1KHO 872: What If There Was An Easier Way To Raise Children? | Simone Davies, Montessori

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Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And I can't believe we have never talked about this before on the show. Never! But today we're going to be talking about Montessori, Montessori Methods at Home. Simone Davies, who is a co-author of this incredible trifecta of books, The Montessori Baby, The Montessori Toddler, The Montessori Child. You need them in your home. Welcome, Simone.

**Simone Davies** (1:25)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so delighted to be the first person to talk about Montessori in your podcast. Yeah.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:30)
Yeah. How have I missed it? I mean, Montessori, I have the book I was showing you before we started, the book called The Absorbent Mind that I read for my own parenting when our kids were young. So I was actually flipping through it last night and seeing like, what did I underline when my kids were little?
She's got some pretty bold ideas that I think are antithetical in a lot of ways to the ways that we raise children today. So I would love you give your story in The Montessori Child. We're going to focus on that one today because The Montessori Child goes from ages six to 12 and really, really talk about a lot of the older ages too. It includes the teens. And then she says childhood goes to age 24 So we're going to be talking about that. But if you've got a toddler, if you've got a baby, if you've got a friend with a toddler or baby, if you've got grandkids, I mean, these are books that you really want to have because they're going to help your parenting become easier. In The Montessori Child, you share your story and also your co-author shares her story as well. But tell us how you got interested in the Montessori life and especially bringing it home.

**Simone Davies** (2:33)
Yeah, exactly. Basically, I didn't know anything about Montessori when I had my own children. But I had heard of it and so I went to an open day from Montessori Preschool and I walked in, I went, oh my gosh, this classroom is amazing. It was set up, everything was the child's height, and the educators were walking around the classroom, not standing in front of the class being in charge. They're called guides in Montessori. It felt so welcoming. I'm like, I would love to come and learn here. I wish my school had been like that. They also do a lot of work outside about the interconnectedness of inside and outside, being connected with nature, which really resonated as well.
Before I knew it, my child was on the wait list and I started going to Montessori Playgroup with my child. When I walked in, I'm like, oh, this totally gives me a framework for every way that I wanted to be with my child but didn't really know. For example, you walk in and instead of punishing your child, you want to actually connect and guide them when things go wrong. That really resonated with me because people said, don't put them into timeout, but I was like, what do you do instead? How do you raise them to actually learn how to be a person in the world, interacting, growing for yourself and also with others?
I soon after joined the Montessori Training and became a Montessori Educator and ran my own Montessori Playgroup for 17 years as well. My children are now 24 and 23, so I've raised them in a Montessori way the whole way through. I just really liked that you can raise children with respect, mutual respect and understanding without giving them free rein either. It was really about giving them kind and clear guidance, but letting them be themselves.