Useful Jobs For Small Hands

www.fridayschildmontessori.com

One of the goals of Montessori education is to help

children become self-sufficient (meaning that they are able to

look after themselves – being able to keep themselves in fruit and veggies from the back garden

would be a plus but that’s not what we mean by self-sufficient here).

We also want children to become responsible citizens who make a

contribution, and we want them to look at themselves as capable and

successful.

Doing jobs at home is one way that you can support this Montessori goal at home.

This helps children learn to do basic household tasks, and it gives

them some responsibility in the household.

Of course, you need to show them how to do it properly, and you

need to start off with simple tasks that can be done.

Also bear in mind that they are going to do the job more slowly

than you would (you’ve had years of practice, after all) and they

aren’t going to do it perfectly at first.

There’s a very fine balance between encouraging children to do the job well, having standards too high and having standards too

low.

Set the standards too high and your child may get discouraged if they never seem to get it right.

However, if you set them too low, your child may get into sloppy

habits of doing the bare minimum and be happy with doing the job

almost right.

This presentation was going to be called “Mother’s Little

Helpers” but these days, we see household jobs being Father’s

responsibility just as often as it is Mother’s.

And even if the jobs around the house are divided between the

parents into mum doing the indoor work and dad doing the outdoor stuff, young children are able to help out with both sorts of jobs.

Child training at an early age is important.

More child-friendly activities and children articles at

www.fridayschildmontessori.com