AuntyB: The previous two posts, Getting Ready for Montessori School and Preparation for Montessori School, covered the homestones to prepare your child for the classroom. Many, many experiences are learned in group settings. Keep up the positive and talk with your child's teacher about how to redirect the negatives.
Communication is the key to success. School is at its best in a Parent / Teacher endeavor. Never let anything escalate. Always address concerns without criticism in order to keep your child on the inside track of learning, growing and developing to their fullest potential.
Grandmama: These final words from AuntyB are mostly advice for parents as you enter the next phase of life with your child, sharing him or her with another role model, mentor and teacher. You are their first and last teacher; you've a lifetime job. Those words will help you in dealing with the newcomer in your lives.
As she's written about Montessori school, AuntyB is not making an assumption that preschool is the "best" thing for your child. She's leaving that up to you. As a grandmother--still a mother, though my children are now parents, too--I have firm opinions on this.
Through the years, I've had children who had to go to preschool/daycare so that I could work. Some of those situations were the "best." Some of them were down-home family-style. The best parts of all of them together did not equal the times I was able to care for my children myself. It was in those years that the girls were the healthiest, least stressed and happiest.
There is little research that "proves" the efficacy of early education. Keep them with you as long as you can. But don't warehouse your children in your own home, in front of the TV or computer. Bring them along in your faith, in practical living, and in touch with the natural world. Do your own preparation and allow them to develop at their own paces under your guidance. Do less. Live more.
Dorothy and Raymond Moore's classic Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child's Education
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