Hands On Learning

by Victoria Brailsford

Parents often ask what they can do at home to support their child's success. So what do the experts say? In her Public School Montessorian article, Montessori, Neuroscience and Parenting, Rebecca Janke says, "one the best things parents can do at home is to focus on the mastery of the hands." As parents become aware of everything they do with their hands, Janke suggests they ask themselves, "How can I involve my child with this task or provide a similar, simpler version?" Many of Montessori's Practical Life lessons, such as setting a table, washing, peeling, and cutting vegetables, are built off of this understanding. Parents can get so busy they forget to include the child in household routines. In some families, children might be barred from the kitchen during meal preparation or set up with a television show or toys while their parents tend to the laundry, dusting, or plant watering— jobs the child might love to participate in.

But how beautiful the simplicity is of including children in what we already do! How very low-tech, low-cost, and wonderfully engaging our times with young children can be when we allow them to work alongside us, at their own pace. When we remember that for them, the exercise is about building themselves, (rather than getting the job done in the least amount of time), we are supporting specific developmental needs that are a little different from our own adult priorities.

By engaging in hands-on activities, children learn responsibility, problem-solving, independence, and a positive sense of self-esteem born from real-life mastery through activities such as:

  • gardening

  • washing the car

  • weeding the flower bed

  • composting

  • clipping the hedge

  • sweeping

  • dusting

  • writing a list

  • grocery shopping

  • folding the laundry

  • fixing a loose hinge

 

Janke cautions against simply assigning chores to a young child, however.  

"Instead, when we invite a child to see what it is we are doing and do it slow enough that he can follow, he will become watchful. It is not uncommon to hear a child say, Can I do it?  Yes, says the parent joyfully."

By creating an intention of "hands and hearts working together," children develop a love for the challenge of independently completing a task, although it often starts as a love of working alongside a parent, grandparent, or another adult.

Watching young children beam with delight at being included in such important stuff says so much. Does it take patience on the part of the adult? Sure, it does. But understanding how critical these activities are to their child's cognitive development encourages even the busiest parents to start with simple tasks together.

And what of the children who seem uninterested? Montessori teachers are trained to be careful observers of child behavior. We notice that children may lose interest in the activity when the following things occur:

  • The child is given incomplete or unclear directions

  • The child cannot find or reach what they need

  • The adult abandons the child before they are ready to be independent in the task

  • The adult talks too much, compares the child's work to their own, etc.

  • The adult rushes the child through a task

  • The adult takes over the project when a child makes a mistake or is too slow.

  • The task does not complement the child's ability or strengths (too easy to too hard)

When given patience and time, the child has the opportunity to build new neural pathways during the most advantageous period of childhood to blossom in the flowering of real accomplishment. Maria Montessori's medical background and pioneering work in linking cognitive development in the brain to the work of the hand is a call to action for all adults whose lives impact children.  

Janke: "If [Montessori] were alive today, I believe she would be working side by side with neuroscientists or even have become one herself so she could further her studies on the inner workings of how we humans learn." It's inspiring for parents and teachers to know that a century later, modern research confirms that those simple lessons found in Montessori classrooms and homes offer the best opportunities to optimize the child's natural developmental process.

http://jola-montessori.com/article/montessori-neuroscience-and-parenting/

Ciera Krinke