The Montessori Toddler: A Parent's Guide to Raising a Curious and Responsible Human Being

by Simone Davies

Our children learn more from watching us than from us telling them how to behave. So we want to model honesty with our children. We want them to learn that being truthful is an important value in our home. No white lies.

When we make a mistake, it is easy to blame someone or something else. For example, our toddler drove us crazy so we lost our temper, or the map was not clear so we went the wrong way. Just as we take ownership of our choices, we need to own our mistakes as well. There are days we are not going to have as much patience. When we get things wrong. When we do something that means we let our child down, our partner down, ourselves down. Making mistakes means that we have an opportunity to apologize. And to think about what we could have done instead. I can always say to my child (or anyone, for that matter), “I’m so sorry. I should not have . . . What I could have said/done is . . .” This sets a far stronger example for our child than blaming someone else. They see that we can learn from our mistakes, and it shows that we are always trying to make kinder choices. And that no one, not even their parent, is perfect.

We need to recognize when our limits are about to be tested and find a way to assert our limits—with kindness and clarity. If we let a situation build up, and we get irritated, it is almost impossible to calmly step in and provide clear guidance.

Watch how we talk with our family. Often we want our family to speak to our child in a gentle way, without correcting them, limiting criticism, and encouraging them. Then we end up talking to, and listening to, our family in exactly the way we are trying not to with our child. We correct them if they say the wrong thing. We get frustrated at their impatience. We end up talking over them and not showing them respect.

In the first three years of this cycle (0–3 years) the child absorbs this information completely unconsciously and without effort—i.e., with an unconscious absorbent mind. In the second three years (3–6 years) the child becomes a conscious learner, the conscious absorbent mind. What does this mean in practice? The child moves from simply accepting and adapting to the world around him (0–3 years) to a child asking why and how (3–6 years).

To come to peace in this world is to celebrate our differences, seek the commonalities, address others’ fears, find peaceful ways to live together, and recognize that we are more alike than we are different. After all, we are all human.