Thoughts and Reflections - 1

As part of my Montessori Training course we went to several schools which are Montessori as well as regular schools that have Montessori Method practiced between 3-6 years of age. I had mixed reactions and opinions and was really contemplating as to what is Montessori? Is whatever we are learning as part of our course just to write an exam? But, when it comes real practice of the method and philosophy it all gets compromised to the expectations of the parents.

Well, my understanding of the Montessori philosophy is that children have a natural urge to learn and they have the sensitive periods that guide them to learn and do certain things for their development. For example, we do not teach the children to walk or to talk etc. yet they learn, all children within a particular age. This is so, since they have the sensitive period to achieve that development. Where the initiative to develop themselves comes from within, and when the right kind of environment is provided for it, they achieve it. For example, in case of talking, he should have people surrounding him talk a particular language so that he can pick that language to talk and doesn’t even have to be taught any vocabulary as he can apply his language at appropriate places. This to us seems very natural. So the same can be applied to even learning language and math, which to our Indian parents are so important and are considered as the benchmark for intelligence.

When I observed, I was able to sense that in certain schools that gave the children a choice on their work, children between age 4 – 6 chose mostly language and math activities, while the preschoolers chose EPL and sensorial. This demonstrates beautifully the sensitive period of the child. But some schools do pressurize the children to concentrate mostly on only language and math, considering EPL to be such a waste. But this is where Dr. Montessori created magic. One must see the child’s face when he or she is engrossed in doing the EPL activity, it is like meditation. They work with so much concentration and the completion of task gives them immense satisfaction.

Also the child at such a young age has his or her own agenda for learning. And when that agenda is met, his learning becomes complete and may even be with him for the rest of his life. Parents of today have become totally blind to all this. We only want to push, push and push the child into doing whatever we want and complain that he/she is not good at something. We need to understand that though it is our child we have to respect them as another human being with its own brain and thoughts and desires etc.

My humble request to parents is stop talking and start listening to your kids. Not just to whatever they are saying, but also other things, their feelings, their involvement in certain experiences. There is so much we can learn from them. Because they are small in structure doesn’t mean they are less to us. How many times have we as parents stopped our children from learning when they were toddlers because we had to rush somewhere. Learning? What am I saying here? Yeah cos we do not even realize that when the child just wanted to stop and stare at the march of ants is even learning something. Who are we to decide that, that is not even something that is worthy of learning?

So our real role of educating our children is to facilitate and be there for them and understand their eagerness to learn and not put pressure on them with our own agenda on whether they have to get into IIT or IIM etc. There is Kamal Hassan and there is also Amartya Sen. They are what they are because of their passion and involvement in their work and not because that’s what the world expected them to be.

Back from Hibernation!

Happy New Year folks! Sorry have been away from the blogging scene for a while now. I have some very exciting things to share. I have taken up a part-time Montessori Training course and have been busy with the home works and putting my son in a new school and handling things at home etc. We have sacrificed our holidays this year and my husband has been doing an amazing job of baby sitting on Fridays and Saturdays while i'm travelling and some 20 odd kilometers for my training classes.

So much of learning and unlearning happening. I feel more grounded as a parent now. Well its not like i've found answers to all my questions but its just that i feel more confident and sure of my parenting and the decisions i'm taking. As for my son, he was initially very disturbed by my being away as he was not used to. But now he's come to understand and accept my schedule. I should thank him for that. And it's also fun to try out all my lessons especially in exercises of practical life with my son. I have lots and lots of things to share and will do so in my subsequent blogs.

Swetha

Which movies are for the kids?

Prahlad was already fond of, or should I say mad about cars and can identify most of them that goes on the road. And recently he’s become mad about the Cars movie. He loves the movie (and so do me and my husband). We watched Cars 2 in the theatres with him but not Cars 1 as he was not born then. One day my husband was downloading some old Disney movies like Bambi and Lion king and also downloaded Cars. So now Prahlad watches that movie at least twice in a week. Though he is not old enough to understand the moral and the characters in that movie, he has a few favorites. Doc, surprisingly is his favorite among the rest. Of course he likes Lightning McQueen and Mater but for some reason he loves Doc and keeps asking if he can have a Doctor Hudson car to play with.

