S2 Bonus episode: A quick personal update, The Montessori Child book, and talking to children about war

The Montessori Notebook podcast :: a Montessori parenting podcast with Simone Davies

Simone Davies returns after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus to share significant personal and professional updates. She discusses the launch of

Key takeaways

• The new book, 'The Montessori Child,' focuses on applying Montessori principles in the home for ages 3-12 and adolescence.
• Simone and Juniper Uzudike utilize a 'triumvirate' approach involving the child, meaningful activities, and the prepared environment.

Main topics

• The Montessori Child book launch
• Personal health and lifestyle updates

Notable quotes

Montessori actually isn't about more stuff. It's about living in a very respectful way with our families.

Conclusion

The episode serves as both a heartfelt reconnection with the audience

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:11) Hello everyone, it's Simone Davies here and I am just popping into your podcast feed for a little update on what has been happening here since I last shared an episode around two and a half years ago. And yeah, I'm just... about two odd days out from flying to the US for an upcoming book tour with Juniper Uzudike for the Montessori Child book and that seems like something pretty great to commemorate and so I thought I'd just jump on not just tell you about the book but everything else that's been going on as well. But let's start with the book and then I can move on to some of the personal things that have been happening and also a listener question which is all about talking to our children about war so that seems very relevant right now as well. So let's see. Yeah, one thing that happened is that Jennifer and I wrote another book and that was huge. We started this project a long time ago. It was just a little seed of an idea. When I finished the Montessori toddler book, I went for a beautiful dinner in Canada with some Montessori friends and they were joking saying, okay, you can do the Montessori baby now and you can do the Montessori child after that. And yes. Kudos to Terence Millie for that beautiful name. And then after the Montessori toddler, I had a lot of people saying, well, my toddler is now a preschooler. My preschool is now becoming a school-aged child and we would love a guide for the following years. And so that's how the Montessori child came about. It was definitely a different book to write because I needed to do a lot of research, a lot of study. I got to speak to a lot of Montessori friends about it as well. I'm not joking. During COVID, I was able to do my 3-6, 6-12 and 12-18 AMI assistance certificates, as well as hundreds of hours of extra education through online workshops and study and things like that. So it was really a fun project to deep dive into this age group and to bring it into a way that families can introduce it at home. And Juniper was having the real life experience because she had three of her four children from three to 10 years old when we were writing the book. So for us, it was both a very different experience, but also a very beautiful experience. And we always say it's like a symbiotic relationship writing together because we feel like we can't do it without each other. But it's so much better when we do it together and we both have our strengths. I can simplify things that Juniper makes more complicated and Juniper has such beautiful wisdom and just this beautiful Montessori way from her heart, how she lives it, that we bring to the book as well. So, you know, I think it's an important book because it picks up where the Montessori toddler leaves off and Montessori is known mostly I guess for being for youngest children but we actually in the book walk you through how Montessori can be applied at home right through from three years old up to 12 years old and even a bonus chapter on adolescence and so at the end of this episode I'll read you the opening pages of the book about why we need Montessori at home and hopefully you get a little taste of what the book's about Speaker 1 (3:22) It was really such a big project to write this book because it's such a large age range to cover. And the children are at school. So whether they go to Montessori school or not, we wanted the book to be able to apply to them. It would even apply if you're doing Montessori homeschooling, you could read this book, but it's not a book about homeschooling because our homes are not Montessori classrooms. And so we wanted to make sure that the principles that you would get are the true Montessori principles, but how you live them in your daily life and not that you need to buy a lot of material. because Montessori actually isn't about more stuff. It's about living in a very respectful way with our families and helping to guide our children become the best versions of themselves. It was really fun actually because recently we were getting interviewed by Motherly and Heather who was interviewing us said that the book like had things in it that she'd never read in a parenting book before so we were really honored to hear that and Really, yeah, it's not just another parenting book because Montessori Wisdom actually gives us what we like to call the triumvirate because it's not just about the parenting side, but also we're looking at the child and the activities, like giving them meaningful activities that they can explore, as well as setting up our homes to help us. And that triumvirate is just such a