Connections that Stick

Source: Harvard Center of the Developing Child

Source: Harvard Center of the Developing Child

When we hold our babies for the first time we look into their little faces and think of all the potential they posses. It’s an amazing feeling. Some parents also think about what a great responsibility it is to help them become the best person they can be. It may seem like a daunting task, but it isn’t. We just need to understand how to guide them. At birth, their brains are ready to learn all that we have to teach them. 

Every experience that a young child has helps them to learn. Physiologically, these experiences help build the necessary connections between cells in the brain.  Things children experience through the senses make the strongest connections. The child needs to have an experience and then the language that accompanies that experience. It’s this process that also helps make a connection between the cells, and when a child has the same experience over and over again, the connection gets stronger and stronger. Research shows that a child needs at least ten repetitions to make a connection.

During the first year of life, the brain is the most active and these connections are being made more than any other time in the child’s life. Every sight, sound, smell, touch or taste is a possible connection. If the baby continues to have an experience the connection will get stronger. If the baby does not have the experience again, the connection will likely die away. The phrase “use it or lose it” is very true.

Young children go through periods of time when they are most open to receiving certain information. These are called “sensitive periods” or “windows of opportunity.” During these times the child is drawn to learning a particular skill and will learn it easily without very much “teaching” on the adult’s part. First, we must know what sensitive periods the child goes through and at what time in their lives, and then we must provide the child with the tools he needs to learn during that period. The sensitive period for language lasts for the first six years of life, so it’s important for us to provide the child with rich experiences full of opportunities for listening and practicing during this time. From ages three to six the child is in a sensitive period for learning manners and social skills. We must provide the child with social experiences and opportunities to practice those skills. When we miss a sensitive period, the skill may still be learned later, but it will be more difficult. 

During the early years, until six years old, if you look at a brain scan you will see what looks like an electrical storm. Connections are being made everywhere in the brain. Every experience is a potential connection. If you look at a brain scan of an early elementary child there are many, many connections. The connections are already made and the child is working on strengthening useful connections and paring down the connections they don’t need. They are organizing the information they will need in their lives and their own culture. Later, if they have had a forgotten something in the past and come back to learn it again, it will not be as hard because the brain will recognize it as a past experience or skill. For example, if a young child learned a second language, but then never used it and forgot it, as an adult it would not be as hard to learn it again as it would be for an adult who had never learned or heard that language as a young child.

It is important to give a child what they need according to their stage of development. To give our child the optimal environment for learning, we must always be learning and creating an enriching environment. And we must research and look for schools with teachers and administration who understand brain development in the child and support the child accordingly.

-Carla

For more information on the developing brain, the following books are an excellent resource:

What’s Going on in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, by Lise Elliot

The Absorbent Mind, by Maria Montessori

Source: Harvard Center of the Developing Child

Source: Harvard Center of the Developing Child

How to be a Montessori Parent

Just like there is more to being a mother than conceiving and bearing a child, there is more to being a Montessori parent than sending your child to Montessori school.  Being a Montessori parent involves taking a real interest in what your children are doing in school, engaging in the school community and making Montessori a way of life outside of school.

I haven’t had any training but I think I understand some basic tenets of the Montessori method and it seems like the most natural way to learn in my mind - similar to the way a mother duck or horse teaches their young. They show the little ones what to do (the presentation), encourage them to try it on their own (the work) and then allow them to rely on their new skill (independence).

In our quest to be Montessori parents, my wife and I try to remind ourselves to observe a few key guidelines that are worth thinking about:

  1. Let children play - resist the urge to over-organize free time and allow active play time. Play fosters imagination, creative problem solving and interpersonal skills when others are involved.

  2. Dive into things they show interest in - like showing how a key actuates a deadbolt - allow time for questions and comprehension.  This is hands-on learning which always sinks in quickly but even more indelibly when they are asking for it.

  3. Let them do it - try to wait a little longer than is comfortable before jumping in to help them when they are trying to do something such as tie their shoes, pronounce a new word or graph an equation.  There’s nothing better than the feeling of accomplishment to help children develop self confidence and independence.

  4. Keep them by your side - don’t stick them in front of the TV or iPad when you need to get things done around the house.  This requires patience and it will take longer to get things done at first but children want to do what their parents do and they want to help. Eventually, this pays off when the “help” turns real and they are picking up life skills.

Of course, this all requires commitment and tremendous effort but it is as important as being a good mother or, maybe, it’s just part of being a good mother (or father).

-John (HMS Parent)

9 Tips for a Successful Start to School

Schools are opening for a new year. The teachers are ready, the students are excited, the parents happy, we are all in that “sweet spot” of the first days of school. Soon, ever so gradually, the questions will begin, solutions sought. Maintaining that “sweet spot” is important and to help keep it alive we offer here 9 essential tips for a successful beginning of school.

