September 2026 · Rebecca
Day Five
After the success of day four, I felt the pressure going in. I was up late, up early, turning over in my head what to carry forward and what to let go.
I brought out the memory game, something that had stood out to me from the morning before school two days earlier. She was not interested. We did not touch it. She was not interested in her smoothie either. It was hard not to push, but I did not. I did bring the smoothie in a travel cup for the car. She had a few sips on the drive.
She decided to play on her own for a bit. It lasted longer than I had planned for. Also hard to let go. I found myself pacing, moving around the kitchen looking for something to do, but nothing registered. I only had eyes for the clock. We have been trying to arrive on the earlier end of the drop off window. We were getting closer and closer to missing our chance.
I knew that if I interrupted her right then, it would be for me. Not for her. We did not have to leave at that exact moment. We had a few minutes. I gave her the minutes. If we had needed to leave, I would have given her a warning a few minutes out while acknowledging what she was doing. I see you are playing with that right now. In five minutes it will be time to get ready and go. But that was not our reality today. She wrapped up on her own. We finished getting ready and headed out.
The drive was quiet. I was following her lead. I gave a few gentle mentions of what was coming once we got there. Not much more than that. And then she started talking about what she wanted to do after school.
I cannot tell you how good it felt to hear that. She was not even entertaining the idea of not going. She had already decided. And I realized I was the only one still running through scenarios in my head, still bracing for impact that was not coming. I let it go.
We parked, used the restroom, got her into her outdoor gear and started the walk to her classroom.
About halfway there, she said: remember when daddy came. Can he come next time? I had been waiting for something to crack the morning open, and I thought this might be it. I said, I do remember, that was so nice. Dad would love to come and will when he can. But his work day starts the same time as your school. She thought about it for a second. He might have some calls. Maybe next time. And that was it. She had answered her own question, made her peace with it, and kept walking. I was the only one still braced for something to break.
She jogged the last few steps to the gate.
One of her teachers met her there. My daughter did not look over at me for reassurance, not once. She kept her eyes on her teacher. Her teacher invited her to find her name tag from the low basket. My daughter locked eyes with me and we looked together. We talked about what her name starts with and looked for that letter. She found it. And before I could fully stand up from my squat, she had her back to me and was already through the gate.
I said goodbye, have a great day, I love you, all in one breath, trying to get it all out. I blew her a kiss. She turned back and blew one back. I love you, she said.
And that was it.
Walking back to the car, my chest felt heavy and tight, but in a strong way. I was smiling. At one point I laughed out loud. I had expected to cry - I am a crier, happy tears especially. But none came. Not until writing this.
I keep trying to name what I was feeling. Proud does not quite cover it. I have been proud of things I have done, and proud of things she has done. This felt different. I think it is because this one I was not really a part of. I was there for crawling, for walking, for first words. But this is hers. She is doing it without me. And she seems to love it.
Feeling that kind of pride for someone else, watching them do something completely on their own, is its own thing. I did not know that until today.
September 2026 · Rebecca
Day Four
As you may have read in an earlier post, the plan for today was to arrive at the beginning of the drop off window. And we did it. We were one of the first to arrive.
I am going to back up briefly to break down how we got there.
After my daughter's last class on Friday, we received her first class newsletter that afternoon, along with a Google link of photos. That evening and throughout the weekend, per her request, we would read the newsletter and scroll through the pictures. Through her big smile she would talk about the people and what was happening in each photo. She seemed so excited and proud. Not only was she reminded of how much fun she had at school, it was a way to connect us to her experience there. As a former teacher, I know how much goes into those newsletters and the photos. It is the kind of thing that matters more than teachers probably realize.
So this morning. It started off as a beautiful morning. It was relaxed. My daughter and I played a few rounds of a memory game. No one made a big deal about school today. There were casual mentions - I am going to go finish getting ready for school, or what are we getting from the grocery store after I pick you up? She was not getting triggered. I did not want to keep talking about school, but I also did not want to blindside her.
