is no workaround.

And when you do try to give up Gateway Parenting, be prepared, your children will make it hard. Your neighbors will make it even harder. And the nanny will make it darn near impossible. Beware, I tell you, the rate of recidivism is high.

The first part of the struggle will be recognize when you are doing it. Many suggest that you think of your child’s life as a path. Every day you will face choices that present two options. You can prepare the path for your child by removing the big rocks, the medium stones, and even every little pebble. Or you can prepare your child for the path by letting him face as many challenges as you can stand. This isn’t easy parenting, but it is good parenting. And though it won’t always feel very good for you, it will make your child’s life a whole lot easier. It really will.

17 Jul

Parenting Advice from America’s Worst Mom

by Lenore Skenazy | Montessori Blog

34 Comments

Here’s a lovely little letter I just received that ended thusly:

….People like you that just send their kids out for the vultures of the world because you THINK you are doing them a favor, are horrible, lazy, undeserving so-called parents. What a shame that God would bless you with something for which you show such little disregard.

And you have a nice day, too!

What occasioned such a screed? I’m “America’s Worst Mom.” (Feel free to Google it.) I got that title after I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone and wrote a newspaper column about it. Two days later I was on The Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News and NPR (you know something’s hit a nerve when they BOTH pounce), explaining that I love my kids and want them to be safe. I just don’t think children need a security detail every time they leave the home.

That idea turned out to be so controversial that I started my blog Free-Range Kids to figure out: Why? Why is letting kids make their own forts, fun, play-dates, snacks and mistakes suddenly considered too hard or dangerous?

Turns out that, for a lot of reasons, we have recently lost faith in our kids and our communities. Let’s talk about faith in our kids first.

Walk into a Babies R Us store (a store that did not exist when babies were most of us — the first one opened in 1996). There you will find 10,000 different items, many devoted to safety. There are baby knee pads, as if today’s kids can’t crawl safely, and “Walking Wings” — a harness you put around your baby that has two strings attached. You use those to pull him up like a marionette when he’s learning to walk.

This gadget promises “fewer falls,” as if falls are too much for a toddler to handle. The marketplace knows that if it can plant a worry in parents’ minds, it can always sell a product or service to assuage it. Ka-ching! That’s one big reason we are being conditioned to believe our kids can’t do anything safely or successfully on their own: There’s money to be made “helping” them.

At the same time, we have come to distrust society, too. The 24-hour news cycle tells us that our kids are in constant danger. In news-land (as well as in TV-drama-land) every adult is a threat.

Real world consequences ripple forth. I’ve heard of day care centers where parents are instructed not to hold the door open even for the parent and baby right behind them — you never know who’s out to snatch a kid or blow the place up! Meantime, one of the big parenting magazines told a reader she had every right not to let her child sleep over at the home of a girl living with her divorced father. A man alone with two girls? It’s just too dangerous! Don’t trust anyone!

The outdoors has become “dangerized” too. Only one child in ten walks to school anymore and part of the reason is this everyone’s-out-to-get-your-kids panic. A Mayo Clinic study found that nearly three out of four parents are worried about their kids being abducted — even though crime today is at a level not seen since before the advent of color TV.

That’s right, the crime rate is lower today than when most of us parents were growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. It just doesn’t feel that way, with all the terrible stories you see on TV. (Or, being Montessori parents, the terrible stories you read in the paper.) And here I must add that people sometimes think crime is down now because kids are constantly supervised. But crime is down against adults, too, and they are not helicoptered.

Flogged with fear, we end up hovering over our kids, even though what they REALLY need is a chance to grow and become part of the world. It’s a basic drive we’ve been thwarting.

Think back to your most own most powerful childhood memories. I’ll bet most of them do not involve a time your mom was sitting there right next to you. I’ll bet you flash on a time you did something hard or even scary on your own. Those moments become the building blocks of who we are: “I’m the kid who got the cat out of the tree.” “I made up the game we played all summer.” “I got lost on the way to the library, cried, and then found my way home after dark!”

Kids are naturally curious and striving for competence. Give them love and guidance — that’s our job — but then stand back and they will amaze you.

They probably already do.

