Whether you are a new parent, a parent of a toddler or a kindergartener and are researching different methods of education, you’ve probably wondered how Montessori can help your child.

‍Montessori education, especially if used in the primary years, can help to make a child independent, responsible and self motivated. It helps nurture their sense of concentration and order and learn to respect their environment, all through capitalising on what their interests are.

How does it do this?

Montessori develops what is known as ‘the whole child’, meaning their physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. It believes that each child is unique and will therefore have a unique path of development. This means that they are to be supported and guided as opposed to being strongly encouraged or forced into any one direction or path.¹

The Montessori model encourages the teacher to focus on what the child CAN do at each stage of their development, taking advantage of their intellectual capabilities and creative abilities at each stage. It is a process whereby the child interacts with their environment and builds different aspects for themselves with what they take from it. They naturally know how to do this due to their absorbent mind, sensitive periods as they move from one stage of development to the next.²

Taking into account the child’s love and need to play and being nurtured like this is very much in tune with the natural disposition and development of the child,

“The child’s playfulness in his childhood causes the increase of his intellect in his adulthood.” - Prophet Muhammad (s)

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Personally, this part of Montessori has been particularly attractive to me. Working with the child and guiding her has proven to be much more effective in bringing out the best of my daughter as opposed to trying to make her fit a certain mould. Knowing about sensitive periods helped me to make sense of why certain things were more attractive to her at certain times.

For example, Maryam went through a stage where all she wanted to do was read together. All the hard work I put into making her shelves perfect for her went unnoticed and she much rather spent the time reading the same books over and over again.

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At first I felt like I had wasted my time doing her shelves up(this phase lasted about a month), but I realised that she is going through a sensitive period of language. What is interesting is that I can now bring up morals and lessons from those books she was reading at that time to help explain certain situations now, and it really helps her understand. So while it may have seemed far too repetitive then, she was actually just following her own path of development.

Overall I have found Montessori to be something which has helped my daughter grow into her ‘self’. I find it to be a very natural system and one that is harmonic with her natural disposition and innate nature.  

References

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1. Davies, S., & Imai, H. The Montessori toddler.

2. Feez, S. (2014). Montessori and early childhood. [Place of publication not identified]: SAGE Publications Ltd.