Montessori makes it easy
In 2010 I had an experience that blew my mind. I walked through a Montessori preschool. All around me children were being mindful of their surroundings, mindful of the children around them, they were focused on the work they chose, they are extremely independent and the teacher was just watching from a seat on the floor cool as a cucumber not raising her voice and not interfering but offering guidance as needed. The children in this classroom were taking on challenges that I didn’t think they were capable of handling. They were doing things I was always told was too hard for children. I was intrigued to say the least. It became my mission to not only find out what these kids had so I could raise my children to be just as mindful, just as deliberate about life the way these children were and for myself to learn how to be just as calm and cool as this teacher sitting in the corner. I had seen a Montessori classroom for the first time. It was an eye-opener for me. I had found a strategy for raising my children to be independent, self-disciplined and self-regulating so that I didn’t have to do all the thinking for everyone. All I had to do was prepare the space.
Prepare the space
I read as much as I could about Montessori methods and techniques. I wanted to make the most of my time spent at home with my babies as I knew my time as a SAHM were not going to be forever. I wanted to give my children a good foundation so that when I did go back to work after they started school, they would be prepared to take on any challenges they came across even if I could not be there to walk them through. Montessori offered me as a parent the frame work so that I could raise a resilient child who would be a joy to babysit and would be confident enough to know that whatever the challenge, they could probably figure it out.
Montessori books and mentors often use the phrase “prepare the space” and I didn’t quite know what that meant at first. I am here to share my insights with you. Prepare the space means that when setting up any area in your house that you want your child to interact with independently, try and think about ways to make a task as easy to accomplish for your small child as possible.
I started with water in my house. I am lucky to have little built in shelves in my dining room, I set a small water tank with a spout on the shelf right along side their drinking vessels (cups, on the go water bottles, sippy cups etc), I then showed the children how it worked and what it was for. It was then their job to full up their drinking cup at meal times, to fill up a water bottle when were heading out of the house on an errand and to kindly get someone a drink of water if they needed to. Of course we had the occasional spill on the floor because they wanted to see what would happen if you just leave the tap open but even that was thought of, we left a small mop and towel close by so that when they made the inevitable spill, they learned to clean that up too - spills tend not to happen too often when the child is made to clean up their own mess.
After water it was snacks. We placed “mom approved” snacks on a low shelf in the pantry. The children were shown how to open the door grab and snack and even how to open their own snack so they could eat whenever they felt hungry. Only the amount of the specified snack was left out for the child to have for the day and if it was all gone, that was the que that snack was done for the day. This helps children be independent, gain confidence to know they can do it all on their own and to self-regulate and not eat all their snack in one shot. Breakfast cereal is placed on the bottom shelf of the pantry along with a bowl and spoon and in the fridge the child finds a small pitcher with just enough milk for their cereal. This gave me an extra 10 minutes to put on some eyeliner in the morning, LOL.
Snack was followed by dressing and putting on shoes, the trick to this was getting clothing that the child can pull on and take off with minimal help and slip on, pull on or Velcro closures on shoes. Then came cleaning up, I labeled all their bins with a picture of what goes inside (they couldn’t read YET). Next we took on cleaning up after meal time, we got durable plates that could be dropped into the sink and brooms, buckets, mops and dusters that were a perfect fit for their little hands and looks just like mine so they were excited to use them - “just like mommy”.
The key is to think about all the ways to make it possible for the child to be successful, show them how to use the tools and you will see children that go from needing you for even the smallest task to seeing a child who will try to do it on their own first, even when they need help your child will know how to advocate for themselves and ask for it.
Montessori has made things easier for me. It had helped me mold children who are unafraid to take on new tasks and who have the confidence to know they can do it themselves and gave me the confidence that comes from the perfect winged eyeliner because I had an extra ten minutes while getting ready in the morning.
Peace,
Nina
