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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 | Right now, I Am Brave

Book Review | Right now, I Am Brave

by | Book Review TC JAN 2021, Book Reviews, Communication, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Infant-Toddler (0 to 3), Kindergarten, Language & Reading, MFA, Montessori Family Life, TC January 2021

by Dr. Daniela Owen
Illustrated by Gülce Baycik

Right Now, I am BraveHere’s another good one from Dr. Owen. The first lesson—when things that we find scary are not actually dangerous, it’s time to be brave. She goes on to define what it means to be brave. She explains how our brains are not always right about what is truly scary. Being brave can be tough for grown ups as well as kids.

So trying new things, doing the right thing, or doing something hard are all sometimes scary. She goes on to give children ideas about how to encourage themselves and push forward when facing scary things.

As always in this series, the illustrations are colorful, inclusive, and full of emotion. It is definitely a good addition to your home library or for your school.

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Build a Playground

Build a Playground

by | Child's Work, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori students, Montessori Teachers, Outdoor Education / Resources, Parent-Teacher Communication, TC January 2021

Tanya Ryskind examines the benefits of building a playground

After several years as a Montessori parent, I changed careers to become a Montessori teacher. Today, I am the Head of NewGate School, the Lab School of the Montessori Foundation, and charged with establishing a COVID task force to guide our school’s policies and procedures to mitigate risk and open safely. Our local health departments told us that maintaining physical distance and working outside was one way to reduce exposure and transmission. This year with the stressors of COVID-19, social tensions, and the uncertainty of whether to send our children to school or keep them home, my husband and I started to reflect upon what kept our children in Montessori through high school. We also wondered how parents of young children and elementary school-aged students were handling the situation. Did they feel safe sending their children back to school? Did they live in a state that closed schools indefinitely? How would I respond to parents’ needs at NewGate? How does a family stay connected to their teachers, their children’s friends, and follow state and local guidelines? I found my husband’s words profound. I listened to him from my new perspective as a school leader. He said, “What your school needs to do is build a playground like we did.” Last year, the NewGate buildings and grounds committee helped transform the peace garden into a contemporary rock garden giving the heart of our campus an inspirational renovation. This year, however, we needed to do more, we needed more appropriate work environments for our students. At the toddler level, we needed to rethink and add to our playscapes. At the elementary level, we needed to do more gardening and botanical studies. Our secondary students needed more outdoor seating that protected them from the sun while adjusting for social distancing. In a comprehensive manual from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, “Schools for Health, Risk Reduction Strategies for Reopening Schools,” June 2020, the authors outline multiple essential strategies for reopening schools and mitigating health risks. To help envision the true potential of these outdoor spaces, I went backward in time. “You need to build a playground like we did,” is what my husband said. When our children were in the infant/toddler and early childhood classrooms, our Montessori school had to move the playground to accommodate a building project. Over several weekends, my husband and I would make the 30-minute commute to our school on the weekend to volunteer to move the playground. Relocating the play area included cutting the sod and carrying it to the new location. It was backbreaking work. Having the three-year-old and infant in tow, I spent time pouring water and hanging out with other parents who had children. Throughout these weekends, we bonded. We discussed the hopes and dreams we had for our children. The laborers kept their energy up by sharing jokes and talking about their jobs. Mostly we heard, “How did we get roped into this?” Twenty-four years later, a group of masked NewGate parents came together to shovel gravel in the heat of the Florida sunshine to create a bike track for toddlers. They trimmed hedges and cleared areas where beautiful wooden playscapes and a treehouse would sit. The adults laughed and shared their hopes and dreams for their children. They cracked jokes. When family isolating is the protocol, in the open air, six feet away, parents of young children were bonding. What I saw reminded me of our family’s experience at our Montessori school. My husband and I believed then and now that we were in partnership with our Montessori school; the teachers, administrators, and other parents. The image of NewGate parents on the toddler playground showed me the replicable nature of our schools. NewGate parents were working as a team for the betterment of their school. Remembering our playground days and watching NewGate’s playground days highlights how a Montessori education gives us an education that focuses on partnership, independence, mutual trust, and respect, on both individual achievement and collaboration. The Harvard public health manual’s healthy activities section specifically outlines five pertinent areas: provide recess; modify physical education, continue sports with enhanced controls, add structure to free time, and reimagine music and theater classes. My husband and I helped build a play area that included a labyrinth, a large area for an organic garden, wood stumps for hopping or running around, a small treehouse, and a spectacular maple tree that would come to be called the giving tree. Over the years, our children strengthened their large motor skills and learned to play fairly. As a young adolescent, our daughter had serious talks with friends about her next steps and what the future looked like. The “playground” we built continues to serve children and families as a safe place, now a safe place to breathe without facial coverings. <h3>Each of the five pertinent parts outlined in the Harvard manual has a bulleted list of suggested activities. These guidelines include:</h3>
  • Move outdoors.
  • Play outdoors as much as possible.
  • Do not limit children’s access to recess, the schoolyard, or fixed play equipment.
  • Hold physical education classes outdoors when possible.
Now, when outdoor activities matter more than ever before, parents at our school started to rally and ask teachers about what they could do to support their children and their outdoor activities. Our school focused on gardening and, yes, the playground. But, this year, we needed to think of our playground spaces as outdoor learning environments. It needed to be a place where children could work without distraction from the weather. It needed to add value to their learning experience. When we realized how important it is to be outdoors, we unleashed an unmet need to give, volunteer, and to participate in efforts to keep everyone safe. Parents, who were no longer allowed on campus, could focus on something they knew was important and necessary. Children could go home and share developing plans for garden boxes and flowering plant containers. Plans included water elements, bird feeders, and butterfly plants. Energy and excitement grew around the need to spend more time outdoors. Families came together on virtual community meetings to share how they could donate and what they could do on our campuses while maintaining safety protocols. They bonded and connected either six feet away behind a facial covering or in a virtual community meeting. These bonds have nurtured friendships and created spaces for children to grow, play, and learn. We received, in abundance, donations of time, talent, and treasure. Contributions focused on a single goal—enhancement of our outdoor classroom spaces. We added to our toddler and early childhood playscapes things previously thought unattainable because of cost and labor. We doubled the number of raised garden beds on our campus. We partnered with a local master gardener organization. We quadrupled our outdoor seating capacity for our middle and high school students. And, we have begun to embrace the importance of walking with nature throughout our day. The silver-lining of COVID-19 is that we have been forced to make time for things that have always been put on the back burner. Parents, staff, and even children have committed to attending weekly virtual community meetings.  We have prioritized what is important to us, staying healthy, using our indoor and outdoor environments for learning, and building community. We honor the words of Maria Montessori by dedicating ourselves to our outdoor environments: “The child has a different relation to “their” environment from ours … the child absorbs it. The things they see are not just remembered; they form part of their soul. The child incarnates in themselves all in the world about them that their eyes see and their ears hear.” (adjusted to be gender neutral—The Absorbent Mind.) As parents, you have an opportunity to support your school through this unprecedented time by using your talents, treasure, or time to enhance your outdoor environments. Look around your school and offer ideas to support your teachers in using their outdoor spaces more effectively. I think you will be as surprised as I was that all you have to do is build a creative outdoor space for learning and call it a playground. Footnote: my husband continues to have conversations with the crew who helped “build the playground” 24 years ago. For us, “building the playground” has become a metaphor for lifelong learning and lifelong friendships.
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Building a Great Relationship with Your Child