04 Dec

Owner’s Manual for a Child

by Donna Bryant Goertz | Montessori Blog

88 Comments

Dear Parent,

I want to be like you. I want to be just like you, but I want to become like you in my own way, in my own time, and by my own efforts. I want to watch you and imitate you. I do not want to listen to you except for a few words at a time, unless you don’t know I’m listening. I want to struggle, to make a grand effort with something very difficult, something I cannot master immediately. I want you to clear the way for my efforts, to give me the materials and supplies that will allow success to follow initial difficulty. I want you to observe me and see if I need a better tool, an instrument more my size, a taller, safer stepladder, a lower table, a container I can open by myself, a lower shelf, or a clearer demonstration of the process. I don’t want you to do it for me or rush me or feel sorry for me or praise me. Just be quiet and show me how to do it slowly, very slowly.

I will demand to do an entire project by myself all at once just because I see you doing it, but that’s not what will work for me. Be firm and draw the line for me here. I need for you to give me just one small part of the whole project and let me repeat it over and over until I perfect it. You break down the project into parts that will be very difficult but possible for me to master through much effort, following many repetitions, and after long concentration.

I want to think like you, behave like you, and hold your values. I want to do all this through my own efforts by imitating you. Slow down when speak. Let your words be few and wise. Slow down your movements. Perform your tasks in slow motion so I can absorb and imitate them. If you trust and respect me by preparing my home environment and giving me freedom within it, I will discipline myself and cooperate with you more often and more readily. The more you discipline yourself, the more I will discipline myself. The more you obey the laws of my development the, more I will obey you.

We are both so fortunate that within me I have a secret plan for my own way of being like you. I am driven by my secret plan. I am safe and happy following it. It is irresistible to me. If you interfere with my work of unfolding myself according to my secret plan and try to force me to be like you in your own way, in your own time, by your own efforts, I will forget to work on my secret plan and begin to struggle against you. I will decide to wage a war against you and everything you stand for. That’s my nature It’s my way of protecting myself. You could call it integrity.

Depending on my personality, I will wage the war more openly or more covertly; I will fight you more aggressively or more passively. A great deal of my incredible energy, talent, and intelligence will be wasted. You will probably win in the end, but I will be only a weak version, a poor substitute, a forgery of what I am capable of being, and you will be exhausted. Please take the pressure off both of us by preparing my home environment so I can do my work of creating a human being and you can stick to your work of bringing one up. I’ll do what I do best and you do what you do best.

I am capable of being the finest example of your best attributes and values expressed in my very own way. If you will prepare a home environment carefully and thoroughly for me, keep my materials and tools in order and good repair, set the limits clearly and firmly, give me long slow periods of time to work on my secret plan, I will do the work of developing a new human being, me! Did I mention that I need materials to be set out in every room of the house? I need to have materials available for quick and easy access wherever I happen to be in the house and wherever you are. I need to have the option of working and playing close to you. Most of the time, I need to use activities close to the shelf where they belong in order to form the habit of putting away.

My secret plan for developing myself is carried out entirely by hand, hands that is, my own two, to be precise. I am a fine artist, a master craftsman, and require the finest tools and supplies. Don’t give me a lot of junk, just a few fine materials that are complete and in good repair. Excess is worse than unnecessary; it’s distracting. It disturbs my creative process. It makes me irritable and uncooperative. I know it’s hard to believe that through my chosen activities carried out independently and in a state of deep concentration I am developing my character, but it’s true. I can’t make fine character out of a lot of junk in a big mess.

My home is my studio and my workshop, so be sure it is quiet and peaceful. Play soft, soothing music while I am awake. Watch TV only after I am in bed. While I’m up, I will make all the noise we need. Oh, and I need everything to be kept in order. I can’t do my best work in a mess. I don’t know how to make order for myself but I crave it, so I will need you to do it for me at least three times a day. If you make order for me in a practical and esthetically pleasing way that makes sense to my logical mind, I will gradually begin to imitate you more and more.

Eventually you will be able to require that I put away for myself, when I’m six or so, providing you always remember to check in with me about it three times a day until I’m nine. I can’t cope with an entire day’s accumulation of things to put away, much less an entire week’s worth. I will certainly never be able to cope with a month’s worth of mess. If you get distracted and forget to help me put away during the day and the mess builds up, you will have to put it away yourself every night.

