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Finding Motivation the Montessori Way

Finding Motivation the Montessori Way

by | Child's Work, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Infant-Toddler (0 to 3), Later Adolescence (15-18), Lower Elementary (6-9), MFA, Mixed Ages, Montessori Education, Montessori Middle School, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Secondary / High School, Primary (3-6), Sensitive Periods

child concentrating

Daniel Pink in his bestseller, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us makes the point that motivation is an individual and internal process. Notice the little ‘I” in the book’s title. The little “I” signifies intrinsic motivation.

External rewards and punishments rarely motivate our behavior for the long term. Money, good grades, stickers, and prizes get us to change our behavior for a while. Punitive measures, in the long run, create fear, rebellion, and worse.

External rewards sometimes coincide with our internal motivation and create a perceived cause and effect that is perhaps not valid.

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, psychologists at the University of Rochester, describe deep human needs in their work with “self-determination theory,” an overarching construct of human motivation and personality that focuses on how an individual’s behavior is self-motivated and self-determined.

Deci and Ryan describe three deep human needs: the need to be able to direct our own lives; the need to grow, learn, and create new ideas, experiences, and objects; and the need to have a sense of purpose to make our lives and the lives of those around us better.

These three psychological needs motivate each of us to initiate a task and seek out essential activities that create our psychological health and physical well-being. Deci and Ryan refer to these as the need for competence, the need for autonomy, and the need for relatedness. Pink uses the terms mastery, autonomy, and purpose. This article will use the terms autonomy, mastery, and purpose. These three words also form an easy-to-remember acronym: AMP.

Fundamental Needs.

The needs for autonomy, mastery, and purpose are considered to be fundamental needs in self-determination theory. In our Montessori teacher training, discussions on fundamental needs and human tendencies comprise part of our philosophy lectures and readings. The underlying idea is that human beings have behaviors that stem from innate needs and tendencies, much like a bird has the instincts to build a nest, a spider will spin a web, and cows will stampede when frightened.

According to Montessori philosophy, human beings have two types of fundamental needs—physical and spiritual. Psychological or social might be substituted here for the term spiritual.

Physical needs include the following: air, food, light, movement, protection from danger, sleep, sexual expression, shelter, touch and water. Spiritual or psychological needs include the following: acceptance, appreciation, becoming, be- longing, celebration, closeness, community, consideration, contribution, emotional safety, empathy, honesty, love, re- assurance, respect, support, trust, understanding, warmth, movement, exercise, creativity, exploration, orientation, inspiration, laughter, fun, contemplation, silence, ability to choose dreams, goals and values, ability to create self worth, ability to create meaning, ability to create an authentic person, and ability to create personal integrity, beauty, harmony, peace, repetition, precision and exactness.

Human beings have certain tendencies toward behavior. These include tendencies toward activity, becoming, be- longing, exploration, orientation, order, communication, imagination, exactness repetition and perfection. As you can see, human tendencies and fundamental needs have some overlap. Each of these fundamental needs and human tendencies relate to one or more of the needs of autonomy, mastery and purpose.

The idea of human behavior being driven by needs in not a new one in the

Montessori world of learning and teaching. It is one of the basic ideas Montessorians use to view and understand child development and behavior.

This knowledge of human tendencies and fundamental needs form some of the building blocks of Montessori prepared environments, special places designed to help children meet their needs and tendencies at whatever their stage of personal development.

Dr. Montessori saw that child development changed in approximately six- year phases or, as she referred to them, planes of development. Each plane of development has unique characteristics with the individual trying to meet the needs and tendencies of that period of development.

The first plane begins at birth though approximately the age of six years; second plane of development is from age six to twelve years; the third plane is from ages 12 to 18 years; and the fourth plane is from 18 to 24 years. Each plane is divided into two three-year sub-stages. Growth is more rapid in the first substage. In the second sub-stage growth is slower and more stable. Each sub-stage for the first three planes of development has a special prepared  environment  for a three-year multi-age group of children.

In the first plane of development, from birth through six years, movement, language, the refinement of sensory perceptions, social relations and order are the lens through which a child’s development can be understood.

As the first tooth is lost, the child begins to move into the second plane of development and we can observe the changes in the child’s needs and tendencies toward certain behaviors. The freely chosen activities of the six to twelve-year-old are centered on moral reasoning, use of the imagination, group dynamics, getting out of the narrow circle of family and close friends, and using a developing sense of right and wrong.

The third plane of development is characterized by rapid physical growth, sexual maturation and boundless energy; developing abilities to abstract, conjecture, predict and create; a need to be with peers and accepted; a need to be individually mentored by an adults who are not their parents; a need to understand What am I good at? and What am I good for?; strong and often harsh self- criticism; a need for meaningful work that contributes to adult communities; a need to express new interests, thought, and emotions; the need to acquire flexible and inquiring habits of the mind; and the need to develop a personal vision.

The young adult in the fourth plane of development has a need to go out into the world and create his or her own experiences. The young adult takes on the challenge of deciding to start college, creating new experiences through relationships and travel, and beginning career and married life. At the end of the fourth plane of development, the true adult should emerge.

With these concepts of fundamental needs, human tendencies, and the four planes of development, Montessori prepared environments—consisting of people, tools, ideas and nature—are perhaps perfect places for children to meet their innate needs for autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Autonomy: the need to direct our own lives

The four essential components necessary for autonomy to thrive, according to Deci and Ryan, are having decision- making authority about task, time, tech- nique and team. We need the ability and assurance that we can choose what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and with whom to do it.

Authentic Montessori classrooms have these basic components:

  1. Adults professionally trained in Montessori philosophy, methods and materials for the group they are teaching
  2. Specially prepared environments based on three-year age groups
  3. Children’s free choice of activity within a three-hour protected work cycle.

Activities in our Montessori classrooms have been designed and refined over a hundred years all over the world with all types of children—rich, poor, gifted, challenged—using observation of the child involved in self-selected activities while keeping the ideas of human tendencies, fundamental needs and planes of development in the forefront.

Task.

Children in Montessori classroom environments are given the freedom to choose their tasks. Once a child has  been shown how to get lesson materials off the shelf, and given a preliminary lesson on how to use and return the lesson materials to order, the child is free to choose that task. In a matter of a few weeks upon entering a Montessori classroom a three-year-old has dozens of activities to select.

Time.

Children in a Montessori environment are also given time. In the optimum situations children have a protected three- hour-work cycle in which to do their self-selected tasks. The children are allowed to do a particular task as long as they choose. When they are finished with the task, the children return the lesson materials to the designated place on the shelf, and select the next task.

This gift of choice of time and task help the children develop confidence in their choices and helps them develop concentration as well as independence—all aspects of autonomy.

Also, remaining in a classroom for a three- or four-year period contributes to this factor of time in the development of autonomy.

Technique.

Another aspect of autonomy is having the ability to choose how you do a task. Children in Montessori environments are allowed to find their own method of working with the materials. Each set of Montessori materials has a preliminary lesson, followed by other lessons as the Montessori guide (teacher) observes the child requiring new challenges while working on his or her self-selected tasks.

The child is allowed to explore the limitations of the materials as long as the material is not abused or used to harm others. For example, the Pink Tower is a set of ten cubes varying in dimension from one to ten centimeters. The preliminary lesson shows the child how to move the Pink Tower to a rug, build a tower with the largest cube on the bottom, then how to return the cubes to their place. As the child explores the limits of the Pink Tower over a three-year period in the early childhood environment, a variety of designs may be seen as the child chooses self-discovered techniques, not simply imitating a teacher’s example. Every lesson, within the limits of safety, can be freely explored to allow the child this important development of technique.

Another aspect of technique is that the children have a variety of materials to explore different ideas. In the exploration of addition the child can choose from Red Rods, Golden Bead Materials, the Snake Game, the Stamp Game, Addition Strip Board and the Small Bead Frame, to only mention a few of the math materials available to the child to promote autonomy using task, time and technique.

Team.

The last of our four T’s of autonomy is team, or the ability to choose with  whom you will work. One interesting aspect of a Montessori environment is that children are allowed to politely decline a teacher’s invitation to a lesson. “No, thank you. I’d rather choose to work on something else,” is not an uncommon phrase. As you observe Montessori environments of all ages, you’ll see a fluidity of small work groups. Five-year-old Max may do reading exercises with four-year-old Emily, then choose to work with six-year-old Jane and Tom to do some four-digit addition problems. Among the children, there is a quiet acknowledgement of acceptance or refusal to join others in self-selected tasks.

The children honor others’ rights to choose their task, time, technique and team. It is this deep respect of autonomy in our Montessori classrooms that create the happy hum of children busy working, working toward another deep human need, mastery.

Mastery: The Need to Grow, Learn, and Create

As we learn and repeat new tasks, we need, what Pink refers to as, “Goldilocks’ tasks” – tasks that are not too hot or not too cold, but just right. When there is a mismatch of what we can do and the next level of desired learning, we create a source of frustration. When we are given tasks that are too difficult, we become anxious or give up in resignation. If we are asked to do something too easy, boredom ensues and behavior can range between passivi-ty to creating chaos.

As we learn new skills, we want to be in the “zone of proximal development” (ZDP) to use a term from the psychologist Lev Vygotsky. We can think of learning tasks falling into three categories: the level where we know how to do something and find the work lacks challenge; the level of skill building where we don’t have the necessary preparation to be successful, and the third or middle level, where we have the foundational skills and can move forward when we are shown how to do a new set of tasks. The ZDP is where we find our Goldilocks’ tasks of being “just right.”

When the task given combines skill and interest, an interesting phenomenon occurs. The child yearns to learn. In the words of Dr. Montessori, “The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will bring all his potential.”

In our Montessori prepared environments the child is surrounded with and introduced to various tasks that he or she may later choose. If the child meets an obstacle or requires fresh challenge, the watchful Montessori teacher is there to give a lesson that is “just right” for the individual’s child’s zone of proximal development.

The prepared environment of children and adults, lesson materials, underlying principles, and the outdoors, calls the child interests, while providing the appropriate tasks, time, techniques and team that lead the child to mastery.

A Montessori teaching technique that keeps children walking the tightrope be- tween repetition and excitement is called “indirect preparation.” For example, we know that reading and writing will be two essential skills students will want to master. Many of the tasks offered to the young child three-to six–years old prepare the children indirectly and incrementally for the tasks of writing and reading. (Note: In Montessori teaching we regard writing as indirect preparation for reading. But that is for another article for another day.)

A two-and-a-half to three-year-old enters the classroom and learns to wash a table using a counterclockwise circular motion, starting with the first stroke at the upper left hand corner of the table. The child scrubs across the table to the right until he or she reaches the right hand edge. The child then begins again on the left under the first row of scrub- bing, and continues thus until the entire top of the table is scrubbed. The three=year-old is happy making soap bubbles in a self-selected activity that nourishes the young child’s natural tendencies to learn practical living skills. The child has no idea that this task is indirectly ready- ing his hands and eyes for the job of writing.

Writing and spelling emerge as self- selected tasks around the age of four- and-a-half years. With the indirect prepa- ration of washing a table and other practical life jobs, as well as the indirect preparation of using the Sandpaper Letters, the child desiring to write finds that he is in the Goldilocks chair.

The practical life tasks of the young child appear non-academic but serve as powerful preparation for the hand and eye to work together to ensure writing and reading success. The young child is offered many practical life skills that create coordination for later cognitive development and academic learning.

Three Laws of Mastery.

