Unschooling: Soap Bubble Edition

My four-year-old found an old bubble wand and asked if we could make bubbles, so I googled this recipe and we set to work.  She had a great time measuring, pouring and stirring, and she got to experience sugar disappearing in water to make a solution (yay, science and vocabulary!).

We were having so much fun blowing bubbles on our back patio that my seven-year-old decided to join the party.  He wanted to see how far the bubbles could travel without popping, and noticed that there were several updrafts and wind currents that moved the bubbles along.  We talked about how hot air rises, and about how wind currents change direction at different altitudes.

We also tried out wands of different shapes and made our own out of pipe cleaners to see if they affected the shape of the bubble.  My little one came up with a fun experiment where she dipped a pipe cleaner in bubble solution and then pierced the bubble film on a wand without popping it!

Then we tried making bubbles holding our fingers in an OK sign, which led to catching bubbles (this is much easier if your hand is covered in bubble solution).  That led to talking about surface tension and surfactants, which led to observing the bubbles we were holding in our hands.

My son noticed swirls that flowed on the surface of the bubble, and I vaguely remembered seeing an experiment with milk, food coloring and soap that looked similar to the swirls.  I stealthily snuck inside and googled “swirls in soap bubbles”.  That led me to the Marangoni effect, which led me to the experiment I was thinking of, and I had everything I needed to continue our learning journey when the bubble activity died down outside.

After lunch, my four-year-old and I poured milk and dye into a plate, and added one drop of soap.  My seven-year-old, who claimed not to want to learn anything else about bubbles, was instantly drawn to the experiment and repeated it three times.  During his second attempt, I pointed out the milk’s surface tension (really easy to see on a flat plate!) and asked him what effect he thought the soap had on it.

And to wrap up a fun day, we took the solution and wands to the park and invited a couple of neighborhood kids to help us chase and pop bubbles.  Whew!  So much learning, so many discoveries, and so much fun… And all because my daughter found an old wand, we didn’t have plans for the day, and I chose to say yes.

 

 

The Entitlement Myth

A few weeks into his first-grade year, my formerly sweet and relatively cooperative son began acting sassy, cocky, and entitled.  Requests for help were met with groans and eye-rolls.  Limits were countered with sighs and “whatever“s.

We gave him the benefit of a doubt: Surely he was just imitating his older classmates’ rude behaviors.  Or maybe this was a misguided attempt at being more independent.  All my friends’ children were acting the same way, so it was probably a developmental phase.  Regardless of the reason, I dealt with entitled children all day long at work and  I wasn’t about to put up with the same behaviors from my son at home.

My husband and I gave Zachary a speech about behavioral expectations in our family.  He gave us a sigh and an eye-roll.  This was going to be harder than I thought…

A quick Google search on books about childhood entitlement led me to “The ‘Me, Me, Me’ Epidemic: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Capable, Grateful Children in an Over-Entitled World”.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book revolves around the principles of Positive Discipline, which I’ve used for years.

The first practical suggestion for countering entitlement is called “Mind, Body, and Soul Time” (MBST).  It requires each parent to set aside just ten minutes a day to “be fully present in mind, body, and soul and do whatever your child loves to do.”

Ten minutes a day sounded like a paltry amount of time until I started seeing the day from my son’s perspective.  From wake-up to bedtime, I was always busy with something – too busy to spend ten minutes one-on-one with him.

When he woke up, I was making breakfasts, packing lunch boxes, and getting everyone out the door on time.  Even though Zachary and I spent the day together at school, we were always surrounded by other children and adults.  Then at 5pm it was a mad rush to pick up his sister, drive home, get dinner made in 15 minutes, and sit down for ten minutes to eat as a family.  My husband would read the kids a book and tuck them in while I cleaned the kitchen, answered work emails, and planned the following day’s lessons.  Our life ran on a strict timetable and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find ten minutes to just be with him without sacrificing some essential task and sending the whole house of cards crashing down.

Three months after reading the book, we decided as a family to walk away from the madness of our lifestyle.  We shifted into the slow pace of unstructured homeschooling and discovered something we never had before: TIME.

Without the need to wake up at 6am, my son could go to bed later.  And without the need to hurriedly clean the kitchen and answer work emails, I could spend time with him.  And so, I started reading to him for an hour each night (his favorite thing to do).