But every time I see that movie I’m all in awe of the characterization and the message that movie conveys. That racing is not all about winning and how bad attitude don’t get you friends etc. It’s a lesson a lot of us can learn from that kids’ movie. On the contrary, we wanted to watch this ‘Nan E’ movie because of all the good reviews it got and someone suggested we take our kid along as he’d enjoy the movie. But since we wanted him to spend some time with his grandparents, we left him and went for the movie. Though the movie was good, there were also lots of violence and negativity in that movie which the kids can’t take. It’s not a movie for the kids, yes. But to think that a movie on some animal or insect would entertain a kid is nonsense. (we noticed a lot of them brought their kids and cousins for this movie) That the hero was not in the human form but in the form of a housefly is the only difference. But for that, scenes of cars flying and glasses shattering and evil spirits were all present making it not a worthy watch for the kids.

I think it’s the responsibility of the parents to make sure what sort of movies they can take the kids for. Most of our Tamil movies have a good dose of sex and violence and don’t fit into the category of family watching together. I have till today wondered how a movie like ‘Velayudam’ acted by Vijay was so popular among kids. I couldn’t sit even half way through the movie since the violence and the re-recording were so disturbing. Then imagine what sort of impact it’d have on kids. I wonder if the parents think about the impact or just see it as the kid having some fun. While we all have grown up watching movies where some scenes are not appropriate to us and it has not created so much of impact in the general sense, it still becomes very important to at least ask the kids and understand what they interpret out of the action scenes they see.

And the next time we want to watch a movie with the family, parents can find out from their friends who have watched, if it’s appropriate to watch with kids. And if there are scenes of sex or violence, we need to talk to the kid in an appropriate manner so that they don’t get any bad messages out of it. In today’s world, movies are just one little part of the entire media industry and hence it’s the parent’s utmost responsibility to decide and let the kids know what is right and what is not. Talking it out with kids is much better than assuming they are ignorant.

Swetha

Importance of sensory play

Children are programmed to receive and utilize sensory inputs from day 1. Children need to have their senses (touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing) engaged to create a meaning for their experiences. It primarily helps in brain development by creating classifications and associations, thus leading to cause and effect. Moreover, it is all the more important for toddlers and preschoolers whose language is just beginning to develop. Because, sensory experiences will also pave way for language expression and development. As parents and caregivers, it is our job to help them explore their senses by providing appropriate activities for sensory play. Below, we will discuss some of the ideas for sensory play.


1. Touch – We all have a lot of ideas about how we can use touch as part of sensory play. It mainly helps in developing fine motor skills for toddlers. Sand, Water and Play-doh are popular among kids. But we can also explore on other day-to-day items. The challenge is how out-of-the-box our thinking is in order to create an interesting sensory play experience for the kid. Some of them are rice, sugar, shaving foam or cream, ice cubes, leaves, jelly or jams, different textured papers, cloth materials etc.. (please feel free to add anything that you can think of which I’ve missed)

Sensory play with colored rice

Playing with shaving foam

Pal playing with soap bubbles; In case you're wondering what's that below his nose, its my kajal that he's wearing like a mush

2. Sight – Sight constitutes anything the child sees. But don’t just stop with pointing out things. Get into the details. For e.g. if you are showing the child birds that are flying, also point out how different birds fly at different speed and how they use their wings to fly etc. Take kids for nature walks and help them notice different things. Even a small insect or an ant is an observation worth it for the kids. But please don’t confuse this with watching TV. :-)

3. Smell – This particular sensory activity is not given much of an importance to kids as much as we do with touch and sight. If you think about it, a lot of our childhood memories would be associated with a particular smell. A visit to a relative’s house, a special snack made by your grandma etc. Kitchen is one of the best places to start with for younger kids. Make them smell coffee, turmeric and other items and you can explain how certain things have a strong smell while others don’t. Nature walk can help here too. Make them smell different flowers. The smell of sand during the first showers of monsoon. You can find plenty of ideas. But when it comes to smell, the children will not be as eager as touching or tasting. So we have to first initiate and explain how we feel when we smell those flowers or a favorite dish etc.