Pink refers to the three laws of mastery. Mastery is a mindset. Mastery is a pain. Mastery is an asymptote. Mastery is a mindset. The idea of mastery becomes an attitude or expectation. “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better, and your better, best.”

When we give our students in our Montessori classrooms autonomy to choose their tasks, times, technique and team, the idea of continual improvement is in the air. Children choose their work groups for a variety of reasons, but many times it is because they know their co-workers are better than they are at a particular task, and that working with them will help them get better. In a multi-age classroom there is always someone who can do something better than you can. Plus, there is always someone to help. Mastery is part of the Montessori culture.

Mastery is a pain. Improvement requires focused effort, and that can be a pain. But when something is important, we are willing to work for it and to exert the effort to meet our objectives.

Persevering with passion is a key ingredient to obtaining mastery. Mastery is not about innate talent but the ability to have focused practice for many years— over 10,000 hours of conscious practice in trying to improve. When we live in an environment where searching out and choosing challenging tasks is a habit, passionate perseverance helps us overcome the difficulty of becoming good, better, best. As we strive for our personal best, we come upon a paradox of mastery. As hard and long as we might try, we will never reach perfection. And that is okay.

Mastery is an asymptote. An asymptote is a line that approaches a curved line but never quite touches it, all the way to infinity. Such is the paradox of mastery. We can never reach perfection, but it is that innate drive to be better that makes life fun and helps us have a sense of purpose.

Purpose: the need to have a reason to make life better

To be a help to life” is the Montessori call to action. Montessori prepared environments are designed to meet the developmental needs and human tendencies for a particular age group of chil- dren. Montessori teaching techniques promote autonomy and mastery, creating powerful learning for children in a Montessori environment. Tapping into a sense of purpose, though, brings one’s abilities to a higher level.

Beginning with young children learn- ing to wash their hands, to button their coats, and to zip their pants, these practical life skills tap into a child’s innate desires for independence and to be self-directed. Independence as an innate purpose has three-year-olds’ sweeping floors, dusting, or cutting vegetables with a skill and care you might observe in children many years older.

The activities of making and serving snack for themselves and others feed into the children’s sense of purpose. Practical life activities that involve caring for yourself, caring for others, and caring for the indoor and outdoors create a sense of purpose not only for the three- to six-year-old groups, but also with the elementary and adolescent communities.

Whereas young children are content with the purposeful activity within the confines of their classroom community, elementary aged children’s sense of purpose begins to be concerned with the larger world and this age’s developing sense of morality and justice. The young child’s purpose is found in sweeping the classroom floor. Perhaps, the elementary child’s purpose is realized with sweeping the pavilion at the park as community work. For the adolescent purposeful work may be sweeping the floor of an ill neighbor or family member.

Purpose makes us feel important and that the work we do for our family and community is vital. The five-year-old for- gets to sweep the floor after lunch, and her friends will have to sit in crumbs. Forget to sweep the pavilion, the park looks trashy. Forget to go to the neighbors and the young teen finds that his help is vital to the smooth running of someone else’s life.

Purpose is found in our Montessori classrooms by the offering of self-selected challenging activities that passionately engage the intellectual, the physical, the emotional and the social aspects of our children.

Summary.

Support for the  deep  fundamental needs of autonomy, mastery, and purpose—the keys to intrinsic motivation, and a lifetime of well being—are found in our Montessori classrooms for all ages of children. Montessori teaching and learning techniques, that include an understanding of fundamental human needs, human tendencies and a continuum of child development, form the basis of the special Montessori prepared environments for each three year sub-stage of child development.

To be a help to life we need to observe, nourish, protect and strengthen our children by tapping into the powerful intrinsic motivation that exists from birth. It shouldn’t surprise us that our Montessori schools are uniquely posi- tioned to help our children gain autonomy, mastery and purpose for a live well lived.

REFERENCES:

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. (Plenum Press) New York: 1985

Deci, E. L, & Ryan, R.M. Handbook of Self- Determination Research (University of Rochester Press) Rochester, NY: 2002

Pink, Daniel H. DRiVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead Books) New York: 2009

Montessori, Maria. From Childhood to Adolescence (ABC –Clio Ltd.) Oxford, England: 1948, 1994, page 11

Montessori, Mario. The Human Tendencies and Montessori Education (Association Montessori Internationale, Second Edition) Amsterdam: 1956

Schmidt, Maren. Understanding Montessori: A Guide for Parents (Dogear Publishing) Indianapolis, Indiana: 2009

Vygotsky, L. S. Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes

(Scribner) New York, 1978

Maren Stark Schmidt, an award- winning teacher and writer, found- ed a Montessori school, and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland. She has over twenty-five years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She currently writes a syndicated parenting column, available at www.KidsTalkNews.com and recently completed a book Understanding Montessori: A Guide For Parents. Contact her at Maren@KidsTalk News.com. Copyright 2009.

This article was originally published in the September, 2010 issue of Tomorrow’s Child with the author’s permission.

 

“Bless Them, Change Me – Impact of Attitudes on Relationships” with Dorothy Harman

“Bless Them, Change Me – Impact of Attitudes on Relationships” with Dorothy Harman

by | Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, Montessori Parenting, Parenting on the Same Page, Psychology, Research, Webinars / MFA

Relationships occur naturally, after all, we are social creatures. The very composition of our brain leads us to join others. While many relationships occur effortlessly, others require more intentionality. Join Dorothy Harman, M.Ed, in a discussion about getting the most out of our relationships.
The Wonder of Woodworking

The Wonder of Woodworking

by | Child's Work, Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Lower Elementary (6-9), MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori students, Montessori Teachers, Practical Life, Primary (3-6), TC March 2021, The International Montessori Council, Upper Elementary (9-12)

A Conversation between Lorna McGrath and Pete Moorhouse

Afew months ago, we had special guest, Pete Moorhouse, an expert on woodworking with kids on our weekly Montessori Family Life Webinar broadcast. In this interview with Pete, he shares some of his insights and ideas from woodworking with young children.

Lorna: What are your thoughts about why children get so enthusiastic about the idea of woodworking?

Pete: Woodworking is actually such a unique activity for young children to do. It’s so different from everything else—they use real tools and authentic materials to make their own constructions. And I think one of the things that really stands out is just how it draws in children’s curiosity. Woodworking captivates them, and you see astonishingly high levels of sustained engagement. 

Children become really focused and concentrate on what they’re doing. The most astonishing thing about woodwork is the length of time children stay with this activity. They can span a whole morning or afternoon entirely engaged in their project. We see this across the world. It’s not unique to the United Kingdom. It’s absolutely everywhere, from the United States to Japan to the Middle East. Woodworking, using tools, is a universal language that gives children great enjoyment. And interestingly, in terms of education, this is nothing new. It used to be widespread in education right from the early 1900s, and it was pretty much embraced in schools around the world. 

Lorna: Why do you think educators and parents shied away from letting children have the experience of using tools?

Pete: What was very much widespread, in recent decades has very much fallen off the agenda. I think is to do with the risk aversion in a litigation culture. Educators were concerned about children getting injured and the possible legal liabilities. I think those worries made a big impact. But I think these days, people are much more willing to embrace this sort of challenge again, which is so positive. The other thing is, I think that culturally, we’ve been very much removed from the “making process” for many years, living in an overly commercialized world. Generally, there seems to be a real resurgence of interest in letting children make and create with their hands again. And I think woodwork’s no
exception to that. This seems particularly true in the United States, where the birth of the “maker space” originated. 

“Maker spaces” and labs have spread all over the United States, where adults and teenagers can get together. Now we see a lot of tinkering labs in the high schools, elementary schools, and in early childhood settings. I believe, particularly for children in early childhood, that woodwork is the best way for them to fully engage with the mind-set of STEM-based learning. There is another challenge at the moment. We have a new generation of children moving through. I often talk about this new generation of children learning how to swipe before they can walk. And I think this is having a significant impact. 

Lorna: So what do you see as the benefits of woodworking to this new generation?

Pete: We need to do our best to nurture children with some really positive influences to counteract the influence that gadgets and devices have on children. The physicality, the movement, and the hands-on experiential learning woodworking provides is a wonderful antidote for this two-dimensional, screen-based existence. It’s wonderful for children to really create something tangible with their hands. Finally, woodworking is really an exceptional activity for developing children’s thinking skills, as children envision and plan out their strategies for creating from wood.

It’s a constant problem-solving process as children go through making and creating with wood. Woodwork is just so rich, in imagining what they want to make and figuring all of those problems that they run into along the way. Creativity, in this context, is just so important. Children are increasing their communication skills with new vocabulary as well as using measurements and angles from math in real-life projects. Creativity has to be about the heart of that learning for it to be meaningful and remembered. Our world needs innovators to come up with solutions in these rapidly changing times, whether it is facing climate change or COVID-19. 

Lorna:  And might I add that Maria Montessori held hands-on learning as a fundamental principle of her method of education. She said that you cannot give something to the mind that you don’t first give to the hands. 

Pete: Absolutely. She talks about didactic material that children can really engage with on a significant level. And, there are so many materials and media that children can use, such as modeling clay. You could use it in so many ways. Wood is quite special because of the way that it draws children in and sustains engagement. I think it’s the excitement of using the tools and being able to master them that helps develop a child’s confidence and self-esteem. 

Lorna: One of our participants asks if is it safe for three- and four-year-olds to do woodworking. 

Pete: A lot of people are shocked at the thought of three- and four-year-olds using real tools like hammers and saws. We are quite careful in the choice of tools. There are certainly some tools that are much more ergonomically suited to young hands. Actually, children really step up to the responsibility of being given real tools. They actually suddenly take them quite seriously. We’ve found that their behavior with tools is absolutely exemplary. They take great pride from using them. 

Occasionally, of course, there’s going to be the bumped thumb. We’re not going to eliminate that, but in 25 years, we have not had a serious accident. Often much worse happens just running across the playground and taking some skin off your knee. The type of injuries that happen while woodworking are actually very low-risk, small-scale things. There are obviously some health and safety measures that we need to put in place to reduce those risks. Teaching children to use tools properly, using safety precautions (like wearing safety glasses) and supervising their activity without doing it for them will help cut the risks. Small, stubby hammers work absolutely perfectly for little hands. Saws that actually cut as you pull them towards you are so much easier for children to use. So a lot of it is about having the right gear, proper lessons, and supervision. 

I’ll add that I think the real risk to children is that they don’t experience any risk at all. When we surround them in bubble wrap, and we don’t allow them to make their own decisions and judgments, when they get older they are not going to have that skill set to be able to make a decision. It’s a very important part of child development that adults allow children to encounter risk, obviously within controlled circumstances. We use hand tools, not power tools and very carefully manage those learning opportunities that include the possibility of risk.

Lorna: A dad asks, do you have tool recommendations, types and/or specific tools? Do you have recommendations for teaching safety? 

Pete: On my website there’s a free downloadable resource list and photos available of all the different tools. There’s also my book called Learning through Woodwork, which is available from Amazon. 

By being given tools to use for building, children are empowered. They feel a sense of responsibility and step up. At first children might be a little bit apprehensive because they may have never used real tools, but very quickly, with the right size and shape tools like the short, stubby hammers or screwdrivers, they gain confidence and skill. It’s actually what’s happening inside the child that boosts their pride, self-esteem, confidence, and delight in their work. 

Other areas of learning, with regard to physical developments, include hand-eye coordination, and fine-motor skills when gently tapping a nail into place. Using and coordinating large-muscle skills comes into play, as well, because every tool has got slightly different physical properties—from the rotation with the screwdriver to two-handed rotation with a hand drill and then posture and body poise needed when sawing. 