I hate to be so demanding, but I need to have all my supplies organized and displayed in complete sets within my reach so I can get them for myself. If I have to ask you for what I need all the time, I will begin to feel like either a commanding general or a whining invalid. Stop and think, I could really get into one or the other of those roles. Neither of us wants that. I need independence like I need oxygen. It brings out the best in me. The time you spend setting up my environment will be time you save by not dealing with my petulant, obstreperous, recalcitrant side.

Television is a big interruption in my development. Sorry! I know you don’t want to hear this, I need hands on activities and I need lots of processing time. TV distracts me from more important activities and fills my head with more than I have time to process. Read to me every day because reading goes slowly, allowing for processing along the way. TV packs more in than I know what to do with, so I shut down and either become passive or frenetic. I know you might think some shows are good for me, and I know you might think you deserve the break TV provides, but we both pay a heavy price for every half-hour I watch.

I can’t resist the TV, but that’s okay because every three-to-six-year-old has a parent, and that’s what parents are for. TV makes me distracted, irritable, and uncooperative. The more I watch, the more I want to watch, so it creates issues between us. If you can’t say no to a daily TV viewing habit for me now, where is my example for developing the strength to say no to other bad habits later? Besides, the more I watch TV, the less I want to be like you. Remember, I imitate what I watch. Oh, yes, nix also to the video and computer games I beg for and all my friends have. Come on, I know you can do it.

I will usually be so consumed with my work and play that I won’t hear you when you speak to me. Don’t make it worse by speaking from a distance or repeating yourself. Just get down on my level within a foot of my face, get my attention, and look into my eyes before you speak. Then let your words be few, firm, and respectful. You will save both of us a lot of senseless suffering if you can remember to do that. I know it will not be easy for you to remember, but if you work hard you can train yourself to make it a habit. After all, if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, how can you expect me to do what I’m supposed to do?

If you don’t have the time or energy or, I hate to say it, self discipline to follow through on what you say, just don’t say it. Idle threats and empty promises make me despise you. You look foolish, arbitrary, and weak. I know I act like I want to run the universe myself, but that’s just a show of bravado. I really need a parent to run my world. When I can’t depend on you to mean what you say, I can’t trust you. That causes me to feel deeply insecure and go to extremes. It’s frightening to me because I love you so much. I need to respect you and trust you to say what you mean and mean what you say. You are the most important part of my home environment.

You’ll be glad to hear that part of my secret plan calls for helping you around the house and yard. No, it can’t be when you have time or are in the mood, or even when it would really be helpful to you. It has to go by my interest. Sorry, I can’t be flexible about that. After all, I’m the one who’s creating a human being. You’re just bringing one up. Well, I guess it won’t really be a help to you at all, not immediately or directly. It’ll really be a big hindrance. I have to be given the right size equipment, careful demonstrations, and lots of time and patience.

Just when I master a certain skill and become capable of making a real contribution, I’ll tire of it and choose not to do it again. Then I’ll want to learn a new job requiring far more skill and expertise and you will have start all over again. This will happen about once a week for the next six years and take up a lot of your valuable and scarce time. In the long run it really will be a big help, though, because I’ll feel so invested in our home and family that I’ll be a lot more reasonable and cooperative about our family’s values and rules. I’ll also be so skilled, capable, independent, and self-disciplined by the time I’m nine years old that it will be reasonable to expect me to do my share around the house and yard. I will have developed obedience.

I know my needs are great and many. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but you are all I’ve really got. I love you and I know you love me beyond reason or measure. If I can’t count on you, who can I count on? But let’s not kid each other. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m tough and resilient. I’ll survive and make the best of it. Just thought you might want to have the chapter on the Primary Montessori Home Environment from the Owner’s Manual for a Montessori Primary Child. You could make the next three years a lot more fun for both of us by taking care of me according to my needs. Hey, can we just shoot for meeting 50% of my needs? Okay, okay, I’ll settle for 25%.

Love, hugs, and kisses,

Your Three-to-Six-Year-Old

P.S. I know I’m very lucky. Not many children have parents that will really listen and pay attention to their needs instead of just giving in to their whines and tantrums. Maybe they’re scared their kids will stop loving them. Maybe they’re scared their kids won’t be popular. I’ll save that subject for Chapter Six.

