This week we are discussion communication with children. We are asked to observe adults and children interacting.  I wrote about a tutoring gig I had recently and what I observed when the parent is  not a confident parent nor a competent communicator.

My observations were with a little girl 3.0 years old and her mother.  I was with them for about 12 hours in the home. Mom works from home and was to be the Montessori tutor for the little girl who also was supposed to have sensory processing disorder.  Parents self-diagnosed not done by a doctor or pediatric OT.   So upon observing I noticed mom was not a confident communicator and the child pretty much had her way by using the technique of running and screaming when she did not want to do something.  At the initial interview little one swung a toy segmented wooded snake closer and closer to mom and then hit her with it.  Mom excuse was that child liked to feel the pressure of the snake hitting her.  It hurt mom but she didn’t respond in any way Dad took the toy away.   What I saw was a child who did not want her mom’s attention be anywhere but on her.  She is at that age where testing the boundaries will be done.  Continually until she is sure where they are and if they are firmly in place.  She tried the same thing with me the first time I read to her.  She hit me on the head. I gently took her hand and guided back down to her lap and told her “I won’t let you hit me.” She then tried it on several places on my body more gently than the first and I did and told her the same thing.  That was the end of it.

 I also heard mom do the bribing thing.  It is so easy to fall into that habit especially when you are not a confident person nor a competent communicator.  As someone who struggles to find the right language to deal with interpersonal situations I can relate.  I have come up with some very good resources.  One is Janet Lansbury’s blog Elevating Child Care and her book No Bad Kids.

The other is Chick Moorman.  His books deal specifically with what words to use and how we speak to others.  That has helped a lot.  I hope you too will find these resources helpful in your journey in early childhood education. 

As for this mom and her daughter I feel sorry for them.  Mom was not open to any advice I had to give and the tutoring thing was stopped.  I was respectful but could not agree to tell her what she wanted to hear to assuage her psychological need to have her daughter totally dependent upon her. There was no sign of SPD.  Mom needs something to be wrong with her daughter in order for her daughter to be dependent upon her.  This is going to back fire one day and this child is going to give her parents a run for their money.  Her father is complicit in it all because he is a week person as well.  The child’s self-esteem is already fragile because she senses they view her as not competent nor complete as she is. 

The last time I was there the child threw a full blown fit because mom needed to get some work done and sat down at the computer.  I was able to redirect her but she put on her act again about five minute later.  What she got was several minutes of mom’s attention for essential oil treatment. While I think aroma therapy is useful that is not what she really got. She got what she was after which was mom’s attention.  Mom was played and never saw it coming.  Again I have to say I feel sorry for this family and hope someone can get through to them about their parenting style. And that their child is developmentally spot on in every way.

If this sounds judgmental I am sorry as a child developmentalist and an experienced mother of 5 I feel I have the agency to assess this situation.

Resources

Lansburry, J. (2014) No bad kids: Toddler discipline without shame.  JLML Press. ISBN:978-

                  1499351118

http://www.janetlansbury.com

http://chickmoorman.com

Blog Week 2

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        Having had an in home day care for several years in the 1980’s I have some experience with the topic of anti-bias education in the early childcare setting.  At the time I had a variety of children, a white middle class boy and a little Mexican girl who had two moms and was from a rather hard background.  My own two children and a brother and sister whose parents were divorced and went back and forth on a weekly basis.  Because I had a Montessori pre-school program incorporated into my daycare.  In the Montessori environment it is unusual to have lots of posters on the wall or dolls and dress up cloths to play with.  But that doesn’t mean that anti-bias education doesn’t happen.  Reading books aloud to the children is a wonderful way to introduce and incorporate ideas into a child’s schema.  My daughters frequent Good Will and my oldest daughter is always bringing me books that deal with anti-bias in their stories.  I love it.  One of my favorite stories is of a little girl who is African American who wants to play the role of Peter Pan in the school play.  Other children tell her she can’t be Peter Pan because she is a girl and she is Black.  As the story progresses her family supports her and she wins the part through her studying her lines and doing a great job in her acting.  But if she had believed the myth the anti-bias thinking had written for her she would have remained on the side lines.  Now in real life I am hearing of having a Black Odette in the ballet Swan Lake.  There is a lot of hullaballoo surrounding this decision.  I applaud it. As a former ballet dancer I have seen the mostly all white casting of the major roles. 

         Another way a Montessori education can address anti – bias is using the peace curriculum.  The philosophy is to promote inner peace and thus outer peacefulness as the child becomes able to control his or her impulses and develop the language to speak about how other’s perceptions may not be correct.  One of the most important aspects of anti-bias education is to educate ourselves.  Years ago when I started working in day care centers I ran across so many teachers or adult child care workers who were eager to label a child as bad or lazy or a hellion.  I couldn’t understand it, why did they think a child was bad when they knew nothing about them?  And they certainly weren’t willing to find out why a child would behave in such a way.  I began to investigate early childhood then, I didn’t pursue a career in ECE then but when I had my one home care program and then homeschooling my own children I tried to read and study everything I could on child development and understand behavior.  As I then progressed through my undergraduate degree and Montessori training and now my Master’s degree I began to be convinced that development and behavior are influenced by culture of the family and society in general.  But the most important component was the transformation within myself.  When Derman-Sparks and Olsen – Edwards put that word in the title of the text they made a point of highlighting the necessity of teachers and another adults working with young children to become self-aware and reflective.  The same thing happens in a good training program for Montessori guides.  Becoming aware of how I as an adult may have bias unintentional or not.  How to re frame my thoughts about society and culture in a positive light and discover how to relate to others especially families of young children regardless of the culture or back ground they come from.  In the future I want to incorporate cultural shelves from the families of the children who attend my program and encourage family events such as pot luck suppers.  I am looking forward to the community that can be built within the context of anti-bias education with in early childhood education.

Derman-Sparks, L. and Edwards Olsen, J. (2010) Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves.   Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children. (NAEYC)

Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). Strategies for working with diverse children: Welcome to an anti-bias learning community. Baltimore, MD: Author