Woodworking can be a real antidote to continuous use of digital technology. Woodworking can involve literacy, as they do some research during the planning stage of the project. As they plan and envision what the project will be, they can draw it out on paper and later, they can write about what they’ve made. They use mathematical thinking to learn in a very natural way. They figure out what length nails they need to join things together. Quite a few bits of mathematical equipment are introduced in woodworking projects, and it is fantastic how they start using them in different applications. There are definitely a bunch of tape measures, rulers, t-squares, and levels in the woodwork area. 

I see woodwork as another way in which children use and express their imaginations. I think it’s important that children are at the center of their learning. Maria Montessori talked about the self-education of the child. So, rather than having predetermined projects for all the children, which strips the creativity out of it and turns it into an exercise in following instructions, allow children to plan and create what they want, using their intrinsic motivation to persevere and solve challenges along the way. It then becomes a delightful mixture of learning, creativity, problem solving, and fun! ′

Note: Pete had lots more to say in our broadcast. You can watch the entire session on montessori.org in the Montessori Family Alliance Resource Center, where over 300 webinars, hundreds of articles from Tomorrow’s Child magazine, and many audible recordings are archived when you subscribe to the Montessori Family Alliance for only $4.99USD per month. Become a member by clicking HERE. 

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Developing Attention Span via Polishing

Developing Attention Span via Polishing

by | Brain Development, Child's Work, Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, MFA, Mindfulness, Montessori Education, Montessori students, Parent Education, Practical Life, Primary (3-6), TC March 2021, Uncategorized

This article describes the benefits of polishing by deconstructing the actions of a child at work documented by an instagram video.
You can view the post by clicking

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Parents often ask Montessori teachers why their children are learning so much about cleaning at school. Their children are learning how to wash dishes, sweep the floor, dust, and even polish silver. Can’t the school afford to hire their own cleaning staff?

The answer has nothing to do with keeping the classroom clean. In fact, teachers often have to go back after school and “re-clean” what the children have cleaned. The reason we teach them these “practical life” activities is all about aiding the child’s development.

A mom I know on Instagram (big shout out to @montessoriinmotion) posted a video of her daughter that illustrates some of the benefits of practical life activities. It’s just over one-minute long and is so rich in things to notice that I asked her permission to write about it here. Watch the video on your own first and then read on (and yes, she is sporting the matching Maitri Learning blue flower apron and mat).

Focused Attention

In the first few seconds, you can see that she couldn’t care less about the neighbor’s barking dog; she is very focused on her activity. She begins by setting up what she’ll need: the object to be polished (the turtle); the glass bowl (which will hold the polish); and the polish. While she is doing part of this, her eyes are fixed on the contents of the blue basket. She does not look at where she is placing the glass bowl. Why does this matter? It means that she has already learned how to place an object down with her hand (maintaining proprioceptive control) while her visual attention is focused elsewhere. So, when you think that where a child’s eyes are looking tells you what they are paying attention to, stop and think again!

Handedness

Did you notice that she uses her left hand to pick up and lay out each of these items? But when she gets to the polish, she starts opening it using her right hand. She reconsiders, possibly remembering that she doesn’t need to open it yet (self-correction), and places it down. Next, she switches to her right hand to take out the remaining items she’ll need.

When you see children choosing hands to work with at this age, you may see them switch from left to right, or you may see them strongly dominant already for the right or left hand. You don’t have to worry about it. When you present a lesson to them, just use your dominant hand, but if they struggle with that hand, simply say, “Maybe it will work better with your other hand. You can try it.”

Pausing

Once she has the polish on the mat, she pauses to organize her thinking. This pause is often a tricky spot for adults. We want to step in and make sure they know what to do next. But it is in the pause that so much great development happens (memory consolidation, toggling the default mode network, etc.). So, one of our biggest jobs is to restrain ourselves and give the child time to figure it out.

Sensory Learning

Now she uses her right hand to take out the sponge, cotton swab, and buffing cloth. As she takes out each one, she touches it an extra time as if to receive physical confirmation of what the object is. In neuroscience speak, we call this haptic engagement. She pushes down on the sponge and feels its spring. She uses the pincer grip to precisely place the cotton swab. She uses her whole hand to pat the buffing cloth. Each of these movements is different based on the properties of the object she touches. They also mirror the movements she will use later when putting each object to use.

As an aside, when I see her haptic engagement and her ability to follow logical steps/procedures, I am thinking she might be quite interested in the Sandpaper Letters. To prepare her for that work, this may be the right time to start playing some sound games. After a few weeks of sound games, you’ll be able to introduce the Sandpaper Letters.

Executive Function Development

Okay, back to the polishing work. After patting the buffing cloth, her eyes scan the basket until she finds the thing she needs next: the polish. I love how she nods to herself to validate that yes, now it is time to open the polish! So when we saw her hesitating with the polish when she first took it out, we actually saw her exhibiting inhibitory control: she stopped herself from opening it before it was time to open it. Inhibitory control is a key foundation for higher executive functions. You can google “marshmallow test” if you want to see many examples of young children flexing their inhibitory control abilities.

Now she uses her left hand to hold the polish bottle and her right hand to remove the top and squeeze the dropper (again using the pincer grip.) But when she is placing polish into the dish, you can just see that her eyes are scanning back and forth between the dropper and the dish. This means that her eyes are already moving ahead to the next step of confirming that she has the right amount of polish. Again, this is evidence of her developing executive function ability to plan ahead.

Concentration Overcomes Distraction

Right at about 50 seconds in, her brother comes over and starts talking with her mom about how they might possibly make the paint he wants to use to paint a baseball diamond on the front lawn. First of all, that is an utterly gorgeous thought process by her brother! He is absolutely ingenious in thinking about the chemical properties of paint. Second, his conversation does not phase his sister the tiniest bit. Her concentration remains 100 percent on her polishing activity; even when her eyes glance away. So when you hear someone say that two-year-olds are easily distracted, question if that is really true.

Refined Motor Skills

Right after she applies the polish to the turtle’s back, the turtle spins. This suggests that she used a little bit too much force. The natural consequence is that the turtle spins around. She then moves in for a very close look, and we don’t see the turtle spin again, suggesting that she is using a lighter touch. We just saw a natural consequence lead to the refinement of fine-motor skills!

The need for natural consequences is one of the reasons Montessori environments use items that might break if they are misused, like real glasses and dishes (not plastic or melamine). We expect things to break if they are handled roughly. We always model very careful use, but the child might not pick up on this right away. So, when an object breaks because it is mishandled, the children realize that they need to actually pay attention to what their hands are doing when they hold fragile items. I wish we could do a research study on this point but, in my experience, most children only break one or two things before they adapt and refine. Children who are always given plastic miss this opportunity when the mind is ripe for it.

Attention to Detail

Okay, let’s get back to polishing. When she finishes applying the polish, she holds onto the cotton swab in her right hand and picks up the sponge with her left. She dabs some polish off of the turtle with the sponge but then she uses the sponge to clean off the cotton swab. Only after the swab is wiped off does she place it on the mat. She sets the sponge down then but picks it up again when she notices there is still a bit more polish to wipe off. Once the sponge finally goes to the mat, she uses her left finger to rub the turtle’s back. It’s not clear if she is rubbing off an extra bit of polish or verifying that the polish is off. In either case, she is using her finger to attend to this tiny detail. My husband is always saying he wished his undergraduate chemistry students paid better attention to details in the lab. Maybe they needed to polish more when they were little.

Scaffold/Control of Error

Again, we have a pause where she scans the mat to determine her next step. The order of the materials on the mat acts as a scaffold; the order helps her to figure out what is coming next. She looks until she finds what she needs. In Montessori, we call this a built-in control of error. It means the adult doesn’t need to step in at all while the child is concentrating, the materials themselves will guide the child. This is essential because it allows her to keep working without interruption. That is what is strengthening the neural networks in her attention system. So again, we grown-ups need to step back and allow the child the opportunity to process, think, and choose.

Strengthening the Hand

Now comes the buffing. She starts to rub up a shine with her right hand only. But, this is no one-handed moment! She quickly brings in her left hand to stabilize the turtle so she can apply more force in her buffing. This variable application of strength not only refines her motor skills (as noted above), but also increases her muscular strength and control. And, of course, it creates a really nice shine!

Self-Esteem

The very last thing the video shows us is her enormous smile when she has reached the moment of completion. She is satisfied and happy with what she has accomplished. This, I believe, is where self esteem and self confidence truly come from. Hearing someone else tell us we did a good job is never as deeply satisfying as witnessing our own good work come to fruition.

So, there you have it, eleven ways in which a Montessori practical life activity contributes to the optimal development of the young child. The next time you wonder if you should engage your child in helping out around the house, think back on this. When we do work together with a child, prepare them to work independently, and then give them the freedom to work on their own. This helps them immeasurably.

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Teach Your Children Well

Teach Your Children Well

by | Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Lower Elementary (6-9), MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Parenting, Montessori students, Parent Education, Primary (3-6), Re-enrollment, TC March 2021, Upper Elementary (9-12)

Montessori inspires children towards academic excellence and nurtures the creativity, curiosity, and imagination hidden within …

For many, paying tuition for private Montessori can be a struggle that demands certain sacrifices. Is it worth it? One parent discusses why she thinks so. 

Yarentsou’re driving through a fancy-pants neaighborhood daydreaming about kitchen upgrades and you hear it: that alluring little voice that reminds you that you, too, could have quartz counter tops if you just send your kids to public school. It’s not that public schools are bad. You went to public school and so did most of your friends—all are decent humans. Except Karen, but let’s not go there. 

You start to make a case for all the things you would do for your child if you didn’t have to pay that tuition: We could invest the money towards their college fund … We could take international trips and experience different cultures … or …. Let’s be real. It’s unlikely you will be diligent enough to put all the saved funds towards your kid’s 529 plan, and an international trip will be so much more meaningful to a child who has the  global understanding that comes with a Montessori education.

It’s normal to let this little voice take over sometimes. So far, you have made a selfless choice to sacrifice for the betterment of your child. But now, your child is starting kindergarten or the first grade, and there is a free option. It’s tempting to throw in the towel, or should I say … “folding cloth.”

So why should you continue to send your child to a Montessori school instead of a more traditional elementary school? How do they differ and what makes Montessori better?

There are five aspects found in elementary Montessori program that you rarely find so well balanced in most schools: a love of learning, a desire to understand deeply, values that are universal, a global perspective, and a tradition of community service.

Okay, that’s great. How does this help my kid get into MIT? Let’s break it down … 

I. Inspiring Children to Work Hard and Achieve Academic Excellence

  • Montessori is one of the most sophisticated pre-collegiate programs available anywhere in North America. It has been described as the ultimate gifted-and-talented program that is offered to a very wide range of students. However, this doesn’t tell the whole story. What makes Montessori special is its ability to nurture talent without needless competition and stress. In a nutshell, Montessori children never lose the joy of learning.
  • Montessori is, first and foremost, concerned with a child’s character and emotional development, rather than academics for grades and test scores alone. Montessori inspires children toward academic excellence and nurtures the curiosity, creativity, and imagination hidden within every human being.
  • A Montessori program is based on warmth, kindness, and respect. There is a strong sense of community among the children. The classes are more like little villages, with powerful friendships and a clear sense of group identity. Teachers are normally seen as mentors and friends.