The more TV I watch the more I will complain of boredom because I will gradually lose my natural bent for following my Sensitive Periods–you know, those drives for certain activities during certain stages of development. Without interference of TV, a restless sense of creative dissatisfaction prompts me to explore my environment and fix my attention on an activity, concentration on it, and repeat it. Under the influence of TV, that same restless sense becomes a pouty monster called boredom that tyrannizes you and me both, wears on our relationship, and compromises my best development.

02 Oct

Montessori 2.0

by Jim Fitzpatrick | Montessori Blog

9 Comments

There are many IT or “tech-y” Montessori materials available and being used every day in and out of classrooms, often times unknowingly. “Google it” is now part of our culture. Google is a Montessori material (or, at least, was developed by Montessorians Brin and Page). Amazon is more than a river; it’s from a Montessorian, too!

But what about today’s techy doo-dahs and young children? An increasing number of apps targeted at young children are in the digital storefront; is there value for them? Does your 3 year-old have to have their own iPad? What would pioneering educator Dr. Maria Montessori think about these doo-dahs? Now that I think about it, what did my children play with in the car? It seems the newest source for quiet passengering today is a smart phone, especially those with video capability…

“Mom! The DVD is stuck!”

“Honey, that’s not a DVD. It’s streaming video. We must be out of the hotspot!”

“Mom! Turn around!”

Montessori classroom materials (the ‘real’ ones that are expensive and finely crafted and have been around for more than 100 years) provide an experience meant for collaborative learning within the classroom setting. But don’t even consider piling the Pink Tower into your child’s car seat, and the Red Rods are too long for most fuel-efficient cars. But the digital versions of these educational tools fit into your child’s palm. That means Montessori ‘materials’ are available all the time, even in the car on the way home!

I actually think there’s a Montessori approach for children to experience Montessori “apps.” Some traditional Montessorians might gasp at the thought. I’m a traditional Montessorian and I’m suggesting that when in traffic, when in line, when your child is desperately seeking something to busy themselves, that if digital Red Rods capture their attention, or the tracing of digital sandpaper numerals fixes their concentration until you reach your destination, what’s the harm? If a Montessori-style “app” keeps them focused until you’re again available, might they learn something? Might there be some value? What would Dr. Montessori say?

Do today’s techy doo-dahs have a place in a traditional Montessori classroom? For adolescents, yes. For primary level three and four year-olds, no. Montessori adolescent programs often feature and utilize Smart Boards, iPads, laptops, and hand-held devices as commonly as paper and pencils. For now, those digital “accessory” learning tools are not expected in the younger children’s Montessori classrooms. But a surprising number of young children (under six years) now have access to their parent’s equipment at home, where the one-on-one nature of the techy doo-dahs makes for a better learning experience than in a Montessori classroom.

The Montessori preschool classroom may not be the ideal place for techie doo-dahs, but on the way home in their car seat when there’s traffic and they want to be doing what their older brother or sister are doing? Then, let’s consider the possibilities.

As for Dr. Maria Montessori, herself? She’d be tweeting. She’d be all over today’s techy doo-dahs, presenting lectures and streaming information everywhere. She was a pioneer 100 years ago and she would be today. In fact, here we are now, using IT experiences to share Montessori’s vision for children and their families. Welcome to Montessori 2.0!

17 Jul

Boys and Gun Play

by John Snyder | Montessori Blog

23 Comments

Elementary children need to experience themselves as increasingly powerful agents in the world. As their personal power increases with age and maturity, they begin to encounter all the classical questions about power with which humanity has struggled and continues to struggle. At the root of these questions is the fact that power and its uses define relationships.

There is that in the male psyche, in particular, that is fascinated with the projection of personal power at a distance. The emperor sits in his throne room ruling his far-flung empire. The generals gather in the war room to talk about “force projection.” CEO’s earn their bonuses by expanding the “global reach” of their corporations. The eminent professor sits in his study writing books and papers calculated to demolish the theories of his colleagues on the other side of the world and change the direction of his academic discipline for all time.

