If you’re here and reading this, you likely know how I spend much of my time throughout the week. But for those new here, I spend much of my time nurturing children (currently four little girls) in a prepared Montessori learning environment within my home.
In our prepared environment, children participate in self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play. This space is a “YES” space, meaning they can touch, explore, and move confidently, knowing this environment is for them. Right now, the kids are primarily focused on language development, practical life skills (table setting, hand washing, food prep, gardening, dressing, dishes, watering plants, cleaning up, etc.), emotional development (practicing using humor, hope, somatic practices, and empathy to build up the children), and potty learning. Each child has their own interests, and I try to honor them by setting the space with materials within their interests. Ultimately, the goal of this space is to nurture each child’s *own* unique essence, which I’ve found is best nurtured through freedom (within limits of safety), the power to make their own creative choices, and learning through natural consequences.
The philosophies in this space align with ideas from educators such as Piaget and Montessori and child-rearing practices such as conscious parenting, love and logic, and conscious discipline.
When I opened this space to other families within our community two years ago, I aimed to form a deep sense of attunement with the children I care for.
Attunement is our ability to notice and respond to a child’s needs. This was of utmost importance to me because, as someone who has worked with children in many different atmospheres, I know how rare it is for a child to experience a deep sense of attunement with caregivers outside their family. Continued awareness and responsiveness around a child’s emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual needs encourage a secure attachment. And a secure attachment is what sets the foundations for a child’s overall development, especially their ability to connect with others in a healthy way throughout their life. If we want our children to live safe, fulfilling, and happy lives, we must ensure they are attuned to the people who care for them the most.
Much has evolved in this space over the last two years, including my idea about what it actually means to be attuned to a child. With that, I have created the nine guiding principles of our space:
Use humor, hope, empathy, and respect to build the children up.
Allow for freedom of movement and choice.
Honor sensitive periods of development.
Uphold a prepared “yes” space where the child gets to experience independence and auto education.
Live as cyclically as possible (aligned with seasons and moon cycles).
Preserve intrinsic motivation.
Maintain a low-tox and healthy environment.
BE WITH THE WHOLE CHILD.
When I considered what “being with the whole child” means, I realized that essential developmental aspects are missing from most educational programs and institutions— aspects that weren’t taught to me in my early childhood education or college studies. Arguably, these aspects should be prioritized above all else.
Those essential aspects are the power of our breath, the power of movement, the power of our thoughts, the power of wonder, the power of the language that we use, and the power of the mind-body connection (somatics).
Right now, I’m practicing these teachings and principles in this space, but I’m wondering what it would be like to influence environments like this on a much larger scale, and it’s led me to begin creating a program that can be used to teach these practices and philosophies in educational institutions, like public schools (which are, in my opinion, the first place that children begin to lose their truest essence).
I’m curious about how you, your child, or our society would be impacted by a program that taught children the power of their breath, the power of movement, the power of their thoughts, the power of the language that they use,, and the power of the mind-body experience.
Let me know in the comments below.