2.  Building Character and Teaching Universal Values

  • There is an old saying that if you abandon a garden, the weeds will run wild. Abandon a child’s moral and spiritual education, and the weeds of confusion, materialism, self-centeredness, and spiritual emptiness will take hold.
  • Dr. Montessori observed that the elementary years are a sensitive period for moral reasoning. The elementary program integrates character development and family involvement throughout the curriculum.
  • The teaching of kindness and courtesy, self-discipline and self-respect, and fundamental values is crucial in a child’s moral development, sense of dignity, and academic success. With proper guidance from parents and educators, children can (and will) excel.

3.   Montessori Schools Strive to Create Global Understanding

  • They tend to attract teachers from all over the world. It is normal to find an international student body in a Montessori school anywhere in the world.
  • Montessori schools generally teach at least one foreign language and often offer programs in several.
  • World geography, international cultural studies, and world history are central to the elementary Montessori curriculum. Elementary Montessori students begin to understand the global economy.
  • As more Montessori schools develop strong upper elementary and middle school programs, many are beginning to sponsor travel-study programs. Some participate in the Montessori Model United Nations and foreign exchange programs.

4 . Service

  • Children must be inspired to contribute to the betterment of the world. They often begin with projects that care for the environment: planting trees and flowers; composting garbage; controlling erosion around the campus; recycling; and cleaning up litter and debris in the local community. It is quite common for elementary classes to adopt an acre of rainforest in Costa Rica or work to support an environmental organization, such as the Wildlife Federation.
  • They will normally progress to projects that provide direct help to the needy. Younger children commonly collect canned goods, clothing, and toys for the homeless or needy families. As they are ready, most Montessori schools will take children out into the community.
  • As they reach the upper elementary class, Montessori children become quite concerned about issues of social justice and human rights. The rights of the poor, homeless, and hungry are of real concern. Some children will begin to explore the possibilities of supporting causes that are
    meaningful to them.

When my mind strays to thoughts of many ways that I could spend tuition money on so many other things, I remember that right now is the time that I can really help my child. As a parent, we don’t get do-overs. The seniors that graduate from my children’s Montessori school not only get into great colleges but, more importantly, go on to graduate. By the way, many Montessori graduates win scholarships, because colleges and universities recognize the value of a Montessori education.

Right now, when your child is too young to make choices about where they go to school, what they are going to eat for dinner, or how to budget for a new car to go on vacation, it’s all in the hands of their parents. By the time your children are in high school or college, they are ready and able to make more small and big choices for themselves; however, right now, the choices that determine the trajectory of your child’s life are in your hands. Choose well.

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Recipe: Preserving Children

Recipe: Preserving Children

by | Child's Work, Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parenting on the Same Page, TC March 2021

Ingredients:

1 large field | 4-6 children | 3 dogs | Goat or donkey (optional) | Grass |Trees | Flowers | Rocks Pool of water or stream | Hot sun | Deep blue sky

Process:

  • Mix the children with the dogs and goats. 
  • Add next four ingredients. 
  • Pour Out onto the field near the water. 
  • Cover all with blue skin and sunshine. Mix in a little rain for variety if you like.
  • Bake under the sun until children are well satisfied.
  • Set them in away in the bathtub to cool.
  • Serve them dinner. 
  • Read a story. 
  • Tuck them into bed.
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Five Crucial Reasons Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship

Five Crucial Reasons Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship

by | Child's Work, Early Adolescence (12-15), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Practical Life, TC March 2021, Upper Elementary (9-12), Young Adolescent

Teachers have a powerful role in helping students face an uncertain future .

What if teachers could give their students hope and empathy skills, even while society faces global health problems and divisive tensions? Teaching entrepreneurial skills can help teachers prepare their students for today’s rapidly changing world.

We can think of at least five reasons why schools should teach entrepreneurship. But first, let’s look at what entrepreneurship education means.

What Is Entrepreneurship Education?

Entrepreneurship education teaches students important life skills, such as:

  • Collaborating and working with a team
  • Speaking in public and preparing an effective presentation (digitally and
    in-person)
  • Collecting, analyzing, and using data
  • Utilizing social media for promotion and/or advocacy
  • Handling real, complex problems that don’t have a definitive answer
  • Using curiosity and creativity to find an innovative approach to difficult problems

Students learn what it takes to develop a product or service, create their own unique business proposals, and give multiple pitch presentations.

Entrepreneurship education does not just benefit those entering the fields of science, technology, and business. Students interested in the arts, social sciences, and similar fields can also develop their imagination and learn how to apply creative thinking skills to real-world problems.

Here are five benefits of schools teaching entrepreneurship:

 Prepare your students for an uncertain future.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has taught all of us an important lesson: Our lives can dramatically change at any time. Some economic experts predicted many people’s jobs would become automated during the next few decades, even before the global pandemic.

Teachers can’t always predict exactly what students will need to know after they graduate. Still, teaching entrepreneurship skills can help students handle, and sometimes even welcome, the changes happening in technology, business, and society in general.

These skills include problem-solving, teamwork, empathy, as well as learning to accept failure as a part of the growth process.

 Students develop their creativity and collaboration skills.

Entrepreneurship education supports creativity, innovation, and collaboration. These skills are highly valued by the top colleges and most businesses in the world and will be used by your students well beyond their middle school and high school years.

Businesses are often rewarded for creating products and services that seem new and different. The best new ideas are usually a result of two or more people working well together.

 Teach students how to identify and recognize problems.

Students must know how to identify problems before learning how to solve them. Problem-solving exercises are a long-time staple of traditional education. However, the same cannot be said for identifying problems.

Traditionally, problem-solving is taught by presenting students with issues that are already clearly defined by someone else. In the real world, problems can only be solved when they have been properly identified and described.

Entrepreneurship education helps children learn how to identify problems they have never dealt with before. This skill is much needed now and will continue to be needed in the future.

 Help students become resilient.

Let’s be honest. Sometimes grades, socioeconomic status, and intelligence don’t accurately predict a student’s chances of having long-term success.

What’s a better predictor of a student’s future success? Their resilience, also known as “grit.”

Becoming an entrepreneur is an ongoing journey filled with ups and downs, even when the economy is thriving. Teaching entrepreneurship encourages students to figure out their passions and how to be persistent when pursuing their interests. Students also learn how to stick with a business idea, or similar project, especially when times are tough.

Learning how to work through problems and adapt to changes improves a student’s chances of having professional and personal success long after they leave your classroom.

 Encourage students to make the world a better place.

Entrepreneurs constantly look to solve problems and meet the needs with the help of their products and services. Entrepreneurship can start with a desire to make money and live a better life, for many aspiring business leaders of all ages.

But all successful businesses have one thing in common: they make life easier and/or more enjoyable for their customers. Teachers can support and encourage their students to be motivated by a desire to help people with a product or service.

Main Takeaways for Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship

  • Teachers can play an important role in supporting aspiring and current young entrepreneurs.
  • Entrepreneurship education teaches students skills they can use well into their adult years. These skills include working with a team, using the internet and social media for marketing, as well as developing creative ways to create new products and solve complex problems.
  • Teaching entrepreneurship empowers students by preparing for an uncertain future and work to make life better for other people.
  • In other words, entrepreneurship lessons can give students hope for themselves and empathy for other people.
  • Those skills are needed now more than ever before. 
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Rising Innovator: Inspiration, Education, Support

Rising Innovator: Inspiration, Education, Support

by | Child's Work, Early Adolescence (12-15), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Parenting, Practical Life, TC March 2021, The International Montessori Council, Upper Elementary (9-12), Young Adolescent

Rising Innovator is an organization dedicated to inspiring, educating, mentoring, and supporting young entrepreneurs. Our website (www.risinginnovator.com) contains tools and information designed to help youth start and run businesses and to help their parents help them.

Our mission is to:

  • Facilitate a mindset and skillset to change the world
  • Improve the world through entrepreneurship
  • Help young entrepreneurs create thriving businesses
  • Rising Innovator’s ultimate goal is to make the world a better place.

You don’t improve the world by accident. And you don’t improve the world alone. And you don’t improve it in one fell swoop; you improve it one piece at a time.

Our piece is young innovators—people who come up with ways to make people’s lives more convenient, or make the world more fair, cleaner, more neighborly, more efficient or in some small (or big) way better. Innovators can become wealthy entrepreneurs, but we believe the first and most important step is to become more skilled and knowledgeable and to develop ways to make the world a better place for everyone. If you succeed in those goals,
success (or at least happiness) will follow.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are also excellent ways for economically disadvantaged people to create bridges that allow them to narrow the gap between the haves and have nots of the world.

We hope that our website (https://www.risinginnovator.com/category/for-kids-teens) gives young people all the resources they need to become innovators and entrepreneurs—and to connect with others on our forum who share the same goals (https://www.risinginnovator.com/forums). ′

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How to Explain the Covid-19 Vaccine as a Story

How to Explain the Covid-19 Vaccine as a Story

by | Covid, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, Health / Nutrition, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, TC March 2021

The Immune System

It’s first important to understand how your immune system works. Basically, your immune system attacks anything foreign to your body. If it notices a virus or a bacteria or anything that it doesn’t recognize, it launches an attack to defeat it.

If it’s fighting a virus, for example, it takes time to prepare its army. It has to figure out what part of the virus to attack and prepare its warriors and weapons. That can take a few days. Meanwhile, the virus is replicating and expanding. (This is when you can feel that you might be about to get sick, but you’re not sick yet!)

Once your body defeats any virus, it remembers it. Your immune system has a memory, and if you run into that virus again, your memory cells say, “I remember this virus from before, and I have the weapons and warriors already prepared.” Your body uses its past experience to demolish the virus before it can make you sick. (This is what happens every time you catch a cold.)

Now that we know about immune memory, let’s talk about the vaccine. Scientists looked at the COVID virus and saw a weak spot in its structure. It was a particular protein, the perfect place for your immune army to launch an attack.

A New Protein Arrives

We will call this protein, the ‘weak-spot protein.’

So scientists examined the structure of the ‘weak-spot’ protein in COVID and made an instruction booklet on how to make it that your body can read. 

This instruction booklet is the ‘vaccine,’ and that is what is injected into our bodies.

Let me explain.

The vaccine contains no actual part of the virus. It has only the instructions on how to make the ‘weak-spot’ protein. So, you can’t get infected with COVID from the vaccine. Your body is simply injected with the instructions on how to make this particular protein.

Once injected, Your cells read these instructions and say, “Thanks for the new information; I’ll start making the protein right away.” So your cells can now make a bunch of the ‘weak-spot’ proteins. (Not the virus, just the weakest part.)

The Great Immune Battle

Your immune system immediately notices this new protein you’re producing and quickly gathers your immune troops and says, “Hey guys, we have an invasion on our hands; gather the army.” And it starts attacking the protein.

So you destroy the weak-spot protein. No worries; the vaccine can’t infect you. It’s just a protein, not the virus.

Remember that your body hasn’t seen this protein before, so it takes a little while to gather the military. Then it launches an all-out war against the ‘weak-spot’ protein. You might experience fever, chills, or muscle soreness as vaccine side effects. This is proof that your body is bombarding the ‘weak-spot’ protein.

Immune Memory is the Key

Once defeated, and it doesn’t take long because it’s just a protein and not a virus, your memory cells ‘remember’ the ‘weak-spot’ protein. Your body’s cells will remember exactly how to destroy it.

So, what if … a few months later, you accidentally forget to wash your hands and the COVID virus enters your body. Your body has never seen the virus before, but it has seen that ‘weak-spot’ protein that’s on the outside of the virus. Your immune memory cells say, “You’ve got to be kidding me! THIS cheeky protein again! I’ve already told the protein that it’s not welcome around here! Get out of here!”