Boys, on the other hand, just like to throw things. Rocks, snowballs, mud balls, dirt clods, sticks, spears, Frisbees, boomerangs, baseballs, footballs, basketballs – all involve the projection of power at a distance – and if accuracy is involved, so much the better. Standing right here, I can have an effect way over there. I can get that wooly mammoth, bear or dog before it gets me. I can get you before you get me. And I can do it even if I’m not as big, strong, fast, ferocious, agile, or smart as you.

Guns are technology’s answer to this fascination with the projection of power at a distance. This attraction, this fascination is, in itself, neither good nor bad. It just is. Yet it is clear that in the context of a life and a culture, how a boy learns to relate to his capacity to project personal power can lead to good or bad habits of mind and good or bad outcomes for the boy, his family and his society.

19 Mar

Montessori and Attachment Parenting

by Marcy Hogan | Montessori Blog

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I have always wanted to raise my children in a Montessori manner. I want them to attend a Montessori school and even created a Montessori-inspired home environment. Taking the Assistants to Infancy course was not an option for me before having children, so I did the next best thing by reading books such as Montessori from the Start for guidance. I am far from perfect, but I l think I have done an OK job of weaving the Montessori philosophy into my parenting style.

Since my first son’s birth 3 years ago, I have also gravitated towards Attachment Parenting. Yet, I have started to question: are these two philosophies compatible?

The Montessori Method and Attachment Parenting do share many commonalities. For example, both stress treating children as individuals worthy of respect and try to meet their needs in a loving way so that are secure enough to explore their world as independent beings. Both also aspire to raise children in a natural manner, from a gentle birth to using non-toxic products in the home. Both also encourage breastfeeding and cloth diapering.

However, there are also differences. Attachment Parenting tends to support extended breastfeeding, nursing children well past the first year until both mother and child feel ready to stop. When I read the section in Montessori from the Start about breastfeeding, I was surprised at the suggestion to begin weaning the child off the breast at 6-9 months of age in order to encourage independence. This seemed strange to me, as most global health organizations encourage breastfeeding for at least the full first year. How would mother and child feel about weaning so early on? Is it unnatural?

“Babywearing”, or using slings or wraps to carry the child on the mother’s body, is another issue as it has become a trend among Attachment Parents. The goal is to provide security and contact comfort for the child. Newborns who spend time skin-to-skin with the mother tend to breathe better and control their body temperature more easily. One can find many resources online about the benefits of babywearing, for both mother and child.

Yet, some Montessorians react negatively to the subject of babywearing. Slings and wraps constrict baby’s movement, they argue, and should not be used because the baby cannot move his body to develop coordination. A passage in Montessori from the Startconjures up the image of carrying a kitten in a sling to highlight how terrible the idea is.

Not all Montessorians feel this way – I know a handful who breastfed their children past the first year and/or carried them in slings. Online research demonstrates that I am not alone. I breastfed my first son for 15 months and have worn both my babies. Although I enjoy the snuggling aspect of babywearing, I admit the main appeal is utilitarian more than anything. I gave birth to my second son 3 months ago and he does not take kindly to being set down. I give him as much “floor time” as possible, but after 5 to 10 minutes he gets upset and needs to be held (or fed) again. Wearing him in a carrier is a matter of necessity for us, as I can’t simply hold him all day long, especially with a 3-year-old to care for as well. And, more importantly, it does make him happier.

I was resigned to the fact that these two sides of my parenting style would simply have to coexist; I thought I would be a Montessori parent who happens to also wear my baby, and breastfeed him for as long as he (and I) felt was right. I admit that I was tempted to attend the recent Montessori Refresher Course in Long Beach with my newborn strapped to my chest, just to see the reaction!

But not too long ago I came across a very interesting blog post from a parent who discovered a passage in The Absorbent Mind that addressed these very topics. In it, Dr. Montessori references cultures in which mothers nurse their children for several years and carry them on their bodies all day. She noted how these children rarely cry compared to those from Western cultures and how they learn about the world in the most natural way possible, because they are with their mothers all day; the children become a natural part of the mother’s day-to-day life as she does work both inside and outside the home.

Huh. Well, perhaps Dr. Montessori did approve of Attachment Parenting after all!

So what about you fellow Montessori parents? Are you drawn to the Attachment Parenting style? Do you think Montessori philosophy and Attachment Parenting are compatible?

MariaMontessori.com

A Project from Montessori Administrators Association