You saved the photo of the beautiful playroom. The low wooden shelf, the six calm trays, the soft light. Then you looked up at your own living room, with the laundry on the sofa and the toddler pulling pans out of the cupboard, and felt like a fake. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Most of what we see about Montessori at home quietly assumes a spare room, a spare hour and money for beautiful things, and most of us have none of the three.
This talk is part of our ongoing series inside the Childhood Potential Club, where members gain access to expert LiveTalks, the full recordings with live Q&A, and a growing library of over 200 videos on Montessori and conscious parenting. Our guest, Junnifa Uzodike, co-author of The Montessori Baby and The Montessori Child, has lived Montessori with and without the shelves, in different countries and different homes, with four children of her own. In this conversation with Lucie she takes it back to what it was always meant to be.
Montessori is a lens, not a shelf
When we use Montessori as a lens, Junnifa says, we stop thinking so much about the activity and start thinking about the child: who they are, where they are on their journey of development, what they are capable of, what they need. The activities are no longer just the things on the tray. They are all the interactions we have with our children and all the interactions they have with the world around them.
That shift is also what frees us. “When you start to use Montessori as a lens, then you’re not limited,” she says. Not by materials, not by where you live, not by what you see on the internet. You stop comparing yourself to others and look at the child in front of you. The question changes from “what can I prepare for my child?” to “who is in front of me, and what do they need?”
What a prepared environment really is
Take away the Instagram shelf, and Junnifa brings the prepared environment back to exactly what the name says: an environment prepared for the child. Her first test is access. Can your child get a cup of water when they are thirsty? A tissue when they need to blow their nose? A book they want to read? Her second is order. Are there chances for your child to create, experience and restore order?
None of this depends on square metres. In fact, she says, it can be harder in a big house, because there is so much in it. Think about everything your child needs from the moment they wake up, and ask how you can help them reach it on their own.
The SIMPLE framework
For the first time with our audience, Junnifa shared the framework she uses with families in any home and any culture. Each letter is something you can do today.
- Simplify. Your environment, your routines, your menu, your expectations. Five things on offer instead of twenty. When things are simple, your child can help set up, help pack up and know what to expect, and nobody is overwhelmed.
- Involve. Trays can quietly become a way to remove ourselves: the shelf is ready, go and play, let me do my thing. But children want to be part of our lives, and they learn by being with us. Cook with them, clean with them, take them shopping, let them in on decisions.
- Model. They learn more from what we do than from what we say. If you want them to push the chair in, show them. If you want them to speak kindly, speak kindly. If you want them to read, pick up a book.
- Pause. Young children need time to process, so give it to them. Pause before you react, and you may find you can respond instead. Pause, and you may see that they can solve the problem, or the argument with their sibling, on their own.
- Look. Sometimes we are looking but not really seeing, because we are just passing by. Observe, so you understand who this particular child is and what kind of environment they need. Every child is different.
- Enjoy. Explore with your children, make memories, stop and smell the roses. Make sure, she says, that you are enjoying parenting, not enduring it.
Involving your child on a tired weekday evening
The question parents send us most often is some version of “how do I keep my toddler busy while I cook dinner?” Junnifa’s answer is that involving your child has different levels, and it depends on how you are feeling. On a rested Saturday morning it can mean slowing down and showing them how. On a weekday after a long day at work, it might be your child handing you tomatoes as you chop, sorting cutlery into containers, or mixing the onions and potatoes and sorting them out again. Sometimes it is simply sitting nearby with a book. “Sometimes our children just want to be close to us,” she says.
Why the kitchen
The kitchen, Junnifa says, is honestly her favourite place to parent. We eat three times a day, every day, so there is endless repetition and no pressure to get it all done today. And you can teach almost anything there: counting and measuring, vocabulary, not wasting food, kindness, recipes from around the world, what yeast does and what happens to an egg when you boil it. “When you’re working with your child in the kitchen, you’re feeding their stomach, you’re feeding their hearts, you’re feeding their minds.” Her new book with Kristen Miglore, The Montessori Kitchen, comes out on October 13.
The one thing to keep
Asked for the one thing to remember, Junnifa went past her own framework. “If I could say only one thing, it is to just live with your children. Be present.” It is not about the materials, she says, it is about who you are with them. And if setting up the shelf, or anything else from the talk, feels overwhelming, leave it for now. Just be with them as much as you can.
Meet Junnifa Uzodike
Junnifa Uzodike is the co-author, with Simone Davies, of The Montessori Baby and The Montessori Child, translated into more than 25 languages. She is the founder of Fruitful Orchard Montessori School in Abuja, Nigeria, where she guides elementary children, and a mother of four children raised with Montessori from birth. She writes at nduoma.com. Her new book with Kristen Miglore, The Montessori Kitchen, is out on October 13, and you can find the preorder bonuses here.
