Practical Life Work

My mom loves to tell me how guilty she feels about expecting me to help make my bed (basically, just pull up the covers) shortly after my sister was born in 1983. I was two years and ~3 months old and mom knew she'd have her hands full with two little ones at home. So she showed me how and encouraged me to "make my bed" at that age. (For the record, I don't remember this.) She'll ask me now "Can you believe I expected that?!?" Haha!

Well, mom, give yourself a break AND a pat on the back. Not only is that not the "child labor" that you're making it out to be, but it was good for me! Most all children love to be helpers and feel the satisfaction of praise for a job well done (or well attempted :)) and even toddlers are capable of doing simple tasks. Independence is an irreplaceable gift you can give your child. Instead of doing everything for them, you show them how to do it for themselves and they learn to be self-sufficient and have confidence in their own ability. Then, when the day comes for them to leave for college (tears are welling... Lord, please make that day take a looooong time to get here!), they will be fully capable of washing their own laundry, making simple meals, balancing a check book and... um... cleaning their own ears with a q-tip! (Cough...Taylor and Zach...cough. See mom, you started off well on the bed making with me and then somehow switched over to babying your sons! LOL)

I'm not saying I'm innocent, though. Many times come to mind where I have just said "here, baby, let mommy help you" when Will starts to struggle with a task. Will's not one to say "No! I do it!" like many stubborn toddlers. Like his daddy, he enjoys being babied. And like many moms, I enjoy helping and nuturing and coddling my son... and my husband. Who am I kidding? I picked up the babying where my mother in law left off with Craig. Haha! (I all but cut his meat for the him and there's a running joke in our family that Craig won't order fajitas from a restaurant because then he has to assemble them himself. Go ahead and laugh, but that joke started when it came out of Craig's mouth. I believe his words were something like "if I wanted to make my own food, I wouldn't have gone out to eat". Ya. I know! He's a real piece of work. But I love him. Moving on from that tangent...)

Another easy excuse is that with two full-time, working parents, our lives are (sadly) a bit rushed. Especially in the morning, when much of the independent, self-care takes place. Will is an early riser by nature, but I think we'd still have to wake him if we wanted to allow enough time for him to do everything for himself before we have to get out the door at 7:30 (which never happens, by the way). So we're kind of in the middle. Will's making quite a lot of progress with his abilities as well as his desire to be proud of his independence.

With all the reading I have done lately on the missions and methods of Montessori learning, I am completely inspired to turn over a new leaf in our family. Sure it's easier to just have Will lay on his bed while we undress and dress him and then have him stand on the stool while we brush his teeth and then have him sit on the bench while we put on his shoes... But learning to be self-sufficient is at the center of growing up, right? And it opens all kinds of doors for other learning opportunities. I want my children to know that I will be there for them no matter what. But I'm also not the mom that will continue giving her two year old a bottle because I "don't want to lose my little baby". It feels good when my kids need me - yes! - but I certainly don't want to keep my kids in a subservient position - incapable of doing for themselves. That is a huge disservice to them. (On that note, I feel it necessary to add that my husband is a completely capable person. He CAN do all those things for himself and WAS taught a lot about self-sufficiency. But in regards to most old-fashioned "womanly" work, he prefers to be babied.)

The Montessori teaching refers to a lot of these important life skills as Practical Life Work. Makes sense. They're things you need to learn for everyday practical life!

So here is an abbreviated list from the book "Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives" by David Gettman. Practical Life Work is broken down into three categories: manipulative skills, self development, and care of environment. We've already worked on a number of the items in the manipulative skills, which I have listed in bold. And I've put a star next to the ones I feel are especially interesting for the future. Also, when reading this list, you may come across some items that seem a little strange. Like, why on earth would that be a skill for my child to practice? But if you think about it or try to picture a toddler or young child doing it, you can imagine that it would require a LOT of body control, balance, patience, and awareness to complete. THAT is the learning mechanism! And many of these tasks seem like games or play to the child.

Manipulative Skills:

1) Opening and closing jar lids and boxes

2) Pouring beans, rice, water between two jugs and/or with a funnel

3) *Transfering water with a sponge

4) Pincer grasp activities with tongs, tweezers, turkey baster, syringe, or eye dropper

5) Folding and unfolding clothes - (this is also listed in self development)

6) *Lifting, carrying and putting down a delicate object or liquid - (think glass vase or wine glass with water on it) and/or lifting, carrying and putting down a tray with objects on it - this is probably one of the ones that seems strange, but think of the body control required for this!

7) *Carrying and unrolling a mat - (Montessori work uses a lot of mats and trays for everything - it's clean, concise, organized - so the children sit on mats, work on mats on tables, use trays to organize individual activities) - for this I thought Will could simply learn how to spread out a blanket on the floor, i.e. for Sophie to play on or for us to have a picnic!