Your body’s own ‘natural immune system’ quickly and efficiently launches an all-out war, using the same army and weapons it used before and destroys the virus before it can take hold, replicate, and make you sick.

You’re Vaccinated

Congratulations! Now, you’re almost 100 percent immune to COVID! You’ve got the weapons and army to defeat it as soon as it enters your body at any point in the future! ′

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Bedtime Routines for Younger Children

Bedtime Routines for Younger Children

by | Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parent Education, Parenting on the Same Page, TC March 2021

This is ann excerpt from Tim Seldin and Lorna McGrath’s upcoming book Montessori for Everyone

The type of sleeping arrangements for infants and toddlers are debatable and based on the family’s beliefs, cultural background, and values. In Montessori-inspired homes, we strive to help our children become independent even for sleeping arrangements. So, while there are no strict rules for sleeping arrangements, we do want to help our children to be able to settle themselves and sleep on their own.

Often, during the first few months of an infant’s life, they sleep in a bassinet in the same room as their parents. The bassinet is a small cozy space for a newborn and convenient for night feedings. It doesn’t take long for an infant to outgrow the bassinet and move onto a floor bed or into a crib in another room. 

Many parents choose a floor bed instead of a crib for their infants. The floor bed is basically a small mattress that may or may not have a frame to lift it a few inches off the floor. A floor bed allows for more independent movement when they begin to crawl and climb. It also eliminates the need for the interim use of a crib between bassinet and a bed that is higher up and has no sides.

If you do choose a crib, when your toddler begins to try to climb out, it’s time to put the sides down so that they can safely get in and out of the crib. The next step in bedding may be a mattress on the floor, a junior bed, or a regular size twin bed. The decision is up to you to decide what’s best for your child.

A gate in the bedroom doorway or closing the door helps them to stay in their room during this transition. You must be sure that the room is set up in such a way that they will be totally safe if they are awake and alone in the room.

Even infants and toddlers can be overstimulated by lots of activity, screen time, or noise in the house before going down for the night. After the evening meal, you will want to choose activities that will soothe and settle rather than excite them. A warm bath, a story, or just snuggle time in a rocking chair all can help them to be ready for sleep. Be cautious about using a motorized swing or rocking with you holding them. They are good for calming, but you want to put your child in their bed before they actually fall asleep so that they become used to being in bed and falling asleep on their own. 

If they should awaken during the night, and it’s not time for feeding or changing a diaper, go to their room quietly, but don’t pick them up. Instead, wait a minute or two and see if they can settle back down by themselves. If you feel that your child needs your help, gently talk to them. Tell them that it is still night and time for sleep. Sit next to the crib for a few minutes while they settle back to sleep.

Winding down from active play to quiet, calm for sleeping can be difficult when children, who have been playing one minute are suddenly told that it is time to go to sleep the next. One solution is to get the children into a habit of getting ready for bed earlier in the evening and then allowing them to look at books, snuggle with a favorite stuffed animal, or read quietly by themselves in bed with the lights on. 

You might want to try tucking them in at the beginning and then come back for bedtime whispers and lights off as they are falling asleep. Whispers are messages of love that you speak softly into your child’s ear after you tuck them in. There is an intimacy about quietly speaking into a child’s ear that sends them to sleep feeling cherished.

If your child wakes from a bad dream or monster, calmly reassure your child that you understand that is scary, you are there, and it is safe in their bedroom. Night lights are helpful for some children or a special snuggly thing.

One family had a designated old, worn stuffed animal that used to belong to mom or dad when they were young as the family’s “Bad Dreams Chaser.” This faithful companion guarded over anyone who is having difficulty falling asleep or who wakes up after a bad dream.

Bedtimes As Children Grow

In today’s plugged-in world, it’s difficult to imagine for many of us not having our smartphone, a TV, or tablet in or near the bed. Digital technology is so pervasive that many parents today cannot really appreciate how important it is to think carefully before allowing any digital technology into their children’s bedrooms.

From a very early age, it is wise not to allow devices in the bedroom, because once they are allowed in, it’s difficult to establish in children’s minds that the bedroom is a place to sleep and dress. As with any kind of digital technology, you will want to carefully monitor what your children are doing and watching. Once digital technology gets behind a closed door, you really can’t monitor what is going on. It’s just as easy for a child to sit in bed under the covers with some sort of portable digital device or tablet and play games until late in the night, or exchange instant messages with friends who are also awake, as it was for many of us when we were young to read books under the covers by flashlight. The difference is that digital devices are far more stimulating and tend to keep our brains, whether child or adult, much more active and make it difficult to fall asleep. 

It’s important for children to develop a good sleep routine. By the way, it’s equally important for us as adults to develop one, too. There has been considerable research into the effect of the blue light given off by the screens of digital devices, whether phone, laptop, or a television set. The light is problematic on a number of levels, but for now, let’s just think about the effect of flashing lights on our brains as we drift off to sleep. It should be self-evident that falling asleep to the background sound of a TV show or movie is not likely to lead to the kind of calm, deep sleep that we all need to restore ourselves with a good night’s rest. Most schools around the world can tell countless stories of students who arrive for class sleep deprived, cranky, or half-asleep. 

It’s important to appreciate that each digital device has its own benefits and challenges. For example, smartphones are small and easily slipped out of sight, and they allow children to watch movies, surf the web, talk to their friends all night long, or play games among many other uses. We forget sometimes that a modern smartphone is essentially a powerful computer. Likewise, any of the gaming consoles may allow players to engage in much more realistic and sophisticated games. While it would be much more difficult for children to hide the fact that they are playing, even if they are listening to the audio through headphones, those console games are often so engaging that they can become highly addictive. We also have to remember that many contemporary game devices allow children to play in real time with other players, who may be their best friends or strangers online somewhere around the world.

So, for those reasons, we strongly recommend you have a firm policy that bedrooms are not a place for any digital devices, including TVs, smartphones, tablets, or computers. If you find yourself uncomfortable being consistent on that policy, at least strive to have a clear lights-out policy that you really check on and enforce. A good example might be that all digital technology has to be turned off and possibly left on the dining room table after a specific time, which obviously can be adjusted as children get older.

Here is some advice from most sleep experts: 

  • Avoid caffeinated drinks after 2pm and before bedtime.
  • Dim the lights in the room.
  • Turn off or turn down the volume on any music that might be playing.
  • Avoid using the bed for anything other than calming activities that help in falling asleep.
  • Advise adolescents to get up, get out of bed, go into another room, and do something that won’t wake them up further, such as take a bath, if they wake in the night.

In a Montessori-inspired home, we want to deliberately organize the environment to facilitate the development of good habits and avoid addictive behaviors that can interfere with children’s optimal health and development. Help your child to make a clear connection in their minds that the bedroom is a place to relax and sleep. ′  

 
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The Magic of Montessori: Tidy-Up Tips That Will Change Your Life

The Magic of Montessori: Tidy-Up Tips That Will Change Your Life

by | Child's Work, Discipline, Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parenting on the Same Page, TC March 2021, Uncategorized

Children!…they might be little, but their stuff is everywhere!

In my home, I have used five Montessori magic steps to organize all of my children’s stuff (including outgrown clothes, school work, gifts (birthday, goodie bag etc), kids ‘meal toys,’ and all the other stuff) that is involved in children’s lives. Maybe your child is so young that papers and school work are not even in the picture for you… this is the best time to start! Getting on top of the influx of stuff now is a great way to get started; the stuff only increases over time!

I’m a busy working mom with two children, and I know what you’re feeling; I can totally relate. Like you, my home can accumulate school work, toys, outgrown clothes, and so much more! So I’ve prepared some tips and suggestions that are easy to try and can really make the positive change in your home life that you are looking for.

It’s simple, it’s clean, and it works like a charm.

Now let me break down how it works. Here is the foundation: 

The Five Montessori Steps to Success

1. Limit the number
2. Basket, tray or bin
3. Rotate
4. Access
5. Order

And please note … Dr. Montessori was really on to something: based on her deep understanding of children, she figured out that adults play a key role in setting up the home environment, where children can pursue their interests and cultivate their skills. In the Montessori world, we know that the set-up matters; how the space is set up can make or break the opportunity for independence.

Here’s how it all works!

1. Limit The Number

Young children truly enjoy an activity when it is limited in number. This allows them to really explore the toys and inspires creativity to work with them in different ways. Limiting the number of items in an activity also gives the child a better chance to put the activity away without any frustration or complication. If a game or activity comes with lots of parts, only put out the fewest number of parts needed and store away the rest.

2. Basket, Tray Or Bin

Once you’ve limited the number of items in an activity, it’s time to place it in a self-contained basket, tray, or bin. Putting an activity on a tray or in a basket puts the focus and interest on the activity itself, not the packaging it came in. Easy-to-carry baskets, trays, or bins makes it a breeze for children to clean up and put away!

3. Rotate

Once you limit items in an activity, use storage bins to store the extra pieces and parts. Now that the activities are limited you can rotate the contents regularly. Regular rotation keeps activities interesting to the child and keeps them engaged.

4. Access

Homes with siblings can still have activities available for each child within the same space. Once the activities have been limited and kept in a tray, bin, or basket, keep the older child’s activities in a place where only they can reach, and keep the younger child’s materials lower to the ground for easy access. If your home doesn’t have ways in which to raise the activities of an older child, you can put their toys in a container that the younger child cannot open.

5. Order

Once your child’s items are in smaller quantities and in easier-to-handle containers, it’s important to organize the space and determine where each activity will go: a place for everything and everything in its place. Children have a strong sense of order, and providing designated, consistent places for activities to be stored is directly linked to developing a logical mind. Also, the consistency of putting things in their place will avoid frustration and opposition when clean-up time comes around.

Now! Let’s take a look at some simple tricks for powerful tidy-up tips for your home. With these five steps, timing is essential. I realized there are at least five categories of stuff that constantly need putting away. Have you ever noticed, the stuff just keeps coming … and coming … and coming! I feel like every time my daughter leaves the house, she comes back with something more! Here are some general categories of stuff that comes:

  • School work: paper, art work, etc.
  • Toys: of all shapes and sizes
  • Books: library books and ones you own.
  • Gifts: goodie bags, birthday gifts, holiday gifts.
  • Clothes: outgrown, no longer fit.

This Is Where It All Starts

My overall organizing area is in the garage. This is the place I immediately put things to be sorted out. By having this area in the garage, I catch things before they get into the house.

On the small table, the left basket is for little objects that do not have a place in the home. The basket on the right is a place that collects outgrown clothes or clothes I want to donate. If I come across one piece of outgrown clothing, I immediately take it to the garage instead of keeping it in the closet; each item that leaves brings more joy for us. And the container in the back is where I store paper goods.

When the baskets are full, I take action. The clothes get donated. 

The small object collection: some are discarded, and some get recycled (i.e., for use in The Sound Game—“Can you bring me an object that starts with ruh?—the child selects ring). 

Paper goods: What to do with all the paper—drawings, writing work, worksheets, and much more! My first step is to examine the piece of paper/artwork/writing, and ask myself: Does this spark joy? This is the all-important question I learned from the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. So this is where I keep their precious work—the special ones that “spark joy.” I purchased a large folder/portfolio for each child to store the saved work.

Books! The main thing to keep in mind is rotation. Let your local library help you to keep a rotating, fresh collection of books for your kids. We have a designated return-to-library basket where books go when the children are done with them. Each of my daughters has a bag for our library trips that has a spot for their library card. Of the many books that might be available, keep rotating to highlight different books over time.

