When your child attends a daycare that focuses on a Montessori style approach to learning, independence is emphasized. To ensure that your child achieves a balance between what he or she learns at daycare and home, you also need to focus on encouraging independence. Here are some ways you can grow independence at home.
Offer Choices to Your Child
In a Montessori daycare, your child will be encouraged to make decisions for himself or herself. Instead of the caretaker or teacher dictating which activities the kids will do, the children will have the freedom to make choices from various selections.
At home, you can keep in step with this by allowing your child to make choices. Whenever there is not a safety or health concern, offer your child choices and let him or her decide what to do. It could be as simple as letting your child choose between two options for dinner.
Re-Organize Your Home
At the daycare, you will notice that your child's room is set up so that items that are needed for activities are easily accessible. The reason this is done is to give your child the freedom he or she needs to act upon choices that are made. For instance, if your child decides to paint at school, he or she can get the supplies without needing to rely on the teacher to do it.
You can further encourage your child's independence by ensuring that items he or she are easily accessible at home. In addition to fun items, such as toys, your child's necessities, such as his or her toothbrush and toothpaste need to be placed within reach.
Assign Chores to Your Child
Although your child will spend time choosing his or her own activities at daycare, he or she will also be responsible for completing certain tasks throughout the day. For instance, the teacher might have your child help with putting away toys at the end of the day.
When your child is at home, you need to also assign age-appropriate chores for him or her to do. Create a picture chart that shows what your child should do every day. By assigning chores to your child, you not only help to grow independence, but also impress upon him or her the importance of being responsible.
Your child's daycare teacher can help you identify other ways you can create a balance between what your child learns at daycare and at home.
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