How to Discipline your child the Montessori way

I'm going to discuss with you how to discipline your child the Montessori way. Montessori gave us some guidelines to guide our children during those testing early years. I'm sure you have heard that catch phrase "freedom within limits". There are two terms here freedom and limits, let's first discuss freedom. Discipline must come through freedom, Maria Montessori said.

We know that the Montessori education is all about freedom. The child is free to choose his own activities, to work for as long as he wishes with his activities, to move while he works or play and to talk in the classroom. Maria Montessori explained that her method of education promotes inner discipline, self discipline and must come from being able to be free to choose their own purposeful activities in a carefully prepared environment. For Montessori, a child is disciplined when he is a master of himself and can regulate his own conduct while following some rules of life. But how do we foster self-discipline? In this video I will give you some pointers. 

Create an environment with activities that appeal to your child

Montessori Tools

First, create an environment with activities that appeal to your child. Observe your child. What is he working on? What scheme does it try to master? What are his interests? The activities, toys and materials that you choose must be interesting to your child. Don't choose the activities because you think that your child must learn something. Follow your child's interest. If your child loves to move, give him more motor skills activities. If your child loves to read, give him more books. Learning about the sensitive periods of development will help you to understand how your child develops. 

Create an environment in which you welcome mistakes

Second, create an environment in which you welcome mistakes. Mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. Learning to drink without spilling, learning to carry a plate, learning that pens shouldn't be used on the walls requires practice and time. Tolerating your child's mistakes without scolding and anger will show to your child that you love him unconditionally. Treat your child's mistakes the way you would treat a clumsy guest with respect. So how to handle those learning mistakes? For example, when your child breaks a glass, you could say, oh, let's get to the dustpan in a matter-of-fact voice and you could show to your child how to sweep the broken glass allowing her to help if it's safe. 

Nurture inner motivation

Montessori Tools

Third, nurture inner motivation, that self-discipline. Allow your child to choose his own activities. Those activities should be challenging enough to attract the child without frustrating him. Allow your child to repeat those activities whenever he wants and protect his work so be careful when you attend group activities like a play group, a scheduled activity. Where forced sharing is generally encouraged. You may have to avoid those situations or you may have to be your child advocate and explain to the other children and parents that your child is not done yet with this little activity. 

Setting limits

And now let's discuss those limits. Setting limits teach a basic life lesson that we can't have everything we want whenever we want. Maybe you feel uncomfortable setting up limits because you don't like to say no or maybe you were raised by very strict and authoritarian parents and you don't want to reproduce their parenting style but there is a middle ground here between being too strict or too authoritarian. Children need appropriate limits. To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any power of control is to betray the idea of freedom, Maria Montessori said. 

So you give your child as much liberty as she can handle. She also said, the liberty of the child should have as it limits the collective interest. So she's very clear the only limits we have are safety for the child, safety for others and collective interests. So we agree that our children need freedom, but also limit so how do we help our young children to follow those limits.

Here are some ideas for you: 

Carefully prepare your environment to allow your child the maximum of freedom basically make sure you will not have to say no to often Redirect. Young children will not understand that their actions are dangerous or inappropriate. When your child climbs on the sofa be ready to go out on the slide with him. 

Redirection towards nicely completing a puzzle is not going to work. You need to kind of give them more of what they want or what they need Don't be afraid to protect your child by holding him when he run towards a hot oven or by moving to a safe place. It is also appropriate to remove your child from a situation he cannot handle. 

For example, if your child is playing in the sand-pit and throws sand at the other children, if it doesn't respond to redirection, you must feel confident to remove him from the situation. If your voice and actions are gentle while you do that, the kind of hands-on redirection will still be respectful you will help your child to take five minutes away with you to calm down. Allow your child to make choices. Let them choose between a banana and an apple. 

Encourage them to help you as well. Welcome their support in the house. The more your child feels responsible the more he will respect his surroundings. So make tidy up a habit and not a painful chore. If you liked this video, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe to be notified when I post a new video thanks for watching and

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