  1. Get Enough Sleep. Our children are busy. Too busy. In children, lack of sleep has been linked to behavior problems and the inability to concentrate and perform well in school. We all understand the importance of quality sleep, but when asked, parents responses are often well below the National Sleep Foundation recommendations. The NSF recommends children ages 6-10 get 10 to 11 hours of sleep per night and that teens get about 9 hours.
     
  2. Read your School’s Handbook. Really, read it. Everything you need to know on policies and procedures are contained within. Make it your bedtime reading. It may even help you sleep better at night!
     
  3. Foster Trust. In yourself, the school you have chosen, your child’s teacher and your child. From the moment our children come into our lives we are beginning to let them go and trust their development. Do what you can to improve this trust: ask questions, observe, be a volunteer in the school, participate in your child’s learning.
     
  4. Communicate. This goes hand in hand with building trust. Your teachers and administrators want to hear from you. They want to work with you for the benefit of your child. Agreeable solutions only happen when communication is open and flowing.
     
  5. Gift of Time: For the  young child, the very act of slowing life down and giving him time to move at his own pace allows him to really experience and understand what he is doing. Creativity and new ideas spring from the opportunity to allow our older children time to daydream and process what is expected of them. It is also empowering for the child to set the pace of family life once in awhile. In order to support this, please turn off the screens and set aside time for this to happen.
     
  6. Respect and Accept your Child’s Gifts and Limitations: Know who your child truly is, rather than who you wish him to be. And then, follow him to his points of interest. He will thank you for it. 
     
  7. Allow Independence. Teach your child how to get himself out of bed, make his lunch, prepare for the next day. Work to avoid the “rescue”  when things are forgotten or left undone. Let him learn through his mistakes. They are the lessons most remembered.
     
  8. Teach Your Child Organization: Are you working like crazy to keep everyone and everything organized? Take a moment to teach your child how to organize himself and the things he needs for school. Help him to learn that being responsible and prepared supports his confidence and feelings of well being.
     
  9. Lighten Up! Current news reports tell us that EVERYTHING is important and immediate. Some things are. Many things are not.Take a deep breath in the moment, consider perspective, and consciously tell yourself that this too shall pass. Patience and humor go a long way in supporting our children.

Montessori Happy Moments

As a Montessori educator for over 25 years, I have had countless happy moments with children. I have delighted in their play, joy and work. But the moments that have brought me the greatest pleasure are those that I have not been a participant in but an observer.

What do all these observable moments have in common? The inner knowing of the child to find himself in his own accomplishments. I have seen it in on the faces of 14 year olds, exhausted and hungry from hiking the highest mountain in Maine and THEN a 3 mile hike to camp. I have seen it on a 4 year-old's face as he asks for his fifteenth word to write with his movable alphabet. It is subtle yet powerful.

The key is to wait for it. The child’s timing is not our own. Anyone who has had to wait for their 3 year old to put on a sock or exit a car independently knows that! We adults are constantly chattering and moving and doing for our children. Stopping ourselves, slowing it down, taking the opportunity to observe and really notice is required for this experience. Try it. Sit on your hands or bite your tongue if needed. When we take that step away from the constant comments and running commentary we tend towards with our children, they will unfold before our eyes. And it’s beautiful. 

If we can accomplish this, amazing things begin to happen. Our children take on and enjoy responsibility for themselves and their part in the world no matter what their age.

By accomplishing a task with out the cheerleading and praise of the adult, the child experiences an inner knowing and understanding of what they are really capable of. This joy is evidenced, if you wait for it, in a look, a smile, a subtle gesture, a sigh of satisfaction, excited chatter to you or another. Their experience takes on a whole different meaning when it has come from within the child and not from us. 

Synonyms of happiness include pleasure, joy, exhilaration, bliss, contentedness, delight, enjoyment, satisfaction. I have seen all these on the faces of children reveling in their own accomplishments. It never fails to be one of my happiest moments.

Kari

Want to know more about letting go and letting your child? Check out Vicki Hoefle’s fantastic book Duck Tape Parenting http://vickihoefle.com/duct-tape-parenting-book/ 

One Word Writing

A piece of writing from one of our Middle School students hinging on one word. Can you guess which word it is?

A little boy always sat alone. Not wishing, not wanting. The other kids at school constantly teased him, because he never spoke. He gazed off into the meadows and forests and valleys. Time passed; first grade, third grade, tenth grade. The boy tolerated and ignored their jostling and prodding. Finally, one day, the he just stopped. He stopped looking at meadows and forests and valleys. He stopped listening to birdcalls and the wind. He stopped. He tried to act like the others. He spent every day playing a part. He now sat with company, but he was more alone than ever. Time passed; high school, college, adulthood. The grayed man sat by his window, wishing, wanting, reading obituaries of the people who had once teased him. A leaf fluttered on the wind outside, blowing onto his lap through the open window. He studied it delicately, noticing how paper thin it was, just like him. Then he stopped. He stopped pretending, and he stopped fooling the world. He listened and saw and felt and heard. An old man sat alone. Not wishing, not wanting. -E