One of the many, many, many things I just absolutely love about the Montessori philosophy is that "the child's natural need for independence is encouraged". In this case, I refer specifically to the Montessori "care of self" philosophy, which strongly encourages independence and self care.
Since Hudson started a montessori school last September he's learned how to dress himself completely, from head to toe, including shoes and socks and just recently his shirt (until about a week ago I had still had to help with the shirt). It's really, really amazing how much children this age can and are willing to do for themselves if given the opportunity. Hudson really wants to dress himself and usually says, "Me first! Me first!" to let you know that he wants to try do it all by himself, but he'll let you know if he gets into trouble.
This is all really wonderful and it's truthfully hard to believe that he can do all that he does. There are some instances when he gets a little ahead of himself (see the above photo as evidence of such) and you have to lead him back to his room to show him where he may have missed a step or two. We end up with a lot of things on backwards, inside out or just all together wrong (like sweat pants in 90 degree weather). You may have noticed in recent blog posts that he chooses the same shirts over and over and he actually prefers pants to shorts even when it's sweltering outside (crazy kid!).
The above photo was taken today when he was going to his room to change to get ready for his nap...he wears underpants pretty much all day, but he wears a pull-up diaper for his nap, so he went in his room and changed out of the underpants and into his pull up diaper and came out looking like this...I try so hard not to laugh when he does this stuff, I don't want to make him feel bad for working so hard all by himself, but I couldn't help smile at this...and share it with all of you, of course. I'm pretty sure this is one of those photos that could be quite embarrassing somewhere down the road.
On a separate but related note, I stumbled on this great video about Montessori a few days ago and wanted to post it to share with you as well. I'm always raving about Hudson's school and how much I love Montessori and this little clip may help explain why.
(disclaimer: I realize Montessori isn't for everybody and I don't think all "conventional" schools are bad. I also think it's really, really important to mention that any school/daycare can call themselves "Montessori" as the word Montessori is not patented and anyone can use it, which is why when looking at schools you must make sure they are AMI or AMS accredited...just wanted to mention those few points)
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