Unfiltered Conversations: Part 1

Okay, the first one, Montessori versus traditional structure.

Is Montessori empowering or chaotic? What do you guys think? Or do you guys follow a structure?

I am very Type A, so personally, I am big on routine, but I say that, and my daughter is home, and she's not in daycare.

So a lot of times, we're not in a routine during the day.

We have our times that we do things, but we did go to a Montessori summer camp last summer, and I think she did wonderfully in it.

So I don't have really anything else to compare it to just yet.

Um, but I, I do like their, you know, thought structure of how they kind of lay out the school program.

Yeah, I agree.

I, uh, my kids have a nanny here, and she taught in a Montessori school before she became a nanny.

And I think the, the books that I tend to lean towards, like, in reading and things like that tend to be more Montessori.

If you walked into my household, are there toys with flashing lights? Absolutely.

My kids love music, and they love toys that play music.

So we're not super strict on it, but as a, like, foundational philosophy, is that what we follow? Yeah.

I, I try to do that, especially because my kids were, uh, if you've heard me talk before, are in early intervention and a lot of physical therapy.

And one of the things with ph- within physical therapy that they see is, like, the parents push their kids too fast into certain things.

And I think that's another Montessori principle of, like, having, like, forcing your kids to sit when they're not ready for it or kind of like it's cool to have your kids walk sooner than later.

And so for me, like, going through physical therapy, like, crawling was an absolute milestone that needed to be mastered before we could walk.

Um, so I think that there's, you know, other aspects in play there, but to make my answer longer, I think it's a mix of us in my house, a mix of style.

Yeah, I would say we do a little bit of a mix here, too.

Weston definitely has, like, all the toys that make music and stuff, too, because, you know, he loves that.

Um, but he does have a structure at home and in daycare.

So I think, Andrea, to your point, like, yes, Chiara has a structure, but it's not the daycare structure.

It doesn't mean that it's not, like, a Montessori or just a structure in general.

Sometimes I feel like the daycare structure is a little chaotic at times.

It was a lot more chaotic before he got into the ones room, which seems to have quite a bit of structure.