4. Taste – Children have an urge to taste things right from when they were babies. It is their natural instinct to put those things in their mouth, which their hands can pick. They try to understand the nature of a particular stuff by putting it into their mouth. We can give kids different kinds of food stuff so that they try to understand how they taste. The flip side could be that some kids might start disliking a few of them. But nevertheless, this is a fun exercise to do. And if you have an older kid, why not let him/her make a dish and have a tasting session? Also if you have curious kids surrounding you when you are working in the kitchen, why not let them experience the raw taste of certain items like tamarind, salt, ginger etc. (definitely not chilies, please)

5. Hearing – This is also one particular sense I’d not underestimate, especially with my boy telling me which reverse sound belongs to which car in our apartment. Music plays a very important role in terms of hearing sensory. Expose your kids to different kinds of music. Thankfully our country is so diverse that we listen to classical to film songs to hip hop. Have a dancing session where you can sing and dance along with your kid. Another fun game is to have a quiz on identifying the birds chirping and animal noises.

Sensory play has lifelong benefits of learning for kids. It’s up to us to provide them the right kind of materials and environment that is both safe and fun. Please feel free to share your ideas and what you’ve done with your kids.

Time Off!

I know it’s been quite some time since my previous blog. My hubby, R went to the Himalayas for 10 days and I went to my mom’s place to take a lil bit time off my mommyhood. We all become such lazy bums at mom’s place. So I was watching TV, catching up on some reading had lots of time to sleep, didn’t cook for full 10 days. But now life’s back to those normal routine days.

At my mom’s place I saw all the TV I can – neengalum vellalam oru kodi (I never saw this before and wanted to see how Surya hosts), super singer, movies, news channels etc. and Pal got to watch lots of cartoons and ended up watching lots of fighting scenes (which was the bad part). What’s so special about this? You may wonder, well we do not have a TV at home. It was a combined decision by R and myself that we’ll not buy a TV. It’s been close to a year since we moved to our house and we are still going strong.

And so I was wondering, not having TV actually makes a world of difference to our lives. One, whether it affects Pal or not I end up watching all the crap and thus exposing him to it too. Also I may not have gotten all this time to spend with him, do activities with him if that time goes to TV time. We spend lot of time playing, drawing, telling stories and most of all reading. Pal loves books and loves to be read to before his nap time as well as before hitting the bed in the night.

Another important reason pediatricians recommend not to expose kids to television is no matter how educational and kid friendly it is, it is a very passive medium. Kids learn best when they put all their senses into it like touching, feeling, smelling, moving etc. Even audio is fine as it improves their creativity.

But that doesn’t mean that he does not experience any screen time. I show him stuff in you tube, download some movies and he watches rhymes in the boom box. But otherwise he gets to listen to a lot of songs since my source of entertainment too is from radio and the internet ofcourse. When we tell this to people, some of them react as though life without TV is just not possible. But we are so used to it now.

Also I realised that most of the time we only waste our time flipping through channels and not watching anything properly. And news channels? They are much worse than reality shows. So in case any of you are wondering if your child is too adddicted to the TV, please sell it off. Our lives will still go on without it.

Ps: If your husband insists that he’ll miss his IPL, tell him he can anyway watch it online ;-)

swetha

Why do we stop learning?

How many of us as parents make our children do homework, send them to tuitions, and blame them for not understanding their lessons. Why do we have to treat learning which is a natural thing for the human mind into such a chore? Coming to think of that, when did we last learn something for the sake of learning? After we get into our jobs, we only think about money and job position. I once met a maths teacher who teaches math for primary classes. I was telling her about the website khanacademy.org and how it helps understand math concepts in a simpler way. And the reaction I got from her was ‘chal forget it, it’s boring, I keep doing this day in and day out’. I was surprised by that comment from a teacher. And it made me wonder, if teachers teach because they want the kids to learn or just listen to what they have to say?