It was not until it was time to get dressed that things changed. She was refusing. First she announced she was not done eating yet, after breakfast had been long finished. Then she was hiding. Then she was clearly trying to start a game of chase. No tears yet. Just her saying, very matter of fact, I am not going to school today.
Once she realized this was not a game, and not one she was going to win, the tears started. I got closer to her, she tried to make her escape, and I pulled her into me. She did not refuse or try to squirm away. That surprised me. I expected her to fight it. She squeezed and melted into me.
This was not the time to make it about the power struggle. There are things to address, and I knew they needed to be addressed, just not then. She would not have heard any of it anyway. In those moments it can be hard not to go there. I know I find myself biting my tongue. But she was overwhelmed. I could not say for certain what she was feeling, but she was clearly stuck in it, and her coming into me willingly was her saying she did not want to be stuck in it anymore either.
I reassured her that I heard her. I know it is hard. It has been the same few sentences each time. And as I was about to continue, I felt and heard her big sigh. I kept going: your teachers are so excited to see you and they know how to keep you safe. They love their job. We talked about how happy they always seem.
She still did not want to get dressed. But she did not refuse or fight me when I helped her. She did not want to make outfit choices, so I made them. No resistance. Now she was dressed. I scooped her up and we walked out to the car.
She was not crying, but you could tell she was trying hard to be strong. Avoiding eye contact. She seemed to just want time to herself. I sat in the backseat with her and placed my hand on her knee. Did not say anything. My husband was joining us for drop off today. Dad put on some Disney music at a low volume.
We have been drawing hearts on our hands before school. I told her I was going to draw mine. I did. I asked if she wanted one. She put her hand out for a split second and pulled it back into her chest. I did not press, but said let me know if you change your mind, I will ask again when we get there. As we got closer to school, I asked. She slowly put her hand out. I asked how many hearts. She was warming up. She said four, one for each member of our family, including our dog. And then quiet again.
My husband suggested he drop my daughter and me off at the visitor center to use the restrooms while he parked the car. As he stopped to let us out, my daughter said, I have an idea, daddy drops us off and he parks. Both my husband and I replied without missing a beat: great idea, let us do it.
She and I got out and made our way inside. I kept thinking about that. She could not choose her outfit that morning, too shut down, too overwhelmed. But this she could do. She could have an idea, say it out loud, and watch the two of us receive it without hesitation. That is autonomy. Not a big dramatic choice. Just a small one that was entirely hers in a morning where very little else had been. It is the kind of thing that looks inconsequential from the outside and can shift everything on the inside.
We met Dad outside the building to begin our walk to her outdoor classroom. The outdoor classrooms rotate every two weeks, and today was a new one. I had to make a quick call: mention it ahead of time, or say nothing and hope she did not notice? We told her on the drive over. Named the space, showed her the map on the phone. Framed it as an adventure more than a change. She did not react at all.
So there we were, making our way to the new space. Each of us holding one of her hands, counting to three and swinging her legs up. Several people walking by commented on her big smile. We found her classroom and waited behind one classmate to be welcomed in. She did not have much to say to her teacher, but she was taking it all in. She found her name tag when asked. We walked in behind her to where she puts her backpack.
At this point she was already talking to the other teacher and making her way to the other children. I said goodbye, I love you, see you soon. Before I could finish, she already had her back to me. I kissed the back of her head and left. She did not look back once. She just jumped right in.
I was so proud of her.
Maybe it was that dad came with us. Maybe it was something else we changed up in the days leading to today. Maybe it was just the day.
September 2026 · Rebecca
The Other Transition
Everyone talks about the child's transition to school. The drop offs, the tears, the adjustment. I have written about that. But there is another transition happening at the same time, and nobody really talks about it.
Mine.