Building a Great Relationship with Your Child

by | Early Adolescence (12-15), Family Resources, MFA, Primary (3-6), Psychology, Upper Elementary (9-12), Young Adolescent, Young Adults

As our infants grow into toddlers and do less nuzzling and more ‘NO-ing,’ how do we maintain a strong connection while setting the necessary limits?

Can we keep the relationship close as our child starts daycare or preschool, and we teach her to problem-solve and navigate her own path?

As our kids move into the school years and out into the world, how do we stay connected so they WANT to follow our expectations?

And as our kids evolve into teenagers (when we get fired as the ‘boss’), how can we make sure we have the necessary trust and intimacy with them so that we get rehired as consultants?

Want to be a great parent? Want to raise a happy, healthy, well-behaved kid? Want to live in a home where discipline becomes unnecessary? The secret is to create a closer connection with your child.

It isn’t enough that we tell our children we love them. We need to put our love into action every day for them to feel it.

“But what does that mean, putting our love into action?”

Mostly, it means making that connection with our child our highest priority. Love in action means paying thoughtful attention to what goes on between us, seeing things from our child’s point of view and always remembering that this child (who sometimes may drive us crazy) is still that precious baby we welcomed into our arms with such hope.

Kids form their view of themselves and the world every day. They need your encouragement to see themselves as good people who are capable of good things. And they need to know you’re on their side.