Another situation, what to do with goodie bags from birthday parties, trinkets, and freebie toys (e.g., from fast-food kids’ meals [note: not an endorsement])? Here’s the solution that has worked well for me: I have a designated tray to place little things on a temporary basis. For example, when my daughter comes home from a birthday party with a goodie bag, she wants to play with it right away. When she is done playing with it that day, she puts it on the tray. She can manage this step and gets it to the tray all by herself. After a few days, I toss the items or find a good way to recycle them (again, The Sound Game), or put them in the object basket in the garage to figure out later. 

Now for the gifts from your child’s party; this year, Chelyn (age 9) invited eleven friends and received eleven gifts. That’s lots of things all at once! But thanks to our insanely powerful managing system, we immediately processed all eleven gifts and enjoyed each one of them in turn. Here’s how it worked: Chelyn chose three gifts that she wanted to play with and put them in the three baskets below. These three baskets are where items of current interest are stored. And where did the remaining eight gifts go? The other toys go to the big storage bin in the garage, where she keeps her things. She rotates three items into these three baskets from the big storage bin; she is old enough to manage this system on her own.

Here’s the best part, I usually revisit the girls spaces and things once or twice a year. I only have to spend 45-60 minutes each time I do this, thanks to the systems in place. I keep all of the things that I think the girls would like to use in the future in plastic bins in the garage. Everything I think they have outgrown, I give away right away. It is a constant weeding-out process, but well worth the effort. You will also start to look at the things you purchase differently. We rarely buy “toys’’ and stick more to supplies and open-ended materials that will last over time. And the good news is, all of these systems for keeping things organized and tidy didn’t come overnight. It’s been years of fine-tuning to figure out what works and what continues to work as my children’s interests and needs change. You can start with just a small tiny step. The most important thing is to start. 

You can do it! you can overcome the constant influx of stuff and maintain a peaceful home environment! Everyone wins when there’s less clutter and more space for the things that truly spark joy. ′

 
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Dear Cathie: Neediness during Covid

Dear Cathie: Neediness during Covid

by | Covid, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Health / Nutrition, MFA, TC March 2021

Dear Cathie— 

COVID-19 has been going on a long time and our nuclear family has been home together for many, many months! While there have been some positive things to come out of this experience, we are finding our preschool and kindergarten children to still be quite needy. My husband and I are both working from home, and our children have regular online school experiences as well, but when they are not in front of the computer, they seem to need constant interaction with us that is often demanding and frustrating. How can we encourage their desire for self-sufficiency when we are all home?

—An exhausted set of parents

Dear Parents, 

I hear you, and I am hearing this sentiment from many parents and caregivers across the world. It is indeed an exhausting time to be a parent of young children. 

One of the things we emphasize in Montessori is to “control the environment, not the child.” I would urge you to look at the setup of your home. Consider how much independence the physical layout allows (or even fosters) for your children. 

Let’s examine the question of snacks. Are your children able to select and choose their own snacks? Some parents place appropriate snacks in a low container or basket in the cupboard, where a child is able to access them at will. The child need not ask, or even discuss having a snack with the parent; she may simply get a snack whenever she wants one from the special snack basket. Once the snacks run out for a day, snacks are finished for that day. If you have two children you will need a snack basket for each child. It is the work of the parent (or the parent and child together) to fill this basket each evening or morning, so it is ready for the child. This process eliminates all discussion around daily snacks!  

Lunches can also be packed the night before or in the morning, just as if your children were going to school outside the home. Doing this ahead of time eliminates the need for discussion about what food will be eaten for lunch. If the food is to be warmed, and time is of the essence, your child can be taught to use the microwave oven, or you can help if needed. 

Try to arrange the basic school supplies so that they are easily accessible to your child. If your child is too young to use them appropriately without direction, limit the materials offered until she has had lessons on how to use them. Try to avoid situations where you need to dole out scissors, tape, markers etc. for each and every activity. This part may require some level of trust. 

It is essential that you create a predictable time when your family or parts of your family spend time together. When can the child reasonably expect you to be available to play with them, read with them, do art with them, play sports with them outside, or begin to prepare dinner together?  If your child knows that as soon as school is over, they have a snack and quick check in with a parent, then they are expected to engage themselves with books, toys, or activities, either alone or with their sibling until a certain time when Mommy or Daddy are available. This creates some predictable routine. 

Perhaps, in the beginning, this independent time can only be 10 minutes. But as your child grows and matures, it can probably increase! If this time is defined, your child will not need to constantly ask about when you are coming to interact, as she has a predictable routine to depend on—at least most days. Some families place an actual schedule on the wall to help define the parts of the day so the child knows what is coming next. This is an excellent idea so everyone is aware of how the day will proceed. Time is very elusive for young children, so this has been a helpful tool for parents and children alike! (missymontessori.com has downloadable schedules that families can use or you can create your own!)

Child-friendly homes, predictable routines, and shared experiences of playing and cooking together have been the best ways for children to learn to rely on themselves for part of the time. ′

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Virtual Relationship Building

Virtual Relationship Building

by | Communication, Covid, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Grandparenting, TC March 2021

If it were not for virtual meetings, FaceTime, and the occasional video, I would not be able to interact with my children and grandchildren, who live in other states. It has literally been a year since I’ve been with them in person.

At the ages of nine and ten, my grandsons are old enough to understand Covid, online learning, and the need for grandparents to distance. Fortunately, we already have a great, established relationship, and they are mature enough to have real conversations, in person or online. On the other hand, with the boys in control of the phone, tablet, or computer camera, our interactions often take on the cinematic quality of the Blair Witch Project (which was shot by teens using handheld cameras). Sometimes Dramamine™ is required!

I imagine virtual visits must be much more frustrating when interacting with very young children. If you live far away from your little ones, you have probably already mastered the art of virtual visits but, if not, here are some tips I saw online that might help.

Match your in-person interaction with what the grandparent or virtual friend is trying to convey. For example, “Oh, I just wish I could be there to hug you,” is very unsatisfying for both parties. If the online person makes the motion of hugging, mom or dad on the receiving end can literally hug the child. Message sent and received. If grandma blows a kiss, the child can pretend to ‘catch’ the kiss and can even send one back.

Match your in-person interaction with what the grandparent or virtual friend is trying to convey. For example, “Oh, I just wish I could be there to hug you,” is very unsatisfying for both parties. If the online person makes the motion of hugging, mom or dad on the receiving end can literally hug the child. Message sent and received. If grandma blows a kiss, the child can pretend to ‘catch’ the kiss and can even send one back.

▪ Create a mutual, meaningful experience for all parties. Don’t make a virtual visit a ‘command performance’ or an after thought: “Come here and say hi to Grandma.” Being prepared and excited makes a big difference.

▪ Make the visit a participation event. Read a story or book chapter to children. When possible, have your child’s favorite books on both sides of the experience, so that the child and video caller can both follow along, or even take turns reading.

▪ Friendly finger puppets on both ends of the conversation can provide a laugh and fun experience. Yes, it’s fantasy, but it can get children talking. “How was your day, Mr. Rabbit? What did you have for lunch? Did you eat carrots?” “Nooooo, I had pizza!” “Pizza? I didn’t know that rabbits ate pizza!!”

▪ Consult the family historian.When an older child has a question about family history (e.g., “How big was PopPop’s boat during the war?”), that’s a great time to call the family historian. Even if the ‘historian’ doesn’t know the answer, a potential research project has been created (e.g., “Well it was an LST [WW2 ship]). Let’s see what we can find out on the internet …. “

Another current topic of great interest for my own grandsons involves big, important conversations about America’s sad history of race and social injustice. I don’t think it’s on their minds because of news coverage, because they don’t normally watch the news. So, I imagine that their school has found a way to weave this information into the curriculum, which is good, but they still have many questions that require thoughtful answers.

My grandsons wanted more information about the Civil War, their great, great grandfather, and the Underground Railway. We have had many conversations about why Quaker ancestors helped people of color escape from Virginia (now West Virginia) to Ohio and then on to Canada, which then led to our not-so-long-ago Canadian roots, which then led to why relatives from Scotland ended up in Nova Scotia (Canada).

Ancestry.com has become a shared interest that we can enjoy together from afar, and building your own family tree might be fun, especially during lockdown.

In the PBS article cited below, there’s an interactive game that has both sides of an online conversation that can be played together in real time. Check out Pinkamazing Family Game. I bet that there are even more COVID-inspired interactive games. Be on the lookout.

Resources
www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/celebrating-birthdays-and-holidays-during-social-distancing
www.pbskids.org/pinkalicious/games/pinkamazing-family-game

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Joyce St. Giermaine

Editor’s Note: On the subject of social justice, I am no expert, but I do know that a good deed performed by distant relatives at a very specific moment in history does not give future generations a free pass on systemic racism, nor does having relatives who were on the ‘wrong’ side of history define who we are today. Tomorrow’s Child welcomes articles for age-appropriate discussions on this topic.

Seeing the World Through Your Child’s Eyes

Seeing the World Through Your Child’s Eyes

by | Brain Development, Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, Infant, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, TC January 2021, Toddler (18 months-3 years)

One of the keys to creating a calm and peaceful home is to learn how to see the world from your child’s perspective. Maria Montessori challenged us to ‘follow the child’. To do this, first we must have a sense of how your children think, feel, and react.

through the child's eyesFor example, take this child. He is looking up and you can tell that he is looking at someone or something really tall. He is probably looking up at an adult that he loves. Imagine how the world looks to him at two or three feet tall. It looks a lot different than it does to us. Let’s try to put ourselves into our children’s shoes and understand what it’s like to be so small. From this perspective adults seem to be giants. Because of their size and strength, they seem to be all powerful.

We invite you to do a little exercise. When your children are asleep, with your parenting partner, get down on the floor and use your smartphone to take a video of what the house looks like from your child’s height. This is particularly dramatic if your child is very young. You will notice how different the furniture, the stove and the kitchen cabinets look. It probably feels like living in a giant’s house? When children are small, they can feel overwhelmed, powerless, and without a voice.

As parents, you are not only taller and stronger than young children, you are the ones who meet their needs. You say yes or no. You pay attention or ignore them. As adults, we don’t always understand what our children are trying to tell us, and our children find ways to get our attention and communicate their desires by trial and error.

When they are young, children learn to recognize the needs of others as well as their own, to communicate with words, and gain skills that foster independence. In the beginning they don’t have words so they cry, smile, or coo. They don’t even truly recognize that they are separate beings from their primary caregivers.

When they are young, children learn to recognize the needs of others as well as their own, to communicate with words, and gain skills that foster independence. In the beginning they don’t have words so they cry, smile, or coo. They don’t even truly recognize that they are separate beings from their primary caregivers. As they grow, in addition to words, most young children communicate their needs with the adults in their lives through tears, smiles that make our hearts melt, tantrums, pouting, and other ways to make themselves heard. They begin to realize that they have their own unique voice. They are working to develop respectful communication, independence, and the ability to do things for themselves.

As children grow, during the elementary years, they become even better at communicating.  They are increasingly interested in their peers and their relationships. They are all about rules and fairness. They want to make up their own rules and try them out. They are beginning to feel their own independence and autonomy. As parents we start to feel more comfortable and confident in their ability to make decisions and handle certain situations on their own or with a little help from adults.

Adolescence is the middle ground between childhood and the world of adults. Teenagers are neither children nor adults. One minute they are one, next the other. Their bodies are growing and changing rapidly overnight. They want to know what their place is in the world and how they can make a difference. They become interested in sexuality—their own and others. They want to try out different ideas to discover their values and beliefs which may or may not be the same as their parents.