My daughter leaves the house three days a week, from 8:30 to 11:30, fifteen minutes away. On paper that is three hours. In practice it is something else entirely. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Before school even started, I was dreading it. Not for her - I knew she would be okay eventually. For me. I could feel the days leading up to it slipping by, and I found myself watching ordinary moments like I was watching them for the last time. Her playing on the floor. The two of us eating breakfast. A Tuesday morning that was nothing special suddenly felt significant. And with that came the guilt. The mental list of everything I had not done yet. Places we had not gone. Things I had wanted to do with her before this chapter started. A bucket list that had not existed a month earlier and was now somehow urgent.
That guilt about the past bled into anxiety about the future. On the days she would not have school, I felt like I needed to make them count. Pack them full. Outings, activities, something intentional. What I actually figured out pretty quickly is that she did not need any of that. She just needed me. Whatever we do, wherever we are, as long as we are together - that is what she wanted. The packed schedule was for me, not for her.
Then school started. And I had the time I thought I had been wanting.
If I am honest, I had been looking forward to it a little. Not to her being gone - but to the idea of doing things without the guilt. Because here is the thing: when my daughter is home, I feel like I am supposed to be present with her. If I am cleaning the closet or returning a phone call or just sitting on the couch, I feel like I am missing something. So I had quietly started looking forward to those three hours as my window. To shower without rushing. To get a haircut. To clean out the closet. To just get things done.
And then day one drop off happened.
I had been trying to do so many things before pick up that my husband and I were scrambling to get out the door. Running late. Anxious. My nightmare - and I kept thinking, probably her nightmare too. The drive over I could feel the tension in my chest. That is not how I wanted to greet her after her first day of school. I remember consciously taking a breath as I got to her gate. Mostly because I had been running and did not want her to see me as frazzled as I felt. I wanted to be calm when she came through. I wanted that moment to feel like relief for both of us.
That stayed with me.
Day two, while she was at school, I cleaned up breakfast. Put away the three outfits she had tried on and left on the floor that morning. And then I sat down.
I watched a little of a show. Just sat with whatever I was feeling after drop off. I felt guilty about it almost immediately. The list was still running in my head. The closet was still a disaster. The haircut was still not scheduled. But I genuinely could not get up. Something in me needed to just be still for a minute.
Here is what I have realized after three days: the three hours are not really three hours. Day one, the goodbye ran long. On my way home I stopped to get her flowers. I was home maybe 45 minutes. Day two almost did not happen. We got there with class half over. Maybe 30 minutes at home. Day three was the closest to what I had pictured. Close to an hour and a half. And by then, I still just wanted to sit. And yes, I feel guilty about it. And yes, the list is still there. Sitting does not make it shorter.
But I am starting to think the sitting is not laziness. The first days of school are exhausting as a parent in a way I did not fully anticipate. The emotions of it, the drop offs, the not knowing how she is doing until you pick her up - it takes something out of you. My body might be telling me something. That the rest is not wasted time. That I will tackle the list better when I am actually ready for it than I will if I force myself through it now just to feel productive.
I am trying to be kind to myself about it. That is harder than it sounds. And I say all of this knowing I have one child and was home during those hours. I am not unaware of how that sounds to a parent juggling multiple kids, or working full time, or both. I see you. This is just my version of it.
But the breath at the gate on day one is what I keep coming back to. I do not want to arrive at pick up frantic. I do not want that to be the energy she runs into. Whatever I do or do not do with those three hours, that part I want to get right. The rest will sort itself out.
September 2026 · Rebecca
The Absorbent Mind
I am by no means a science person. The subject has never sparked any real interest for me. Ever. But this hit me.
The absorbent mind. You may have heard the term thrown around in Montessori circles. But it is not just a concept Maria Montessori came up with. At its core, it is science. It is actually how the brain is built. And when I learned that - really learned it - I could not stop thinking about why this is not something being talked about everywhere.
Here is the short version of something worth sitting with.