Within a week, my husband pointed out, “Zachary is so much happier.”  It was true: my little boy began to laugh again.  Then, we noticed another change.  He became physically affectionate.  The child who had been pulling away from us began moving back into our lives.  He started folding his 4’4″, 70 lb. frame into our laps, requesting snuggles.  Or he’d jump into our arms and wrap his arms and legs around us in a full-body hug.

And then, about a month in, we noticed it.  The entitlement, sass, and attitude had disappeared almost completely.  Requests for help were now met with an agreeable attitude; limits were either accepted or discussed rationally.  We even started hearing a phrase we’d never heard from him before: “How can I help?”

Sure, he has his moments, especially when he’s hungry or tired.  But overall, he’s a different child.

He’s a different child because I’m a different mother and we lead a different lifestyle.

Now, I’m certainly not saying that everyone should drop what they’re doing and homeschool.  But we need to stop justifying rudeness and entitlement as “normal” parts of growing up.  These behaviors are cries for help from little beings who are evolutionarily primed to connect.  So please, find those ten minutes, before it’s too late.

“The impulse to be good arises less from a child’s character than from the nature of a child’s relationships. If a child is ‘bad’, it’s the relationship we need to correct, not the child.” – Gordon Neufeld, “Hold On to Your Kids”

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Rediscovering Motherhood

An American friend and colleague who lives in Asia recently shared with me that her in-laws had moved out of her house.  They had been very involved in raising her children, so I asked if she missed having the help.  She texted back, “No.  I’m forced to be the mom and it’s what my kids want and what family is supposed to be.”

As I sat staring at her words on my screen, the last seven years of my life – my entire parenthood journey – flashed before my eyes.  I remembered how both times I had a baby I told myself that I’d stay home with them until they were three.  And how, by the time they were each 15 months old, I was desperate to find a job – any job – that would transport me away from the solitude, burden, and relentlessness of motherhood.

Though I enjoyed my teaching job, it was also a band-aid that covered up the rawness of parenting and kept its suffocating weight at bay for ten hours a day.  Yes, as a teacher I was still working with children.  But, they were other people’s children, not my own.  The responsibility for my students’ outcome didn’t rest solely on my shoulders.

Ironically, my hyper-focus on work ended up dragging me, kicking and screaming, back to stay-at-home motherhood.  The burden of a more-than-full-time job dictated the rhythm of my children’s days.  My night-owl son struggled mightily with 6am wake-ups, and spent the day being angry and uncooperative. My daughter cried daily at drop-off for two years, was constantly sick, and threw massive tantrums.  I fretted and lost sleep over other people’s children, all the while downplaying the struggles of my own.

Like an illness that forces you to slow down and reassess your life, their cries for help finally broke through to my mothering instinct – that part of me that for several years had lain curled up in a ball, shaking its head and refusing to fully engage.  Mercifully, conditions at work conspired to push me in a new direction, and finally one day I packed up my belongings, picked up my children, and drove away.

Homeschooling became my new project, and I threw all my energy into re-creating a mini-classroom at home.  But my children were only vaguely interested in the materials.  They played outdoors, built intricate LEGO creations, read lots of books, and reveled in their new freedom.  And while I fretted over incomplete lesson plans, a voice from my heart told me: “Leave them alone. They’re doing the work of childhood.  You go work on yourself.”

Crap.  I’d been avoiding working on myself for years.  “Teacher” was a label that had allowed me to work on others.  But I was no longer a teacher; I was “just a mom”.  Being a mom meant I had to become reacquainted with the vulnerabilities of motherhood.   I had to examine my own shortcomings and anxieties, lest I inadvertently pass them on to my children.  I also had to identify and dissect my triggers, and remain present through the chaos.  I had to move past society’s cognitively dissonant perceptions of motherhood, and craft a definition that rang true to me.

Being vulnerable is exhausting.  It’s also some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.  Someone on my Facebook page wrote: “Homeschooling is a gift you will never regret giving to your children.”  And I’m starting to realize that, in addition to homeschooling being a gift to my children, rediscovering motherhood through homeschooling has been a gift to myself.  It’s a gift I never even knew I wanted, and one that I now can’t imagine living without.

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If you know someone who would enjoy reading this essay, please share it with them!

