Taking Turns

April 17, 2009 in Montessori, Parenting | 8 comments

Samantha is learning how to take turns!  After a few Montessori classes, I can see the light bulb going off.  

She really likes to play with a particular toy at Montessori:  a low, flat box full of hard clay, with golf tees and a mallet with which to pound them into the clay.  This week, the clay toy came to her attention when she saw another girl pick it up.  She went over to grab at it, and I did my usual explanation of how the other girl had chosen it and Sam could have a turn when she was finished.  Sam didn’t protest, and went on to work on a puzzle.  But in the middle of it, she leapt down from her chair and raced away.  When I looked up, I saw that she was picking up the clay toy just as the other girl returned it to its shelf.  She had her eye on that toy the whole time!  And since that lesson was the most important at the moment, I didn’t call her back to put away the puzzle, but went with her and told her that THAT was called taking turns.  Ok, so I probably praised her too.  I’m still working on less praise and more description.  But I was so pleased!

  1. Burgess Laughlin on April 17, 2009 at 4:10 pm

    I remember watching my son learn the ideas of “borrow” and “lend.” It is so hard to do when you want all of your toys together, here and now, and you don’t trust other kids to return anything!

  2. Bill Brown on April 17, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    what’s the problem with praise?

  3. Amy on April 18, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    Bill: We are trying to follow Faber & Mazlish’s principle of using descriptive praise such as, “I see all your shoes are in the shoe basket,” or “I see that you cleaned your face” to recognize achievements, as opposed to using evaluations. I think some praise is ok, but I don’t want her to focus on my approval, but on the real consequences of doing good things. It’s kind of the positive side of natural consequences. Bad behavior has bad results in reality and vice versa. See point 5 in this post.

  4. Bill Brown on April 18, 2009 at 10:44 pm

    Oh yes, Liberated Parents. I guess it’s time to give that book another read—it’s been awhile.

    So your beef with praise (and presumably theirs as well) is that it’s vague and more like “you’re a good kid” instead of “you do this thing well” and can lead to toady-like behavior? Is that a fair assessment?

  5. Amy on April 19, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    Bill, not quite. Even specific praise should be limited, in their view. The idea is to avoid evaluations and to simply let your child know that you see what he/she has done. If he/she makes a nice drawing, say, “I see you drew a cross and a circle and used three different colors!” instead of “Nice drawing.” This lets the child know that you are really paying attention, but doesn’t tie his/her self-esteem to your evaluation or approval.

    Again, I think some praise is fine. I don’t think praise is inherently wrong, but just that it can be overdone, and also that it can be lazy. I’ve already observed Sam do something good and look to me for a “good job” or a smile. I’d rather see her do something good and smile to herself.

  6. Bill Brown on April 20, 2009 at 12:50 am

    Thanks for clarifying. I’d always taken the look to me as an invitation to share her pride, as in “look at how well I colored this princess.” (I took it that way especially when that is what was explicitly said by the child.) I’ll have to read the book again.

  7. Amy on April 20, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Bill, yes, I get the shared pride look, too. But sometimes she isn’t smiling yet and you can tell she’s looking to me to see if I approve, and only smiles after I do. I don’t think that’s the end of the world – I’m just trying not to go overboard with the “good jobs” and such.

  8. Bill Brown on April 20, 2009 at 11:22 pm

    I’ll have to ponder whether I’ve seen that look myself. I understand the reluctance to chance external motivation.