Book “Aid to Life” (age 0-90+)

Stories from fifty years of Montessori work, in homes, schools, and more – around the world

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Aid to Life – Montessori at Home Age 0-6

(Excerpt from chapter 10 of Aid to Life, Montessori Beyond the Classroom)

Temper Tantrums
Everywhere I have worked it seems that temper tantrums are becoming a problem. In some cases a child crying “for no reason” was just not tolerated in the past and any incidence would be immediately punished. Now parents realize that it is important for children to honestly express their emotions. Temper tantrums are one of the ways young children express their emotions, unhappiness, boredom, need for attention. I hear stories from around the world that are similar:

Children cry or yell in order to get what they want and parents don’t know what to do. When the temper tantrum happens in public they are ashamed and know that something is wrong but they don’t know the answer. So they give in to the child’s demands to end the embarrassing scene.

Yes, in these situations we parents know that something is wrong. But what can we do about it? I will share some of what I have learned over the years. Continue reading →

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COVID Parenting – Some Books and Ideas

THINKING ABOUT EDUCATION

Hopefully there will come a time in the not too distant future that the word “Covid” in the title of this blog post will be meaningless and we shall have returned to normal, safe, healthy life. Already it is clear that people are re-thinking education because of the situation. Some children thrive at home, others thrive at school. In the future education may be very different than it has been for the last few generations. Continue reading →

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Learning at Home during COVID

SEVERAL HELPFUL MONTESSORI BOOKS

It is not possible to learn everything from a book, but there are are several, based on Montessori experience at home and in the classroom that have been found to be very helpful to parents and teachers during these days. They are all written by a Montessori teachers trained at 0-3, 3-6, and 6-12 levels, and with many years of experience with children and young adults from birth to 18 years of age. Continue reading →

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A Prayer for the Earth – A Stephenson Family Creation

1 praying

To see the YouTube video
CLICK: PRAYER

This song was written and the video created by the Stephenson family years ago. We are sharing it again because it is becoming more and more important to pray for our earth. Our son, Michael Olaf, is singing and playing the music. Susan took the pictures. The lyrics are by all of us. There are pictures from my Montessori work in Bhutan, Holland, India, Israel, Nepal, Palestine, Russia, Sikkim, Sweden, Thailand, and Tibet. Continue reading →