Maria Montessori, after being invited to work with children ages 0-6, observed two distinct phases. The unconscious absorbent mind of 0-3, and the conscious absorbent mind of 3-6. I will not spend too long on the 3-6 piece, but understanding that distinction helped the 0-3 part click for me. A child between three and six is making conscious choices - about their environment, how they interact with the world around them, who they are becoming. They are aware.
A child from birth to three is not doing that. Not yet. They are not consciously choosing anything. And that is the whole point.
Your newborn comes into the world with billions of neurons. What happens next is not random. Every repeated experience - every sound, every face, every routine, every emotional tone in the room - forms a connection. The connections that get used get stronger. The ones that do not, fade. I came across this description once and it has never left me: repeated experiences are like currents shifting sand on the ocean floor, actually changing the shape of the brain, carving mental circuits into patterns that over time become the way we perceive things and react to life. The architecture of your child's brain is being built right now, through everything they are absorbing, without effort, without fatigue, without anyone teaching them a single thing.
Think about what that actually includes.
A baby starts with reflexive kicking and through trial and error arrives at rolling, sitting, crawling, walking. Nobody taught them that. An infant absorbs the emotional atmosphere of the home - the calmness, the stress, the facial expressions, the vocal tones - and uses it as a baseline for what the world feels like. A child hears their family speak every day and effortlessly internalizes vocabulary, rhythm, accent, grammar - all of it - long before they can say a single word. Spatial order. Cultural customs. Everything they are exposed to is being absorbed and used to build their physical and mental structures.
Your child is doing all of this without being asked to. Without trying. Without getting tired.
That is what the science confirms. Brain plasticity, synaptic pruning, statistical learning, critical periods especially for language - all of it lines up with what Montessori observed a century ago. She saw it first. The research caught up.
I remember coming back from training and walking into my classroom differently. I was looking at everything differently. The room, the materials, the children moving through their work. And I was looking at myself differently too - at my role as the adult preparing that environment, including preparing myself.
I slowed down.
This might need some context. I spent about ten years bartending in my younger years. I was good at it. My brain runs fast by nature, and that environment rewarded exactly that. The busier it got, the better I did. Standing still was harder for me than chaos.
The classroom had always been busy in its own way. And I had fallen into a version of that bar brain without realizing it. Walking in and immediately cataloguing everything that needed attention. The spill over there. The puzzle that was not put away correctly. The mental list building before I had even taken off my coat. It was an energy I was putting out without meaning to.
Coming back from training, I let that go. Not because the spill did not matter, but because I understood something I had not fully understood before: the children were capable. If I stayed out of the way long enough, the spill got handled. A child I had not even noticed would walk to the shelf, see the unfinished puzzle, complete it, put it away, and move on - not because it was theirs, but because they noticed it needed to be done. That kind of thing stopped surprising me eventually. But it never stopped being beautiful.
I could not have seen any of it if I had gotten there first.
The mental load of parenthood is constant in a way that is hard to describe until you are in it. Laundry, groceries, schedules, bills, the house, the work, the person you are trying to be for your child every single day. And inside all of that, the absorbent mind does not pause. It is running the whole time.
That is what makes this feel like both a gift and a weight. The gift is that children are built to learn. They do not need perfect conditions or expensive materials. They need an environment and an adult that supports what they are already doing. The weight is knowing that the environment and the adult is you. And you are human. You are tired. You have a water bottle that is not yours sitting on the counter that you keep walking past because you have a hundred other things to do first.
I think about that water bottle more than you might expect.
In the classroom, and even more so now as a parent, I started noticing the small things I was modeling without realizing it. How I greeted people. How I answered the phone. Whether I picked up the piece of trash on the floor even when it was not mine. How I covered a sneeze. Whether things had a place, or just got set down wherever.
It can feel insignificant. Until you remember that your child is absorbing all of it - not because you told them to pay attention, but because that is what they do. That is the absorbent mind in your living room, in real time.
You are not just raising a child. You are teaching a person how to be a human being. Every single day, in ways you are not even aware of.
That hit me in training. It hits me every morning now.