Every child is unique. No matter what age they are, some children seem to easily accept their parent’s guidance while others seem to test everything their parents say or do. Throughout their childhood it is their parents’ job to lift them up, listen and try to understand, help them gain confidence, and find their own identity.

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Book Review | The Yeti is Ready

Book Review | The Yeti is Ready

by | Book Review TC JAN 2021, Book Reviews, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Parenting, TC January 2021

The Yeti is Readyby Royce Kunze

This is a whimsical story about an imaginary creature, a yeti, that lives in the Himalaya Mountains on the border of China and India. The story tells how high up and cold the mountains are, how hard it is for other creatures including humans to get to the top, and how lonely it can be if you live up there like the yeti. It also tells about hope, being prepared for dreams to come true, patience, faith, and determination.

So everyday the yeti prepares her home for anyone who might make the journey. She knows just what a traveler would need to be comfortable after a long, difficult, cold climb. She lights the fire, makes up the guest bed, puts out games to play and movies to watch, and more including cooking and cleaning. But no one shows up. The yeti puts everything away before she goes to bed and does the same everyday. She never gives up her hopes and dreams.

There is an invitation to the reader at the end. If you and your child read this book you’ll find out what that invitation is! I would suggest that this is a book for children from about 5 to 9 years old who need some discussion about the content and the metaphor it contains.

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Books are uniquely portable magic
Book Review | Peace, Love, Action

Book Review | Peace, Love, Action

by | Book Review TC JAN 2021, Book Reviews, Communication, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, MFA, Peace Education, TC January 2021

by Tanya Zabinski
Reviewed by Susan French-Lawyer, Director of Admissions at Montessori School of Syracuse, NY

Peace, Love, Action BookIt’s been quite the year. Frankly, it’s been quite the four years. I, for one, have had to work hard to keep my positivism and sense of hope alive, and I can’t imagine what it must be like for younger people to watch grown ups making such a mess of things.

Thanks to Tanya Zabinski, there is a concrete step you can take right now to give your child a sense of empowerment and hope, along with the reassurance that there are plenty of people out there making the world a better place.

Tanya, a talented silk screen print artist from Buffalo, NY, and owner of Planet Love Designs, has taken some of her favorite prints and added a few new ones to create a book that is part art, part biography, and part social change recipe.

Peace, Love, Action! takes the reader through an alphabet of themes and features familiar social change icons such as: Martin Luther King, Jr., Thich Nhat Hahn, Jane Goodall, and John Muir. But it also includes people like teenage Native American water advocate Autumn Peltier, Literacy Volunteers of America founder Ruth Johnson Colvin, Afro-Indigenous farmer Leah Penniman, Alice Waters, and Colin Kaepernick. It is a diverse group, both local and international in feel.

The prints are beautiful, simple and soothing; the biographies are short and inspiring; and the list of practical things you can do and fun factoids takes the reader from the abstract to the concrete, from observer to participant.

Though this book has a slant towards the elementary or middle school reader, it has an ageless theme and appeal. It could also make a great gift for a high school or college student, or anyone you think might enjoy a boost of optimism. I purchased a copy for myself, and now I want to spread the word about this wonderful book!

This year, give yourself and someone you love a gift that reminds us of the good that is possible and the bountiful opportunities for positive change that lie ahead.

Buy the book directly from Tanya at: peaceloveaction.com
(p.s. she sells beautiful prints and t-shirts online at planetlovedesigns.com).

Please help spread the word by sharing this with colleagues, friends, and family.

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) And How You Can Use It to Make Life Better at Home, School, and in the Workplace

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) And How You Can Use It to Make Life Better at Home, School, and in the Workplace

by | Communication, Covid, Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, MFA, Mindfulness, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, TC January 2021

Editor’s Note: Broadly speaking, a dialectic is a tension between two contradictory viewpoints, where a greater truth emerges from their interplay.1

As I write this, I’m sitting upstairs in my son’s room. I hear my one son in his room listening to a webinar, while my other son is watching television downstairs. My husband’s voice and the echoes of his Zoom meeting with colleagues can be heard outside the closed doors of our home office.

DBT Montessori This is apparently the new ‘norm.’ What was initially supposed to be ‘temporary’ has now been our life for almost a year. My kids, who once thought it was ‘fun,’ staying home and having Mommy and Daddy supplement their schoolwork, now find the at-home experience dull, unexciting, even frustrating. I assure you that my degree is not in teaching elementary school-aged children, though I have far more respect for teachers than I ever had before (and it was already high to start with). To acknowledge that I have only two and teachers have upwards of 20 students per class is truly amazing, awe-inspiring, and exhausting (at least from my own perspective). What I have learned from these past several months is that families are truly resilient if we rely on each other, provide each other some room and flexibility, and allow both inter-personal and intra-personal growth to occur.

As a psychologist, I am reminded that I became a psychologist to help people. And, surely, when I went to school, I had not considered that part of helping others would occur in the midst of a pandemic. This whole experience has been new to all of us and has created widespread panic, anxiety, angst, even ‘numbness.’

Some patients have told me they have a tendency to laugh at everything at this point, writing it off as, “It’s 2020. What do you expect?” We all cope differently though these experiences and yet, with flexibility and kindness, we can help one another. I remind my students (who are in graduate school to become psychotherapists) that, while they are providing therapy to their patients, their patients will remember them as helping to shape their resilience in the process. While we may be ‘small’ in scope, we are nonetheless powerful in our impact.

I am reminded of a personal experience at an emergency veterinary hospital. My poor kitten, Rascal, was extremely ill with, what I later learned, was diabetes. The doctors told me that he would not likely make it through the night but asked that I stay for a few minutes as they attempted to revive him. As I sat in the waiting room sobbing, a stranger saw me. She gently asked if she could sit with me and expressed that she, too, had been through something similar. She put her arm around me, a comfort, and told me that my feelings of sadness and loss were perfectly appropriate. With loss, there was (and is) also love. While a pandemic is certainly not akin to my personal experience, what stays with me is the caring gestures of a stranger; I never even learned her name. What I recall, in that dark moment, was the care and connection that helped me get through such a lonesome and painful moment. In retrospect, I can see that caring and connection were both occurring at the same time as loss and pain.

I was asked to write this article to explain how to understand that working with situations of opposing feelings/thoughts can lead to a better, third option. Right now, we are all suffering with anxiety, loss, and grief. At the same time, we all share a common reality (i.e., “We’re all in this together,” which can provide some comfort when we use it). Without a concrete end in sight, the greatest gift we can give each other is hope and comfort.

Several years ago, I attended a week-long course in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), by Dr. Marsha Linehan.2 I have since attended numerous other trainings in the same modality of therapy. One thing I love about DBT is that it truly can be applied to such a variety of individuals and has shown efficacy in a wide variety of populations. I also find that, as a clinician, I often turn to many of the principles that are taught by Dr. Linehan, not solely with self-care, but also with helping teach my own children some of the interpersonal skills, emotion dysregulation,3 tactics, coping mechanisms, and learning how to tolerate distress. Most importantly (at least in this very moment), I also find that the emphasis on mindfulness is even more important than ever.

What does this mean for us? It means that by practicing some of these skills, we can begin to experience better self-awareness and grounding. We can cultivate relaxation, growth, and ease. We can learn to be better communicators and, quite possibly, better versions of ourselves. One of the hallmark tenets of DBT is the recognition that, in life, there are dialectical ‘tensions,’ in which multiple opinions can be simultaneously true. As we know, at any given moment, we are doing the best that we can, but we also know that we can strive to do better: dialects that we experience all the time and those that are especially important at this time.

Here are some of the basic components of DBT:

Mindfulness: Mindfulness is being present, fully present, in the moment. Not wishing for things to rush forward and not fixating on the past—after all, there is nothing that we can do to change it. But, we can learn from it, right? So, what are some ideas for mindfulness—ones that we can do in the safety of our own homes?

  • Cook.
  • Play board games.
  • Write a book (and have your kids ‘animate’ it)
  • Make s’mores outside.
  • Take a bubble bath.
  • Read together.
  • Rollerblade (we have brought this back from the 90s, and I can certainly say that my skills are not nearly as good as they used to be—but, let’s not judge).
  • Color.
  • Paint.
  • Eat dinner—and really sit and talk (no electronics).

Learn how to better communicate your wants, desires, and goals. We are particularly good at saying yes to everything and anything. But, what about if we don’t want to actually do everything?

We have learned to be a distracted society (always doing a million different things). Stop being on autopilot and check back into your lives. Your kids will thank you! And, you will, too. It is common to become distracted. Try not to judge yourself; simply check back into the activity you’re doing. It is OK. Even those of us who have been practicing for years can become easily distracted!

Interpersonal Skills: Learn how to better communicate your wants, desires, and goals. We are particularly good at saying yes to everything and anything. But, what about if we don’t want to actually do everything? We’re just saying yes to be the people-pleasers that we have learned to be? When we’re sitting at your computer at 9 pm and the kids are asking for the millionth time, “Mom! Come tuck me in!” It’s easy to really begin hating what you’re doing because you’re tired. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Every part of you wants to cuddle in bed and listen to lullabies, putting your kiddos to bed.

So, resentment builds. But, who is the real source of our anger? The boss? Sure. How do you justify anger if you are your own boss? But, really, we need to learn to say no to the things that don’t enrich our lives and say yes more to the things that we really want to do. Trust me, you will want to make time and be more motivated to do those things that really mean yes to you. We need to learn how to self advocate. We need to learn the art of negotiation. We need to teach our kids that it is okay to be selfish at times, as long as we are selfless at other times.

Emotion Dysregulation: I love this term: dys—not; regulation—maintaining stability. Think of a toddler. You’re in a grocery store and your toddler asks for the M&M’s in the check-out line. Oh no. You politely and quietly say no. Then you try to reason with them (bad idea). Then you get louder (stand your ground—another bad idea). Then they’re shouting and you are shouting and turning beet red. You are not happy and your toddler is not happy. And, your first instinct is to bolt.

Second scenario. As a psychologist, teacher, or parent, perhaps you’ve been asked to speak with a young person who seems to have serious behavioral issues. Your task is to try to help ‘problem solve.’ You provide him with a possible scenario that “someone takes your jello at lunch.” How do you feel and what do you do? Truth be told, the “appropriate” answer is to “speak to the adult monitoring the cafeteria.” The answers I have been given include:

“punch them in the face, steal it back, kill them.” Clearly, these are not appropriate responses, but it tells us a lot about how this particular person has ‘learned’ to function. A different person given a similar scenario, might internalize and binge eat ice cream (another problem, albeit a form of ineffective coping). Some have learned (appropriately so) to share how that makes them feel. But, what about when the tension escalates? What tools can we use to respond to this feedback?