 

 

Moon-tessori (haha, couldn’t resist)

“You’re great at this homeschooling thing because you’re a teacher… I don’t think I could do it because I don’t know much about anything.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this phrase since we started homeschooling two months ago, coming from the most capable and well-prepared mothers in my circle of friends.  So here’s a little secret… I don’t know everything.  Heck, I don’t know most things!  But I don’t let that hold me back from learning and sharing with my children.  Here’s an example of how I facilitate learning, and how you can, too!

The moon is a topic that seems to keep coming up in the Full Montessori household.  Over the past few months we’ve read several fiction and non-fiction books about the moon (links at the bottom of this post) and we play games trying to find different shapes (a rabbit, and old man) on its surface.  Seven-year-old Zachary had been asking why the moon changes through the month, so I knew it was prime time for a moon lesson.

Truth be told, even after 12 years as a Montessori guide, I could never quite grasp HOW the moon moved in relationship with the Earth, why the lighted part changed throughout the month, or how to tell when the lighted part was growing or shrinking.  But the beauty of being a guide is that you don’t have to know everything, you just have to “learn ahead of your children” (I love that Charlotte Mason phrase).

So, I found these two extremely helpful videos and FINALLY understood how it all works (thank you, Google)!

Then I dragged my kids to the craft store to buy a foam sphere (without telling them what it would be for); printed, cut, and laminated these free Moon Phases cards; and practiced the Moon/Earth/Sun demonstration when my kids weren’t around.  Yes, sometimes it takes That. Much. Work.

But, you know what?  It was so worth it!  I invited my son to sit down and told him his head was the Earth (my three-year-old daughter wasn’t interested, because, hello concrete thinker!).  I then began slowly moving the moon around his head, and he saw how the lighted part of the white sphere grew from waxing crescent to first quarter.  His eyes widened and his mouth stretched into a knowing smile.  I continued moving the moon around his head and I could tell he was enjoying the discovery process as much as I had.  When we were done and I had casually sprinkled the terms for the moon phases into the demonstration, he got up and went downstairs to play with his sister.

I waited for a lull in their play and pulled out the moon phases cards.  I told him we were going to play a moon game and put the “New Moon” card on the rug.  I lined up the other cards randomly on the edge of the rug and said, “Hmm, which card might go next?”  Eager to apply his knowledge, he quickly fished out the Waxing Crescent card and completed the entire cycle on his own.  He mixed up Waning Crescent and Waning Gibbous, but I didn’t say anything.  I just offered the control chart and he caught his mistake on his own.

If you’re a Montessorian, you might be wondering why I used the control cards for the lesson (heresy!!).  If you must know, my son has little tolerance for three-part cards.  They just don’t resonate with how he learns.  If he knows the information, he isn’t the type of child who will humor you with busy work just to show you what he knows.  And if he doesn’t know something, he wants to get straight to the knowledge and understanding part right away – and three-part cards just don’t give him that.  I knew (from experience) that if I went through the whole rigamarole of having him lay out the picture cards, finding the corresponding labels, and then using the control cards to check, I’d lose him for sure.

There are about a thousand different ways to help your child solidify their knowledge of the moon phases, or any other concept they’re curious about.  My intention here was to illustrate how I go about preparing myself to facilitate my children’s learning – and often, my own!

Favorite moon books:

Fiction: Luna and the Moon Rabbit, Kitten’s First Full Moon

Non-fiction: Jump Into Science: Moon, The Moon Book

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From Montessori to Unschooling and Back

Preface: I struggled to write this because my goal is NOT to cast Zachary’s old school in a negative light.  I believe that this school has done an amazing job of providing a quality Montessori experience for hundreds of families.  However, each school, teacher and family has their own set of values and goals, and it’s the parents’ responsibility to find the most successful match.  I wrote this post mainly as a case study, to share an experience that we all – parents, guides, and administrators – can learn from in our journey to support each child’s unique developmental path.  

It’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll start at the beginning, when my son was very young.  I was planning on keeping Zachary at home until he was 3 years old and ready to enter the Children’s House, but an amazing career opportunity came up, which included guaranteed acceptance for Zach in a wonderful Toddler Community.  So, at the tender age of 19 months, he began his Montessori schooling experience.  He had a great year in the program, with a talented group of teachers who brought out the very best in him.

