Montessori toddler at home - practical skills

[MamaAsheri]

My DS is 2.5 (and my only child). I have been reading about Montessori methods and felt inspired to let him do more on his own (especially since he is at the "me do it" stage).

The problem is that I've found myself getting frustrated and impatient. He goes to wash his hands and starts playing with the water. He gets halfway through taking something to his room and gets distracted so I end up reminding, reminding, reminding. I also feel tempted to "just do it myself". (a problem i generally have in life)

I am trying to get him to put the toy he is done with away before getting the next thing out. For example, he will take books out for me to read to him. When we get done with those and he goes to get more I want him to put those away first but he wants to set them on the table instead. I let that go and wait until he's done wih books and now wanting to play with cars. I ask him to put the books away first and he says, "no." not a defiant type "no" but a "that's not the way it's supposed to be" "no".

I'm not sure how to encourage him to put things away. I also don't know how to put away my perfectionist tendencies and be patient wih him. How long should it take for him to learn these skills and do them kind of like second nature? (such as washing his hands and brushing his teeth - without dawdling) Am I in fantasy land?

[sapphire_chan]

Model it. He goes to play with something else, you calmly tell him that the other toy needs to be put away first. He says "no". You ask if he needs help putting the toy away and start "helping" (i.e. doing it yourself). Eventually, he'll start putting the books away.

If it really bothers you to gather a pile of books to put away, then put the first book away yourself. If it is your family's rule that you put away one book before taking out another, then he can wait for you to be done putting the first book away before you read him the second book. But don't get your hopes up on him realizing that he'd get a story faster if he just took the first book with him. Maybe if you start ending stories by handing him the book and saying "take this back and put it away", I've had some luck with that, but once the idea of doing one thing is in the little head it's really hard for them to change gears.

Really, the key is to expect that you'll do it yourself and to be happily surprised when the toddler helps out.

And make sure you're getting enough rest, food, water, outdoor time. Y'know all the things that you do to help with toddler frustrations?

As for washing hands and the like. Dawdling will happen. What I like to do is either try to be really in the moment and observe dd's process. Or, if that's like nails on a chalkboard, I put her in my periphery and do something else--brush my own teeth, clean the bathroom, read in a book.

[AllyRae]

I agree...modeling, modeling, modeling!  And, expect it to take a whole lot longer than if you just did it for your little one.  If my DD goes from thing to thing to thing leaving a mess behind her, I just say "oh no, it looks like you forgot to put these toys away!  Let's help put these back in their place!" and then I'll pick her up, bring her over to the mess, and model how to pick it up, ask her to join, and then usually she does.  Sometimes there's a tantrum, but I just reiterate that we have to put one thing away before we get to the next thing. 

[MamaAsheri]

Okay thanks. Sometimes he says, "no." and sometimes he says, "mommy do it for me." hmmm...

[sapphire_chan]

Even if he ignores what you're doing entirely, he'll still be learning from you. As soon as she could crawl, dd went straight for my books and took them all off the shelf. I just said "books go on the shelf" and put them back. Then she started trying to put them back herself, and I helped out by holding a spot open for the book she picked up--and put them all away myself after she lost interest.

And now, she'll take down a book to look at it, or she'll make a stack of books, and when she's done, she puts them back on the shelf.

It was that simple. Even though 90% of the time I was putting the books away she wasn't even looking.