  • Learn to understand our emotions. Fear=concerns that something will be taken from us; anxiety=us not having control over what we know or desire to be ‘true.’ Anger=feeling unheard, feeling belittled, being treated in a manner that we don’t feel is right. Let’s learn to identify what we are feeling and and what happened that led us to these feelings. Once we uncover the real ‘feeling,’ not the surface, we can start to treat it appropriately.
  • Learn how to accumulate positive experiences by building in little things that we know we enjoy or expect to enjoy. For example, after working for three hours, I’m going to give myself a little reward (e.g., coffee, walk around the block, play with the dog).
  • Build mastery. Learn a new talent and master it. A dear friend of mine in her 60s just decided that she is going to learn to play the guitar. She has learned one song thus far in the last six months. I think that’s awesome; we can all learn and get lost in it. You do you!
  • Anticipate a coping strategy. if you know you will be in a stressful situation, what will (and can) make it better and more manageable? Bring a book, listen to a podcast, plan something fun after.
  • Finally, Distress Tolerance: This is a hard one and should not be considered “tolerance /acceptance.” We are all going to experience distress, and we can all learn how to cope to the best of our abilities. Tolerance does not mean that we have to like it, either; however, given that there is much of life that is out of our control, we must do with it what we can. This reminds me of the film Life is Beautiful. This movie reminds us that, even if the midst of horrible situations, much can be changed by how we perceive it and what we make of it. (This, by no means, suggests that what is happening is not deplorable.) So, what are out options?
  • Improve the moment: If the electricity goes out (and it is temporary), let’s have a flashlight read-along. If things are stressful, let’s pause and figure out what (in this moment) can make things a little, even if is just a tiny a morsel better? If I have to wait longer at a doctor’s appointment than anticipated, can I read a book that I’ve been wanting to read for a while? If I get, oh, let’s see—locked into my house with my kids for ten months—can I be grateful to have this time with my safe, rambunctious kids? And, then, play games? Rollerblade? Read? Give them time to be kids while I get my time adulting? Learn how to cook something? Learn knitting with them or making a million friendship bracelets?
  • Radical acceptance: I am not only going to accept what is happening, but I am going to put my all into it. So, if I’m going to stay in my house for this amount of time, I am going to redesign my living room. I am going to give back to others if possible. I am going to accomplish all of these things that I have wanted to do for some time. I am going to allow my feelings to upset me for only a short period of time and then I’m going to bounce back. Further. And, higher.
  • Change of atmosphere: If I’m really feeling deflated and as though I am going to crumble, I might change my atmosphere drastically. I will go running and increase my adrenaline and give myself a runner’s high. I will go shower in ice cold water (hey, it will take your mind off things). I will hold a piece of ice in my hand (which we have done in psychiatric hospitals) and I promise, you will feel different things. Sometimes we have to, quite literally, change our physiological response to stop ourselves in our spiral. Hit the ‘reset’ button, if you will.
  • Self-soothing: I will relax in a bath. I will make cookies and smell the aroma. I will wrap myself in a cozy fleece blanket. I will go outside to fresh air. I will listen to quiet, beautiful music.
  • Practice gratitude: It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others. But, is it really helpful? The reality is that the more that we try to grow into who we want to be and give it time, patience, and respect, we will become that person. Our past helps to shape us. Often, the very things we perceived as being ‘bad’ were huge growth opportunities that eventually helped us to feel better. Ask yourself: In five years, will I be proud of what I did or how I acted? The reality is, we could all use a little more appreciation, kindness, and flexibility (even applied to ourselves).

I have used some of these DBT skills on a variety of individuals, myself included. I have seen the beauty of DBT and how people benefit so greatly from it. There is a philosophy that you cannot and should not ‘make’ people, who are willful (i.e,. stubborn, unwilling, non-motivated) do things that they do not want to do. However, with time and exposure, seeing others feeling content—even happy, people often learn that they, too, want to be happy. So, as Dr. Linehan would say, “Let me know when you’re ready, and let’s go together.”

Remember, you are not alone… For more on DBT, consider reading Dr. Linehan’s books (see below). They just might change your perspective.

1 Reidbord M.D., S. (September, 13, 2019) “Dialectics in Psychotherapy,” psychologytoday.com
2 Marsha M. Linehan (born May 5, 1943) is an American psychologist and author. She is the creator of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a type of psychotherapy that combines behavioral science with Buddhist concepts, such as acceptance and mindfulness. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan.
3 Emotional dysregulation is the clinical term used to describe an emotional state that is difficult to control, including unhealthy patterns of emotional coping, a predilection toward outbursts of emotions, and an inability to or a struggle with expressing emotions effectively (if at all). (August 28, 2020) www.betterhelp.com.

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The Power of Love in the Learning Environment

The Power of Love in the Learning Environment

by | Communication, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori students, Montessori Teachers, TC January 2021

Editors note: when we received the following article from Dr. Christine Lapierre and Lobana Alabbas, Montessori educators in Alberta, Canada, our first thought was it was written solely for an audience of teachers. As we read along, we noticed that the authors’ message, presented in their charming style, has just as much value for parents and grandparents. It really boils down to the fundamental idea that love begets love.

One of the things that is so crucial to the Montessori way is the embracing of the very best that exist within each and every one of us and the extension of warmth, kindness, respect, and love to every human being at every stage of life. There’s nothing new in this message. It’s taught by every faith. But it is so important to remember, especially when children, bored and underfoot, begin to get on our nerves. We have a saying at the Montessori Foundation: “Everything living is trouble, everything living takes work, and everything needs love.” As we approach and enter the new year, keep love in your heart, home, classroom, and workplace everyday.

Love is a powerful feeling. Maria Montessori used this concept frequently in her writings, lectures, and training of teachers and parents. In her insightful book, The Absorbent Mind (1995), she dedicated an entire chapter to “Love and its Source—the Child” (p. 287-296). This book, like so many of her others, is aimed at teachers as well as parents. She indicated that the child would be able to bring unity to the world because the child is all love. As people from all corners of the earth, we feel a gentleness and kindness toward the child that melts our hearts. Consequently, this creates a sentiment of love that is unique to the child.

Additionally, Maria Montessori also suggested that the adult cultivate a loving heart towards other adults in order to bring about peace in the world. This implies that one needs to start with oneself in order for change to occur in other people, children, and adults alike. This article presents two different heartfelt stories about love in the school where Lobana worked. One story is about a four-year-old boy, John, and the other story about a lead teacher, Mary. Though the age differences were great, the approach towards loving each one became very similar.

Love and the Child

Lobana had heard for a long time that the lead teacher was responsible for bringing change to the classroom and to her teaching, when it concerned children. Yet, in this story, it was definitely a mighty feat for her to do so. First of all, she did not know how to change because she thought that she was already doing the right thing. John, a four-year-old, frequently brought disruption to the classroom, during the months of fall.

He was not focused, refused to work, and continuously disturbed other children. The situation became more problematic and, consequently, none of the assistant teachers, including Lobana, wanted to work with him. The teachers would tell him what to do to improve his behavior; however, this approach just made him angrier. Lobana could see from the look in John’s eyes that he was becoming more and more frustrated. She knew that when ‘normalization’ takes place, children concentrate and their eyes are filled with joy and enjoyment. “How am I going to make this happen?” Lobana asked herself.

Humility was the key, she decided. From that moment on, Lobana could feel herself growing from within. Making a decision to cultivate more empathy, compassion, and love…

Finally, after some deep reflection, Lobana could feel a transformation come over her. Remembering Maria Montessori’s words that a teacher needs to replace anger and pride with humility and patience (Montessori, 1972), she realized that these were the essential aspects to resolving this predicament. She had to let go of her anger towards John, along with her pride in repeating the same strategies that were not working.

She had concerns. Would the other teachers follow her lead? Would John begin to trust her and adopt a love of learning? The gap between what John was doing and what Lobana wanted to see in a normalized child was very apparent. Humility was the key, she decided. From that moment on, Lobana could feel herself growing from within. Making a decision to cultivate more empathy, compassion, and love towards John (no matter what he did), she also demonstrated more respect for him.

Observing John more closely over a period of time greatly assisted Lobana in developing a new approach for him. For one thing, she became calmer and exhibited more positive feelings. Then one day, she had an inspiration. She gave him the chalkboard in order to teach him how to write his numbers. John greatly enjoyed the activity. From then on, every morning, the first thing that John did was to bring the chalkboard to Lobana and ask with excitement, “What is next?” He continued doing so until he had mastered all his numbers. Afterwards, Lobana gave him a little booklet to write his numbers in. He was so overjoyed that he went all around the classroom, showing everybody his new booklet. It was apparent that John had established trust for Lobana, as well as a deepening bond. After completing his numbers, Lobana introduced the letters. At the same time, John began to choose other challenging lessons and worked harmoniously with other children.

Lobana was confident that these changes occurred within John because she invited him to work with her in a kind, loving manner. He reacted more constructively to her efforts. One cannot explain the meaning of love; however, one can see its effects. John went from saying “No!” to everything to experiencing the joy of learning. His concentration and delight brought hope to Lobana’s heart. The other teachers on the team also modified their behavior towards him. “Everything is possible when you send love to children!” Lobana explained to them. The other teachers commenced sitting and connecting with him instead of judging him from a distance. They, too, started to understand John’s behavior. Lobana’s heart blossomed. “The love of your heart can be a bridge from where the child is now to becoming a peaceful child,” she concluded.

Love and the Teacher

This transformation of love in Lobana’s heart greatly assisted her in another situation, where she had to resolve a difficult situation with another Montessori lead teacher, Mary. Mary would become angry with her assistants instead of patiently requesting and modeling what she wanted. She had an overbearing approach with them and talked to them with disdain. Additionally, Mary did not help them in performing many of the mundane classroom duties with the children. They were losing respect for her. The assistants began going to Lobana in desperation to complain about how Mary was treating them.

Since resolving classroom dilemmas was part of Lobana’s responsibilities, she decided to approach Mary by inviting her to a meeting. The first thing Mary exclaimed when Lobana called her for a meeting was, “Am I in trouble?” “Did anybody complain to you?” “I want to talk to you, as well!” Lobana noted that Mary was exhibiting a position of fight or flight. At that point, Lobana knew that she had to send love to Mary and have empathy. Lobana smiled and told her in a gentle voice: “I’m here to listen to you.”

Filling her heart with love prevented Lobana from being judgmental with Mary. Lobana looked at her in the eye in a caring way, instead of being angry, and began to listen. She decided that she would not tell Mary at this point what her assistants had protested about. Mary started to indirectly talk about her assistants and her problems in the classroom. Lobana asked questions and inquired about the details. Above all things, Lobana desired for them to come up with peaceful solutions together. Slowly, Mary, in turn, listened thoughtfully to what Lobana had to say about areas where she needed to improve. Happily, Mary was attentive and open to change. She indicated that she was willing to heed the points that Lobana was advising her to take.

Together, they came up with a workable plan that included the steps that Mary would take in order for her to collaborate harmoniously with her assistants. Later that evening, Lobana received a text from Mary that said, “I do appreciate your kindness!” Lobana knew in her heart that she had made a positive influence on Mary’s thinking. Gradually, Mary put a considerable amount of effort into becoming a better teacher to serve the children and her team. Developing more kindness, she began to rely on Lobana for effective ideas that would improve her classroom. Mary acknowledged appreciation for the help she was receiving as being part of Lobana’s “wisdom.”

What do we take away from these two stories? First, love is the fundamental aspect of solving classroom (and home) difficulties. With love, one builds trust and a sense of safety and calmness. When children and teachers are worried about being judged, they feel scared and are not open to being part of the solution. An important message is that we all make mistakes, and we can learn from them. Being humble and patient will resolve many complicated issues in the classroom. This is howe teachers implement Montessori’s wise words about peace and unity.

Lobana Alabbas is a Montessori Early Childhood Teacher from London Montessori Center, as well as a certified Arabic language teacher. She is passionate about teaching children how to enjoy and love learning. She also lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

References
Montessori, M. (1972). The secret of childhood. New York, NY: Random House Publishing Group.
Montessori, M. (1995). The absorbent mind. New York, NY: Holt Paperbacks.

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