I was never thinking about teaching until recently. But I come to understand that to teach, you first have to be open to learn. How can u inspire a child to learn when you yourself are not open to the concept? When I’m talking about learning, it’s not just about the subject that you teach but also try to learn how the child understands what u teach. And I’m not talking just about a school environment; it can even be the day to day teaching that you do as a parent for your child. Even when we discipline the kid, we only want the kid to listen to us but don’t really bother about why he should learn a certain behavior or why something is bad.

I know I can just go on about this, but the other day I was playing Mega Bloks with my boy, he made something out of 3 blocks and proudly announced ‘Amma, look four’. I was really looking in awe as to how he was able to perceive a number by fixing a few blocks. So after that we both tried to make a few alphabets and numbers through the blocks.

PAL completed two years recently and one of the gifts he got was the alphabet and number puzzle made out of foam board. So I was removing the alphabets and making him fix it into the right board. After sometime he was playing by himself while I moved on to do some other work. He comes out from his room and shows me alphabet ‘V’ upside down and told me ‘Amma, pant’. I was almost on tears. I then learnt that there are absolutely no rules or boundaries to learn, the difference it takes is just in our minds.

It's so beautiful how kids learn in the most unconventional way, through play, through music, through conversation, by asking questions and it just gives us more responsibility to give them a more conducive environment for them to learn than confine to the conventional parenthood which comes with the mindset that 'i'm now a parent and hence i don't have to learn anything, its only my child's duty to learn.' When we as parents inspire our kids to learn, why would our kids treat learning a chore?

PAL and myself made this Car Park for all this cars, he takes reverse of the cars he wants outside by humming reverse tunes similar to his dad's car :-)

Lessons through storytelling

Offlate I’ve been so taken by this whole concept of storytelling. PAL loves stories and he loves hearing the same story again and again and again. Sometimes I get so bored, but he doesn’t. There are some situational stories that I make up for him to brush his teeth and drink his milk. He started going to playschool and I had to make the morning chores of waking him up, brushing his teeth, drinking milk an easy experience for both of us without leading to any power struggles or conflicts. Hence one fine morning I just came up with a story for making him brush his teeth:

“Once Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse were playing in the garden (kutty park in his language) when suddenly a worm jumped out from Mickey’s mouth and Minnie jumped on seeing the wiggly worm come out of his mouth. So she asked him if he brushes his teeth for which Mickey says, ‘it’s a boring thing to do’. So Minnie takes him to a dentist who examines his teeth and tells him there are lots of worms inside and cleans up everything. So he then gives mickey a red color toothbrush and toothpaste and tells him it is wise to brush his teeth everyday”.

So finally he brushes his teeth.. Well life’s not so easy, cos sometimes the story doesn’t work, so I’ve to think of other creative ways to make him brush his teeth. Once his friend gifted him a Lightning Macqueen car and thanks to it, as it shows its teeth all smiling. So I brush its teeth first and make him brush his own. These are characters he loves being associated with, he’s mad about Mickey and adores Lightning. And then comes drinking milk. Now when he takes the glass of milk from me he immediately asks me for the goofy story that I tell him. That story goes something like this:

“Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Daisy and Donald are playing in the park and after sometime Goofy becomes very tired. And Mickey asks him if he had anything to eat or drink before coming for play. So Goofy tells Mickey how he dislikes milk so much. So then Mickey takes him to his house and makes him a special chocolate milk like how I give for PAL. Goofy takes a liking for it and after he drinks it, becomes very strong that he’s able to play lots of games”.

Well, these stories may seem very silly, but not to my 2 year old hero. He loves them and what’s better, there’s no fighting or power struggles for getting him to eat his food or drink his milk. Off late I made up my stories out of a cartoon he watched in YouTube about a Tractor Tom, and he just loves them and wants to hear them again and again. He loves listening to stories at bedtime. I have a collection of few Disney and ladybird books from which I tell him stories and sometimes he’d want to listen to Hindu mythology stories and on a few nights it’s the old traditional fables. And the best thing about this is that he once told us a story by combining three stories together (by randomly jumping from one story to another) and made it into one .
I feel stories are just great ways of connecting with your child. Whether you want to teach him about values or candidly encourage him to do a task, they come in very handy.

SR