Parents fell in love with Montessori schools

Heba Torad Author

Jul 04, 2024 |

Discover why parents are captivated by Montessori schools, where children thrive through hands-on learning, independence, and a nurturing environment.

Parents fell in love with Montessori schools

When you have a child in a Montessori classroom -or if you are considering the Montessori way- you have different aspects of the lifestyle to look at, unlike other parents. In this blog, we are going to discuss 2 categories.

The first category is about things that Montessori parents don’t have to do as other parents.

The second category is about things that Montessori parents need to do, unlike other parents.

By the end of this blog, it will be clear why parents fell in love with Montessori over time even if they are a little frustrated in the beginning.

Things that Montessori parents DON’T need to do:

1- Homework:

As a Montessori parent, you won’t need to spend the nights working on worksheets homework or practicing the multiplication table 300 times until your child can memorize it by heart. We recommend you spend your time at night playing a game board with your children or going for a walk around the house, and of course, we do recommend reading a part of an interesting book and discussing it together daily.

Montessori students do work hard over the day to learn and understand new concepts. They need to experience what they have learned in a practical lifestyle at home not by solving sheets.

As parents, you need to have stress-free time with your children this will enhance the mutual bond between you both producing a healthy relationship.

2-Comparing:

Usually, most parents fall into the trap of comparing their children with other kids and feel unsatisfied about the level of skills they have currently.

This is not the case for Montessori parents because they have no sort of pressure from the school about how different their kid is. Montessori believes that all students are different, and respect that each child is learning at his own pace. As a parent you will notice the progress instead of evaluating the defects, also seeing your child improving in so many partitions of knowledge such as personal, academic, social, mental and others not only in a specific subject like Math or Science will give you the feeling of trust that your child is moving on the right track.

3-Purchasing too many materials:

Some people when they hear about Montessori, imagine lots of wooden expensive toys spread all over the house. That is a wrong thought. Montessori does rely on unique tools all the time for sure and it is a basic part of its strategy, but when it comes to applying Montessori at home it depends on the philosophy itself, not the tool. For example, Montessori will be applied at home by allowing the child to be independent and to prepare his/her sandwich alone. Another example of applying Montessori is by arranging the garden together and get know about plant types while doing so.

Montessori is a lifestyle philosophy not only a teaching way.

4-Panic from parent-teacher communication:

Maria Montessori believes in the importance of collaboration between parents and teachers during the learning journey of children. Montessori teachers will be hand in hand with parents to guarantee smooth interaction with the child. Parents at home will complement the role of the teacher in another way to surround the child with a sufficient environment for his development.

Communication with Montessori teachers can be quick just as happen during dropping off and dismissal time or can be long and detailed in a private meeting. In both cases, you can never expect something like a concern letter or detention actions towards your child.

Of course, discipline is mandatory and required in Montessori classrooms, but students learn to follow rules and normalize in different ways other than detention, and teachers are aware that guiding the child to the correct path is their responsibility; they do not complain to the parent about his child, they are putting a plan to work together on leading the child to the right way.

Things that Montessori parents need to do:

Respect:

Show your kid that he is important by listening carefully to his questions and taking his opinion over the day in your decisions. For example, you ask him “would you like to eat before going to the park or after coming back?”

Prepare the environment:

The environment is the most effective factor in the development of the child, have a look at our previous blog “YES environment “. In the Montessori classroom, we take extra care in how to set an environment that can satisfy the child’s needs and enhance curiosity to learn. As a Montessori parent, you have to complement this by preparing a proper environment at home that allows the child to move safely without extra help. It doesn’t have to be full of tools or toys, a few toys are better so that the child can concentrate on them and figure out a way to do something new from them. Engaging the child throughout the daily house shores is an essential part of the surrounding environment like washing clothes or preparing a snack.

Observe:

There is something known as” Sensitive Periods “in Montessori. The Sensitive Period is a time in which the child feels a need to learn something specific, during this time if we start providing him with more information and tools to learn this topic, he will show great ability in mastering it. The child is unable to express his needs during a sensitive period clearly. He can only follow his needs using what is available in his current environment, here comes the importance of observation by the parent. You will learn to know which Sensitive Period your child is experiencing from his actions.

No punishments or rewards:

Maria Montessori found by observation that neither punishment nor reward helps the child to be disciplined. She found that what works is something called “Inner discipline”, this feeling is gained by the child by feeling a sense of responsibility.

Some parents think that to show freedom and respect for the child we need to let him do anything he wants with no rules, but this is NOT TRUE.

Montessori supports freedom with limits, when a child does unproper action we use positive words to correct the action.

For example:

• If the child writes on the wall, we say “we write on the paper do need one?”

• If the wrong action is still continuous, we say “oh the wall is unclean now…. You need to clean it” and bring cleaning tools and support him to clean it.

• If the child still doing the wrong action we say “give me the crayon until you are ready to color on the paper maybe after a while we can color again”.

Categories: : Montessori