Freedom

I recently spent a week in China on my summer holiday, which was lovely, but also very frustrating. Frustrating because I seemed to have no freedom when it came to what I wanted to do on the internet. I couldn't check my work or Gmail emails, couldn't share photos or videos from my trip on Google Plus or Facebook etc. It reminds you of how important freedom and the ability to make your own choices are, when your freedoms are taken away.

Freedom is a big part of a Montessori classroom, having this freedom allows the child to develop self-control and self-regulation.  The children are encouraged to seek out activities of their own interest, to engage with these activities for as long as they need, and to manage their own daily routines and activities. Rather than being herded from one activity to the next in groups, children individually choose activities that spark their interests. This individualized approach enables children to control their own choices, movements, and activities.

Another great thing about your child having the freedom to choose what they would like to work on is that it means they will be doing something that they are interested in, something that captures their full attention, which in turn develops their concentration span. It might look like your child is just playing, but they are developing one of the most important skills that they can. In the classroom everything we do is geared towards developing their concentration span or dependent on the child being able to work away and concentrate for extended periods of time.

To ensure your child is extending their concentration span, make sure your child has plenty of activities available to them that spark their interests and capture their attention. Montessori said that at this age children have a tendency to be fascinated by small objects and that they seemed to capture their attention, so fiddly little activities seem to be a great option, the popularity of Lego is evidence of this.

I just had to take the photo below, despite his toilet training related nudity! Jake is in love with vehicles at the moment and he had spent such a long time, taking these cars off their shelf and arranging them in a line all next to each other. I have no idea why he chose to do it or what was so satisfying for him to keep taking cars out and lining them up so carefully, but the concentration and desire to work without any encouragement or direction was fantastic to see and he was clearly very happy with his handiwork! It might look like just mindless play, but I was thrilled to see him showing an interest in repetition and precision, two human tendencies that the child should naturally have. Without repetition and precision your child will not excel at things that need practice and take time to learn, so naturally it is something that we should be overjoyed to see them exhibit as well as foster whenever we can. When you see your child working away busily and so absorbed that they have no interest in what you are doing, you know you have hit the jackpot (and not just because you get a few minutes to do something uninterrupted!).

 This all said, the freedom and choice is not unlimited in the classroom. We only put activities into the classroom that we believe will help the child develop a desirable skill, the adults are still puppet masters, subtly manipulating what the children learn. People talk about 'learning through play', I believe all play leads to the children learning something, we choose what they learn through the toys and activities we make available to them. Question what is your child learning from each toy you buy. Most of the time if they love something you can put it to good use teaching them all kinds of things. Playing with a bunch of little cars seems fairly uneducating, but there is a lot you can do with them, learn colour names, sort them by colours, match colours, count them, enumerate with them, learn the names of different parts, different types of vehicles etc. Following your child's interest will always help them to be more interested in what you are teaching, so use it to your advantage. 

There are also certain skills that we would love for the children to acquire and want to integrate into their school day. We hope that the children are always keen to try everything, but often children are lacking in confidence or have insecurities about trying some things. We rule out the option for negativity by giving them a few options rather than a yes/no question. For example, if we think a child would benefit from developing their fine motor skills, rather than asking 'would you like to come and do some drawing with me?', we can tell them that we really would really like to do an activity with them and ask if they would like to do some writing with us, or some drawing? Usually with an option of one or the other, rather than the option of refusing to try, a child will happily make a choice and come away from the experience feeling like they had the freedom to choose what they wanted to work on. 

If your child seems to be worried or reluctant about trying something that you would like to do with them, try giving them some options to choose from. Even if it is a few jobs you need to do in the day like load the dishes or hang out the clothes, ask they what they would like to help you do. I think young children are very frustrated by not being in control, Jake is very much like this and desperately wants independence and freedom, resisting really strongly and showing great frustration when I try to control his movement or take away his freedom. Little reinforcements to make them feel in control should help to reduce their frustration at feeling like they are not in control. If your child is also strong willed enough that fighting it seems to be a waste of time, give it a try to make them feel like they have control over their life and have the ability to choose their own direction.