Book Review - Montessori From The Start

This informative and enlightening book, which I am going to share with you today, is entitled: "Montessori From The Start", written by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen (Schocken Books, 2003)

Most of us, especially parents, have heard of Dr. Maria Montessori and her unique and amazing education method in educating young kids. But how about employing the benefits of Dr. Montessori's insights to benefit your child since birth? Is there any way where parents can apply the Montessori's method during their child's early childhood years to prepare them for a better start in life?

Recognizing the need, the founders of the Forest Bluff School in Lake Bluff Illinois, Paula Polk Lillard and her daughter, Lynn Lillard Jessen, both highly experienced educators, consolidated and condensed their years of experience in their teaching of the Montessori method into this book, entitled "Montessori From The Start".

This book, written based on the authors' insights and experience with working with young minds, provides practical and useful advice on how to use Montessori's theories to create a set of comprehensive approaches to raising infants. In addition, the authors have also provided valuable guidance for the creation of a beautiful and serviceable learning environment that will aid in the development of the infant's focus and concentration. Considering the kid's "sensitive periods", the authors have also introduced concepts and related activities for the development of such skills, such as dressing, food preparation and toilet training.

Infants, at the moment when they enter into this world, are already little sponges that are capable of soaking up information. How they are handled since birth has already an impact on how they will turn out in the future.

For example, drawing from one of the areas mentioned in the book, language development is essential as it wll influence the infant's understanding of what is happening around him and his ability to convey to others of his needs. Thus, the quality of the language to which the infant is exposed to permantly alters both his brain structure and its function. It is then essential, that the infant be given specific linguistic aid from birth, some of which includes good grammar, quantity of vocabulary and clear pronunciation by the care giver.

As the infant can only make sense of language when he relates directly with people, thus, one has to interact with the infant as one is speaking and face-to-face interaction is preferred (TV and VCDs are found to be less useful as they seem). Speech should be made simple and clear though and repetitions are required for reinforcement. Naming game is a good activity that parents can have with their infant.

This book is definitely a must read for parents who want to raise calm, capable and confident children.

Annie

Bullies in Schools - The Bullied

The previous blog entry is on the traits of bullies in school.

As such, to prevent your child to fall prey to such school bullies, it is best that as a parent, you should look out for some signs, or rather changes in behaviour, that shows that your child is being a target of the bullies. Normally, if a child is being bullied in school, he/she would not want people, especially his/her parents and teachers, as he/she is normally threatened by the bully not to let anyone know about the incident.

Nevertheless, the signs may be as below:

1) Your child may become afraid of walking to and from school, especially if by himself/herself.
2) Your child may want to change the usual route to and back from school.
3) Your child may not want you to go on the school bus, as he/her may not want you to
know about the bullying, which may be taking place in the school bus.
4) Your child may beg or want you to drive them to school
5) Your child may be unwilling to go to school, such as pretending to feel ill in the mornings. What is even worse is that he/she may begin to play truant, to avoid school altogether and at the same time prevent arousing your suspicion.
6) Your child may also begin to perform poorly in tests and assignments.
7) Your child may return home rather often with damaged clothes or books, or that you begin to find that his/her possessions start to go missing.
8) Your child may come home, rather often, starving, as the bully has taken the money for lunch, or that his/her pocket money is often "lost".
9) Your child may become withdrawn, start stammering, lack confidence
10) Your child may become distressed and anxious, stop eating
11) Your child may attempt or threaten suicide
12) Your child may cry themselves to sleep or even have nightmares frequently
13) A rather obvious sign, is that your child has unexplained bruises, cuts, scratches
14) Your child becomes aggressive and unreasonable and even start to bully his/her siblings

If your child really does exhibit some of the signs as listed above, there is a high chance that your child is already a victim and it is really time that you have a good chat with him/her, find out the source of the behavioural change and put a stop to the tormentation of your child before it gets worse.

Generally speaking, if there is an abnormal change in behaviour exhibited by your child recently and you are unable to pinpoint the source of change, it might be due to bullying. Thus, as a concerned parent, it is high time that you spend some time and have a good chat with your child.

Annie