“Doesn’t that take a lot of energy?”

It takes a lot of effort to fully attend to another human being, but when we are really present with our child, we often find that it energizes us and makes us feel more alive, as being fully present with anyone does.

Building Strong RelattionshipBeing close to another human takes work. But 90 percent of people on their deathbed say that their biggest regret is that they didn’t get closer to the people in their lives. And almost all parents whose children are grown say they wish they had spent more time with their kids.

“Being fully present? How can I do that when I’m just trying to get dinner on the table and keep from tripping over the toys?”
Being present just means paying attention. Like a marriage or a friendship, your relationship with your child needs positive attention to thrive. Attention = Love. Like your garden, your car, or your work, what you attend to flourishes. And, of course, that kind of attentiveness takes time. You can multi-task at it while you’re making dinner, but the secret of a great relationship is some focused time every day attending only to that child.

“This is all too vague for me. What am I supposed to actually DO?”

1. Start right for a firm foundation.

The closeness of the parent-child connection throughout life results from how much parents connect with their babies, right from the beginning. For instance, research has shown that fathers who take a week or more off work when their babies are born have a closer relationship with their child at every stage, including as teens and college students. Is this cause and effect? The bonding theorists say that if a man bonds with his newborn, he will stay closer to her throughout life. But you don’t have to believe that bonding with a newborn is crucial to note that the kind of man who treasures his newborn and nurtures his new family is likely to continue doing so in ways that bring them closer throughout her childhood.

2. Remember that all relationships take work.

Good parent-child connections don’t spring out of nowhere, any more than good marriages do. Biology gives us a head start. If we weren’t biologically programmed to love our infants, the human race would have died out long ago. As kids get older, we need to build on that natural bond, or the challenges of modern life can erode it. Luckily, children automatically love their parents. As long as we don’t blow that, we can keep the connection strong.

3. Prioritize time with your child.

Assume that you’ll need to put in a significant amount of time creating a good relationship with your child. Quality time is a myth, because there’s no switch to turn on closeness. Imagine that you work all the time, and have set aside an evening with your husband, whom you’ve barely seen in the past six months. Does he immediately start baring his soul? Not likely.

In relationships, without quantity, there’s no quality. You can’t expect a good relationship with your daughter if you spend all your time at work and she spends all her time with her friends. So as hard as it is with the pressures of job and daily life, if we want a better relationship with our kids, we have to free up the time to make that happen.

4. Start with trust, the foundation of every good relationship.

Trust begins in infancy, when your baby learns whether she can depend on you to pick her up when she needs you. By the time babies are a year old, researchers can assess whether babies are “securely attached” to their parents, which basically means the baby trusts that his parents can be depended on to meet his emotional and physical needs.

Over time, we earn our children’s trust in other ways: following through on the promise we make to play a game with them later; not breaking a confidence; picking them up on time.

At the same time, we extend our trust to them by expecting the best from them and believing in their fundamental goodness and potential. We trust in the power of human development to help our child grow, learn, and mature. We trust that although our child may act like a child today, he or she is always developing into a more mature person, just as (we hope) we are. We trust that no matter what he or she does, there is always the potential for positive change.
Trust does not mean blindly believing what your teenager tells you. Trust means not giving up on your child, no matter what he or she does. Trust means never walking away from the relationship in frustration, because you trust that she needs you and that you will find a way to work things out.

5. Encourage, encourage, encourage.

Think of your child as a plant that is programmed by nature to grow and blossom. If you see the plant has brown leaves, you consider if it needs more light, more water, more fertilizer. You don’t criticize it and yell at it to straighten up and grow right.

Kids form their view of themselves and the world every day. They need your encouragement to see themselves as good people who are capable of good things. And they need to know you’re on their side. If most of what comes out of your mouth is correction or criticism, they won’t feel good about themselves, and they won’t feel like you’re their ally. You lose your only leverage with them, and they lose something every kid needs: to know they have an adult who thinks the world of them.

6. Remember that respect must be mutual.

Pretty obvious, right? But we forget this with our kids, because we know we’re supposed to be the boss. You can still set limits (and you must), but if you do it respectfully and with empathy, your child will learn both to treat others with respect and to expect to be treated respectfully himself.

Once, when I became impatient with my then three-year-old, he turned to me and said “I don’t like it when you talk to me that way.” A friend who was with us said, “If he’s starting this early, you’re going to have big problems when he’s a teenager!” In fact, rather than challenging my authority, my toddler was simply asking to be treated with the dignity he had come to expect. Now a teenager, he continues to treat himself, me, and others respectfully. And he chooses peers who treat him respectfully. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids?