By the time he was 2 1/2, he was fully toilet independent (meaning I didn’t even have to take extra clothes or a potty along when we went out) and he had basically mastered all the Toddler materials.  His teacher and the Pedagogical Coordinator said that he was ready to transition to the Primary program in the Fall.

Now, being a Montessori guide myself, I know that when a child transitions this young to Primary, a certain set of challenges present themselves (my very first classroom had a whopping 12 children under the age of 3).  More often than not, the guide will have to keep the child in a holding pattern of sorts until they’re almost 3 years old, because they don’t yet have the maturity or interest to work with most of the materials in the Primary environment or participate in some of the more social activities.

You end up doing A LOT of Practical Life, dealing with never-ending spills, and spending a lot of time taking them to the bathroom.  It takes a lighthearted sense of humor (which took me a while to develop) to work with these little people who are slowly, S-L-O-W-L-Y transitioning from what Dr. Montessori called the unconscious creator to the conscious worker.

The first red flag that the transition wasn’t going well came when my fully toilet-indepenent son began having one miss after another in the classroom.  And it wasn’t just a little urine that leaked out; it was full-on wetting and soiling, as if he’d NEVER used a toilet before.  The school tried to tell me he had regressed at home over the summer, but I knew what my child was capable of (he’d been out of diapers during the day since he was 12 months old, and diaper-free at night since he turned two, at his own request).  I also knew that sudden selective incontinence was a sign of emotional distress due to a lack of perceived control.

I asked the teacher what kind of toileting support she offered transitioning toddlers, and she said that she showed them where the bathroom was and told them they could use it when they needed to.  I pointed out that toddlers are used to a regimented toileting routine at school and at home, and that they need help transitioning away from it.  I explained that she would need to set up a routine for him that entailed using the bathroom each morning upon arrival, before any work took place, and then again after snack, before going back to work.  The staff was supportive and did their best to ensure he was comfortable using the bathroom, but his misses had become a habit by then, and it took the better part of a year to get him back on track.

Then, Zachary began complaining that he didn’t have any friends to play with.  He was by far the youngest child in his class, since all his friends stayed behind in the Toddler Community because they weren’t toilet independent yet.  His 2 1/2-year old brain wasn’t developed enough to understand and participate in the sophisticated make-believe games of the older children, whom he so desperately wanted to be friends with.  It took about six months for him to reach a level of maturity that allowed him to play alongside the older three- and four-year olds.

Another challenge was the choice of materials and the teacher’s expectations.  I’m not sure why, but she tried to move him along very quickly through the Montessori curriculum.  Instead of engaging him in the extensions (such as matching activities and distance games) that encourage repetition, help solidify skills, and support age-appropriate development, she began presenting materials that were intended for older children.

On one occasion, I observed as she presented him (at 2yrs 10mo of age) with the Smelling Bottles, a material ideally suited for 4-year olds.  Zach promptly took out the cotton balls holding the different scented items (because he was curious about what was inside) and started stacking the fragile glass bottles (because two-year olds love to stack), so the teacher had to take the material away.  If you constantly give children activities that are too challenging for them, and then get upset when they misuse them, they begin to think they’re incapable of success.  And that’s exactly the attitude my once self-confident son began to exhibit.

I tried to share my insight and knowledge of my son with the teacher, but nothing changed.  When she couldn’t handle his youthful energy, she’d send him and the other little boys to garden outside with the assistant teacher.  Needless to say, my son developed quite a green thumb!

Throughout the year, we had to pep-talk him daily to go to school, telling him about the fun he’d have with his friends.  He didn’t seem thrilled about his experience, but he was developing self-discipline, enjoying his new friendships, and wasn’t getting into trouble.  I thought things would improve the following school year since he’d be more mature.

When school started again this past September, his behavior deteriorated quickly.  The assistant he had grown so attached to (during countless hours of gardening) left the school, and he hadn’t developed a close bond with the head teacher.  He didn’t have a connection with the materials and had a hard time choosing purposeful work since he never had the experience of doing extensions.  To him, the materials were just something you repeated once after the teacher gave a presentation, and then put away.  And since he was now older, more social, and his friends from the Toddler Community had finally transitioned, he was having a blast giggling and goofing around.

