Applying Montessori Principles to Everyday Parenting

The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it. No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was. 

Montessori as a system has become rather well-known in recent decades thanks to many of its students whose lives are the very essence of creativity and initiative - Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Celebrity chef and author Julia Child, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and management guru Peter Drucker, to name a few. 

Maria Montessori, the first woman medical doctor from Italy, created the method based entirely on her careful observations of children. She saw education not as a 'preparation for life' but as an 'aid to life', and childhood as a period of self-construction. 

Whether or not a child attends a Montessori school, Montessori principles can be effectively applied to the daily details of parenting. It provides a framework for parents to understand the unique nature of their child against the background of developmental predictability. A child whose developmental needs are met, is a child who is progressively more independent and resourceful and creative. She is able to initiate, self-direct, be patient, persist, seek and utilise resources and deeply engage in the joys of life - while leveraging her unique abilities. 

This course is a how-to primer on understanding and parenting/teaching children in the 6-7 to 12-13 yrs of age. How they are unique, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how best to kindle the fire of learning in them and how to keep them happily challenged. 

More on our expert course facilitator, Sowmya Jatesan, here.