September 2026 · Rebecca
Day Three
Today was my daughter's third day of school. Her program is three days a week for a couple of hours. As you may have read in my earlier post, She Said It First, we have been hitting a few snags, to say the least.
After our last drop off, after some reflecting and soul searching, my husband and I made tweaks to our approach - our routines, our language, all of it, specifically around drop off. We didn't mention school right when she woke up. It wasn't the first thing she was hearing.
Breakfast had been a source of tension for me. Last time, every few minutes I was asking if she was ready to eat, or casually reminding her that food was available. Today we made a smoothie together. She drank it slowly, internally getting herself prepared. It felt more relaxed. At least for me it did. And that matters. Aware of it or not, she picks up on what I put out. I felt better. Nothing else changed.
She mentioned school a few times on her own. We talked about our plans for when I picked her up. Got dressed and were on our way. We arrived, used the restroom - something she had refused earlier in the week. The whole morning felt like a win.
And then it changed.
She said she didn't want to go to school. Refused to proceed. She was getting louder. My heart sank for her. My chest tightened. I could feel myself getting warm, and then I could feel myself getting angry. And before I could say anything, I felt what can only be described as a punch to the gut. How could I be angry right now? My heart continued to break for her.
For context, she goes to a nature school, so class is outdoors. Before each day, we use the restrooms and walk together to her designated outdoor space. So we walked out. She was choking on her tears, telling me she didn't want to go. I got down to her eye level. I listened. We hugged. I told her I heard her. New things can be hard and scary. And then something we say often: if you're never scared of anything, you'll never have the chance to be brave. What a great chance. I held her. She stopped crying. I put her down and we kept walking.
Then she tried to pull away from me. In a parking lot. I picked her up. She asked if she could talk to her teachers and tell them she wasn't going today. I told her we were on our way to her teachers, and that I would pick her up in a little bit.
She was crying and clinging to me. I was feeling everything for this girl. She is my heart. I was staying strong for her in that moment, but all I wanted to do was bring her to the car and kiss and squeeze her.
We arrived at her class gate. She was not having it, holding onto me so tightly. I got down on the ground, tried to gently loosen her grip, pointed out her name tag, looked for anything that might catch her attention even for a split second. Nothing. She said she didn't want to go again. I said, I know leaving me is so hard, but her teachers are here to be with her and keep her safe. I love you. I'll see you in a bit.
Her teacher heard this. The timing was perfect. She crouched down and pulled my daughter into her arms. I questioned looking back. Maybe I shouldn't have. But I did. I mouthed I love you while making a heart with my hands, and I left.
The look on her face. She wasn't crying, but she wanted to, while trying so hard to be strong. And she is so strong.
I didn't make it more than a few feet before I was quietly sobbing walking to the car.
I know this is good for her. I know this is temporary. I know it will build perseverance and confidence and every other thing. But in that moment, sitting in the car, I was just sad. She was feeling real fear and real discomfort, and that hurts me. I know she'll get through it. I know she's supposed to. But it actually hurts. That's just the truth.
It made me think about the hard things I've had to do in my own life. Things I either had to do, or for whatever reason chose to do, even when every part of me didn't want to. My AMI training came to mind. I remember my boyfriend - now my husband - circling the airport because I refused to get out of the car for my flight. It was so hard for me. Debilitating in ways I still don't fully know how to put into words. But I did it. I got through it. I am better for it.
That is what she is doing right now. She is living inside this hardness to build something that will carry her for life.
When I got home and filled my husband in, something clicked. I had been arriving toward the back end of drop off intentionally. Drop off runs from 8:30 to 9, and I had been getting there closer to 9. On purpose. My thinking was that less time at school meant less time for things to go wrong. I knew she was struggling with arrival, and in my head, I was sparing her those extra 20 or 30 minutes.
I explained this to my husband out loud and heard myself as I said it.