beautiful way to bring joy back into parenting, raising children, whatever your role is in children's lives. One chapter that we included in this book that we didn't have a separate chapter for in the Montessori Baby or the Montessori Toddler was a book about social and moral development. So that's basically about your child's social development, how they're being with others. Because Montessori is mostly known for independence, but it's also really important about how we get along with others in our community. So that could be your classroom or it could be the greater community and contributing and making a... you know, making a valuable contribution to society and importantly, taking responsibility for ourselves and our environment. So I also had a lot of fun working on chapter seven of the book. It's called Putting It Into Practice. And this has everything about applying Montessori in daily life, the very practical things. And there's things like helping our child when there's a conflict between two people or when there is a death, how do we speak to them about that? When there's war and so much more. And there's, of course, like you all love, a huge appendix of Montessori activities to do at home. And what I love about this appendix in particular for the Montessori child is that you don't need to buy any Montessori materials because the activities can be done with things from around the home and it's also going to really depend on your child's interest as well. And like I said before our homes are not Montessori classrooms so it's definitely not about having the pink tower or the brown stair in our homes but it is about yeah seeing what our children are interested in and then diving in deeper it's really a beautiful um appendix i think will be really helpful because sometimes we're just like oh my gosh my child's bored and i don't know what i'm even meant to choose for them to to work with right now and so this will give you lots of ideas as well so this is definitely a group effort a team effort putting this project together we have the beautiful illustrations by naomi wilkinson she did such a beautiful job of bringing our words to life and i love that each of the three books have their own illustrator but because of the same book design that Hiyoko Emi designed for the Montessori toddler they really look cohesive like a beautiful series and just like the other two this book It's easy to read with this beautiful layout and easy sections to read because we're always thinking busy parents don't have time to sit down to read lots in one go. And so you can open up at any page to read some inspiration or to look up a question you might have. But also you can obviously read it from cover to cover as well. And our editor Maisie did such a beautiful job because we handed her a manuscript that was 130,000 words. So if anyone knows anything about books, it's a big book. And we needed to bring it back and to be the same size as the other ones. And yet we didn't want to lose all of this quality rich information that Dr. Montessori had developed for these this age group. So um Maisie did a beautiful job editing and we get to also work with just amazing people at Workman to get the book into your hands you know all the people who work with the distributors and translators to translate them into different languages and the PR people who help us to get the word out to you so yeah we're so grateful to the whole team for putting all the work and love into this book and I hope you feel it when you hold it in your hands um anyway I think that's pretty much All I wanted to say about the book, we just wanted, you know, to say it's not just another parenting book. It's going to teach you how to observe your child, how to understand how you can support their development as they go through these older years from three to 12 years old and into the adolescent years, how you can set up your home, how you can follow the unique timeline and to help them become the best version of themselves and a beautiful member of society as well. So if this sounds interesting to you, I hope you'll order a copy for yourselves and a friend and perhaps grandparents or other caregivers, or maybe you could ask your local library to order a copy. I always love seeing people sharing on social media when they've borrowed it from the library. And you can order it pretty much in any online bookstore, or my favorite is to pop into your local bookstore and they can order it for you. And the book is going to land officially on the 5th of March, although I have already seen some books arriving in people's homes. So if you're listening as this episode comes out, you'll have just enough time to purchase a copy and you can complete the form, which I'll drop in the show notes, to receive some beautiful digital pre-order bonuses as well. So I hope you'll check that out. And then, yeah, what else have I been up to over the last two years or two and a half years, however long it's been for this hiatus? Well, I think life has got simpler. And that's why you probably haven't heard from me is that I keep not adding things into my week, but actually seeing what do I really need to do right now? And that's not just about working anymore. I used to, I do love my work so much that I think that I never stopped working because it was fun to talk about Montessori and... I've really been taking care of myself. Unfortunately, I ended up in hospital for five days with some intestinal things back in at the end of 2021, I think it was. And I already thought I was