I began camping out in front of his classroom’s one-way windows to observe for an hour or more almost daily, tiny newborn in tow.  What I saw was a vicious cycle: He’d be bored of working with a material, so he’d start to play with other friends who were also bored.  The teacher would approach with a stern look, and they’d all fly off in different directions.  At the teacher’s urging, he’d take out another material he wasn’t interested in, do it for a short while to get her off his back, and the cycle would repeat itself.

This was of course a recipe for disaster.  The adults, who were under a lot of pressure to have a calm and perfectly-functioning model classroom, became more and more authoritarian.  And my strong-willed and acutely sensitive son, who hasn’t been raised to fear adults and isn’t manipulated by bribes, rewards, fear, lectures, or punishments, reacted strongly.

This child, who won’t even hit the piñata at a birthday party because it’s too violent, started lashing out physically at unsuspecting classmates.  He also began screaming in class, screams his teacher said “sounded like his soul was hurting”.  And it really was.

I kept ruthlessly analyzing our home life for indications that he was being affected by something we were doing there, but came up empty.  He was gentle and loving with his baby sister, expressive about his emotions and needs, as cooperative as a three-year old can be with chores and routines, and well-behaved with other moms and children during playdates.

Mornings at home were great until he found out it was a school day, and then he would refuse to get dressed (he even went to school in his pajamas a couple of times, which prompted the teacher to ask if something was wrong at home).  In the car, he’d quietly suck his fingers and tug at his blankie (when he’s normally a chatterbug).  When I picked him up at noon he’d report his day had been “bad” (but wouldn’t give any details).  And to make matters worse, one day he announced, “I’m good at making people angry.”

The school director was supportive of my concerns and seemed to understand the problem clearly.  She offered a few solutions, like adding non-Montessori materials to the classroom to engage my son.  However, I felt at that point that the child and teacher just weren’t a good match.

During his fifth week of school, I picked him up and asked how his day went.  He said in a sad, sad voice: “My teacher got angry at me because I didn’t know where to put away the geography material.”  As a guide, I could imagine that he probably didn’t know where to put away the material and began to goof off with a friend.  But the fact that his teacher had reacted to a three-year old with anger, and that he was so sensitive to her reaction, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  My mothering instinct kicked into high gear and I made the decision to pull him out of school that very day.

With no time to prepare materials, and with a four-month old baby at home, I decided that a period of unschooling was in order.  I put aside all expectations and we played Legos, read books, discovered audiobooks, built structures, did simple crafts, visited museums and libraries, cooked, went to gymnastics and yoga classes, and practiced Grace & Courtesy.  I followed Montessori principles (like respecting his concentration, encouraging repetition, and adopting a friendly attitude towards mistakes) but did almost no Montessori work.

I learned a lot about him: how he’d shut down the moment he realized I had an agenda to teach him something; how he loved being the teacher; how he was very insecure about letters and numbers; how he could come up with creative solutions to tough problems; how he enjoyed making his own science experiments; how his greatest joy in life is making people happy.

Some days were beautiful and I cried tears of joy as I watched him explore and discover.  Some days were brutal and involved an episode or two of Mister Rogers to get us through the afternoon.  The idealistic part of me wanted to unschool him for the rest of his childhood, but the realistic part of me knew that I wouldn’t be able to provide the materials and social experience of a quality Montessori program.  And as a Montessorian, I really want this for my child.

I think we would’ve found our unschooling groove if it were our only option.  But fortunately for us, LePort Montessori schools just opened a campus about 15 minutes from our house and three of my talented AMI-trained friends work there.  I approached the school and was able to secure a spot for Zachary in the classroom of a friend and talented guide.

He started on Tuesday, and before he left the house I asked him to please listen to his teacher, since she would show him lots of interesting materials.  That afternoon, he defiantly told me: “I didn’t do anything the teacher told me to do.”  I let the comment go and asked what kind of work he did.  He said, “I did punching, but I did it wrong.  Everything I did, I did it wrong.”  It was as if he was carrying with him a label, an expectation he had to meet at all costs.

I spoke to his teacher, who assured me he had had a good day.  The next morning he left the house without a fight, and when I picked him up he said: “Whew!  I’m tired, I did a lot of work!”  His smile and look of satisfaction warmed my heart.

Our journey has come full circle, and I’ve learned an infinite amount, both as a parent and as a guide.  I hope that by reading our story, you’ve learned something, too.