7. Think of relationships as the slow accretion of daily interactions.

You don’t have to do anything special to build a relationship with your child. The good (and bad) news is that every interaction creates a relationship. Grocery shopping, carpooling, and bath time matter as much as that big talk you have when there’s a problem. He doesn’t want to share his toy, or go to bed, or do his homework? How you handle it is one brick in the foundation of your permanent relationship, as well as his ideas about all relationships.

That’s one reason it’s worth thinking through any recurring interactions that get on your nerves to see how you might handle them differently. Interactions that happen more than once tend to initiate a pattern. Nagging and criticizing are no basis for a relationship with someone you love. And, besides, your life is too short for you to spend it in a state of annoyance.

8. Communication habits start early.

Do you listen when she prattles on interminably about her friends at preschool, even when you have more important things to think about? Then she’s more likely to tell you about her interactions with boys when she’s fourteen.

It’s hard to pay attention when you’re rushing to pick up food for dinner and get home, but if you aren’t really listening, two things happen: you miss an opportunity to learn about and teach your child; and she learns that you don’t really listen, so there’s not much point in talking.

9. Don’t take it personally.

Your teenager slams the door to her bedroom. Your ten-year-old huffs, “Mom, you never understand!” Your four-year-old screams, “I hate you, Daddy!” What’s the most important thing to remember? DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY! This isn’t primarily about you; it’s about them: their tangled-up feelings; their difficulty controlling themselves; their immature ability to understand and express their emotions. Taking it personally wounds you, which means you do what we all do when hurt: either close off, lash out, or both. These reactions just worsens a tough situation for all concerned.

Remembering not to take it personally means you:

  • Take a deep breath.
  • Let the hurt go.
  • Remind yourself that your child does, in fact, love you but can’t get in touch with it at the moment.
  • Consciously lower your voice.
  • Try hard to remember what it
    feels like to be a kid who is upset and over-reacting.
  • Think through how to respond calmly and constructively.

You can still set limits, but you do it from as calm a place as you can muster. Your child will be deeply grateful, even if she can’t acknowledge it at the moment. I’m not for a minute suggesting that you let your child treat you disrespectfully. I’m suggesting you act out of love, rather than anger, as you set limits. And if you’re too angry to get in touch with your love at the moment, then wait.

10. Resist the impulse to be punitive.

How would you feel about someone who hurt, threatened, or humiliated you, “for your own good”? Kids do need our guidance, but punishing your child always erodes your relationship, which makes your child misbehave more.

11. Don’t let little rifts build up.

If something’s wrong between you, find a way to bring it up and work it through positively. Choosing to withdraw (except temporarily, strategically) when your child seems intent on driving you away is ALWAYS a mistake. Every difficulty is an opportunity to get closer or create distance.

12. Re-connect after every separation.

Parents naturally provide an anchor, or compass, for kids to attach to and stay oriented around. When they’re apart from us they need a substitute, so they orient themselves around teachers, coaches, electronics, or peers. When we rejoin each other physically, we need to also rejoin emotionally.

13. Stay available.

Most kids don’t keep an agenda and bring things up at a scheduled meeting. Nothing makes them clam up faster than pressing them to talk. Kids talk when something is up for them, particularly if you’ve proven yourself to be a good listener, but not overly attached to their opening up to you.

Being on hand when they come home is a sure-fire way to hear the highlights of the day with younger kids, and even, often, with older ones. With older kids, simply being in the same room doing something can create the opportunity for interaction. If you’re cooking dinner and she’s doing homework, for instance, or the two of you are in the car alone, there’s often an opening. Of course, if one of you is hunched over the computer, the interaction is likely to be more limited. Find ways to be in proximity where you’re both potentially available, without it seeming like a demand.

This may seem obvious, but stating your availability is helpful, even with teens.

“I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner if you want me.”

“I have to run to the grocery store, but don’t hesitate to call my cell phone if you need me.”

The most important part of staying available is a state of mind. Your child will sense your emotional availability. Parents who have close relationships with their teens often say that as their child has gotten older, they’ve made it a practice to drop everything else if their teen signals a desire to talk. This can be difficult if you’re also handling a demanding job and other responsibilities, of course. But kids who feel that other things are more important to their parents, often look elsewhere when they’re emotionally needy. And that’s our loss, as much as theirs.