8) *Sitting down, getting up and tucking in a chair at the table - our dining room furniture sits on carpet, so it is sometimes a challenge for Will to pull his own chair out. Plus he sits on a booster seat, which requires a somewhat awkward climb to get in. And he certainly can't scoot his chair in while sitting down. So we'll do what we can to tweak this and mainly just work on pulling the chair out and pushing it back in before and after meals.

9) *Using scissors and handing them to someone.

10) Nuts and bolts

11) Threading beads on a necklace

12) Using art/craft equipment appropriately

13) Sorting

14) Puzzles

15) *Winding and unwinding yarn

16) Walking on a line - (think duct tape on the carpet or sidewalk chalk on the driveway or even a balance beam! Variations may include walking on a line holding a ball, delicate object or liquid. Or you could also make shapes for the child to walk on. How fun!)

*Note: I don't remember seeing this on the list, but I would also like to teach Will how to properly hold a pencil/pen/marker/whatever. He still doesn't do well with that.

Self Development Skills:

1) Washing hands and face

2) Blowing nose and throwing tissue away correctly; coughing into elbow - (obviously this can really only be taught on an as-needed basis)

3) Toilet training - (woo hoo! he's finally getting the hang of this!)

4) *Dressing "frames" - (I'm pretty sure they have different dressing skills like buttoning, buckling, lacing, zipper, bows, etc. literally on a frame - like a sewing frame? - that the child works on)

5) Putting on clothes, coats, shoes

6) Putting clothes in a washer/dryer, folding clothes... they even have ironing clothes on the list! I'm thinking no way on that one for awhile!

7) *Hanging clothes on a hook or hanger - (we have hooks for robe, coat and jammies on the back of Will's bedroom door, which opens into the wall. But the hooks are all the way up at the top. So I recently purchased some self-adhesive plastic hooks to put within his reach either on the door or in his closet so that he can do this independently. Then eventually, I'd like to get a nicer peg rack like this to be hung at his level in his closet: http://www.landofnod.com/family.aspx?c=90&f=580)

8) Hanging clothes on a line with clothespins

9) Manners: please, thank you, drawing a person's attention (i.e. excuse me), table manners and using utensils, greeting friends and strangers, appologizing, introducing self, answering the phone!, etc. - (he's very good at some of these, has work to do on others, and has not even been taught things like answering the phone - LOL)

Care of Environment:

1) Dusting

2) Sweeping (I've seen some cute ways to teach this that I'm looking forward to showing Will.)

3) Washing a table surface

4) Mopping floor

5) Preparing food and cooking skills

6) Setting a table

7) Clearing dishes, washing and putting away dishes (hmm... this may be difficult for awhile...)

8) Making bed

9) Picking up belongings/toys

10) Caring for animals - (I'm planning to show Will how to feed the dog soon. Of course, for the dog's sake, I'm going to supervise that it gets done, but I think it will be good for Will to learn a simple responsibility.)

Ha! How's that for child labor, mom? LOL Seriously though, I'm not going to ask or expect my kid to do all this stuff. But within reason, it's a good thing for children to learn to do these things! I think most moms can attest that children love to be helpful. Will enjoys following me around with a dust cloth, pretending to Swiffer the floors, throwing laundry in the wash/dryer, etc. And besides, doing ALL these chores (and more!) was the norm for children in generations past. We've made life a little too easy for kids these days and, as a result, we have generations of children who are dependent on mom and dad WAY too late in life.

Gosh, I probably sound like a cold, drill sergeant don't I? Hopefully not. That's not my intention.

One other side note to that list: when I first started reading some of that stuff, one of my initial thoughts was that it sounded very rigid and was so structured that it didn't allow the child to have fun, be young and make a mess here and there. But I've since realized that that's not true. Sure there are parents all over the spectrum of how seriously they take this stuff. And it's not so much taking away a child's chance to be young and free, but rather teaching them to appreciate and use their natural desire to learn to better themselves for life! Hope that makes sense. So Will can certainly go out and dig for worms in the mud if he wants... but then I'd also like him to help me scrub the grass stain out of his pants/socks! LOL

As for the jar at the top of the post, I saw that idea on a cute blog I follow called The Home Teacher. I wrote down and cut up paper strips with a different goal/task on each. We'll plan to pull 1-3 (or so) out each week to work on, depending on how long and difficult each is. I'll include our work in my Tot School posts. Hopefully, Will will start to look forward to these and the jar can make it more exciting.

And my appologies for the lengthy (and probably boring to most of you) post. This stuff is just a large part of my thoughts on a daily basis lately. :) Thanks for reading!