Holidays - your golden opportunity to evaluate family life

If you dread school holidays, thinking there will be more pain than pleasure, then it's time to have a long hard look at your family life.

If things in your family are not as you'd like them to be, what's going wrong?

If you could transform your family dynamics into what you'd like them to be, what would they look like?

It's likely you know how you'd like your family to function but not why it doesn't, or how to change it.

If you are ready to make some changes I would love to guide and support you through a process of evaluation. 

Neutral eyes see more clearly.

Together we can work through the available options and choose the path that's right for your family.  

Contact me for a free chat about what you'd like to change and I'll explain the ways I can help you to reach more of your parenting goals. 

For children, real beats pretend every time.

Our homes are awash with toys for children which pretend to replicate the activities of daily life.

What the child really desires is the real activity.

Pretend play will satisfy the child to some extent but never to the level they really desire.

The Montessori approach aims to create the possibility for the child to  participate wherever possible in the world around them. So instead of a wooden 'sink' where the child pretends to wash dishes how can you enable  your little one what they really want to do, which is to wash real dishes, which need washing.

Involving your child in kitchen-based work is relatively easy if a suitable piece of furniture such as a  learning tower is made or purchased.

Washing the dishes is a great example of a simple everyday activity which provides within that one task so much the young child both wants and needs.

In addition to the satisfaction of mastering the task washing the dishes is an activity which provides a mechanism for:

• refining of motor skills

• hand-eye co-ordination

• understanding of cause and effect (e.g. you need to place the dish in the water and rub it with a brush to clean it)

• understanding consequences (if you don't hold the dish tightly it may fall from your grasp and may even break)

Perhaps most importantly your child will experience a sense of satisfaction as they meet their inner drive to participate in real 'work' and are involved in contributing to the family well-being.

Here are just a few examples of other easily available daily household activities loved by small children: 

• Sorting

  • cutlery

  • socks

  • washing

• Cutting (easy examples to start)

  • bananas

  • pears

  • mushrooms

  • zucchini

  • eggs

  • berries

• Spooning (the amount required for a family meal into a pot or bowl)

  • pasta

  • rice

  • beans

  • oats

Children understand that the tasks they see everyday are vital to the well being of the family and allowing your small child to participate in as many of those real tasks as possible will, along with the development of the skills discussed above, provide the child with a strong positive message about their capabilities and their importance within the family unit.

The world is a wonderful, beautiful place - help me see it.

Small children are learning about the world, what do we want them to see?

Do we want them to see the beauty in the detail of a flower or a leaf as they pass a garden? 

Do we want them to see the beauty and the power of their bodies?

Do we want them to see the wonder of the earth as it supports life?

Do we want them to see the beauty of creativity in all its varied forms?

What is it that you most want your child to see?

Clearing away clutter, simplifying life, creating calm and establising order helps us all to see more clearly.