Montessori and Me

To attempt what this means would be the longest text imaginable.  So to keep you from wasting time.  

Peace

Children and Borrowing

It is important to recognize, children do not understand the idea of ownership, at least the idea of non-ownership.  Give a child a ball, and they form a oneness with the toy that may never be destroyed.  Take it away from them and limit their ability to play with it for any reason and the bond with the toy is lost.

Having said this, the complication of explaining borrowing becomes either a natural thought process, or a task able to make even an economist shudder.  But inherent in every child is the joy found in receiving a thought of gratitude from someone having just lent something.  The "tantrums" are found in those exchanges where neither the borrower, nor the lender be fully understood in the terms of the exchange.

A perfect example occurs in our home often called hit and run exchanges.  Two children will be playing on the floor when one of them gets up, walks up to the other and takes the toy being used.  Often these exchanges are peaceful, however not always.

in progress

Aimless Wanderings

An interesting experiment/experience is to allow your children moments of Aimless Wanderings.  It allows them to spend time with their best educator they will ever know.  

The urge of the parent is to see their children really focus on something, but what many parents do not realise is that children may not be interested in focusing on what is being offered.  A child could learn more in five minutes picking grasses and flowers than available in a battery's life of "tickles"

Brightly colored poly-vinyl-carbonate toys painted in countries that may not have the same standards you might expect for your teething child really cannot teach anything more than a well built wood block stained with natural non-toxic pigments.  

A young child is given the ability to not care about a goal, but instead to simply explore, yet often parents of children as young as five years old ask their children to perform goal oriented tasks at the end of their day when their ability to explore aimless wanderings reaches a peak.

It is at the end of these wanderings where the child achieves an answer they were seeking.  Some of these questions being answered develope quickly while others grow with the child.  

Peace