Here is the thing - she is fine once I leave. Her teachers tell me, and I believe them. So those 30 minutes are not the problem. If she were miserable the entire time she was there, sure, 30 minutes can feel like an eternity. But she enjoys school. She just has a hard time with the transition. Those are two very different things, and I was conflating them.
And then there is the other piece. I am not someone who loves arriving late. It happens, usually because I cannot get out the door, not because I want to make an entrance or have all eyes on me. That sounds like a nightmare to me. So why did I assume my daughter would experience it differently?
Walking in at the tail end of drop off means walking into a space that is already settled. The other kids are already there, already connected, already in it. For a child who is already anxious about arrival, that is a lot to absorb all at once. In Montessori, we talk about the prepared environment - the idea that the space itself supports the child. But the social environment matters just as much. Walking in first means watching everyone else arrive. It means time with teachers before the energy of the group builds. It means being part of setting the tone instead of catching up to it.
So on Monday, we are going to try being one of the first ones there.
Will it make a difference? Honestly, who knows. But we are trying. And trying is the life of a parent.
September 2026 · Rebecca
She Said It First
My daughter started pre-K last week. She turned three in the spring, and I have spent nine years in a Montessori toddler classroom watching children navigate exactly this kind of transition. None of that prepared me for day two.
Day one went the way I expected. Tears at the gate, arms around my neck, one of her teachers crouching down beside her while I turned and walked away. Heartbreaking in the way that good things sometimes are. She loved it. When I picked her up she told me everything she had done, and said she felt brave. I drove home with the windows down.
Day two, I thought I was ready for. I had expected pushback. I even expected it to last a few weeks. But expecting something and living through it are two different things, and that morning shook me more than I anticipated.
She woke up refusing everything. Not the casual resistance of a kid who would rather stay in pajamas. Something bigger. She was throwing things, hitting, crying so hard she was close to getting sick. Still in her underwear at 9 in the morning. I could have gotten her dressed myself. I thought about it. But she had woken up already overwhelmed, and adding a physical struggle on top of that felt wrong in a way I trusted.
There are plenty of mornings I would have put her in the car regardless. A child who already knows their classroom, who has spent enough time with their teacher to feel safe with them, can arrive in pajamas. I have seen it. They get there, they settle, they get dressed, and the day begins. Even if they are embarrassed, they land somewhere familiar. They know these people. They know this place. That trust holds them.
But this was day two. She did not have that yet. Bringing her in, in that state, to people she was still figuring out felt like it could make the fear bigger, not smaller. And I was not willing to do that to her.
So I stayed close. Not hovering, not talking, just close enough that she could see me. I did not push. When she finally came out of her room, I brought her in for a hug and she broke down completely. I sang our song. She calmed down.
My husband and I talked quietly while she took space. We agreed we wanted to try to get her to school. Not because we were being rigid, but because we knew she was not actually afraid of school. She had loved day one. We did not want her to associate school with mornings like this one. We also knew that at three years old, learning that a big enough meltdown changes the plan is its own lesson, and not one we wanted to teach.
We told her there would be no tablet. I knew it would matter to her eventually, even if in that moment she genuinely could not have cared less. She was too deep in her feelings to hear much of anything, and that was okay. It was not about getting a reaction. It was about holding the line while she found her way back to herself.
After the song. After the hug. After a little bacon and most of a pancake that suddenly appeared on her radar once she had calmed down. We needed to get out of the house, honestly, for our own sanity as much as anything. Ace Hardware, coffee, Target, just something. We got dressed and headed outside.
Standing outside before we even got to the car, she stopped.
Took a breath. Big and slow, like she was summoning something.
"Mom. I am going to be brave. I can go to school."
She still wanted to run errands first and then school, and I had to explain that school would be closed by then, that this was our window. She thought about it. Then she turned around, ran back inside to grab her school stuff, and got in the car.
Drop off was seamless. She walked right in.
I was so proud of her. I was so proud of me.
But before we left the house that morning, I had called my mom. She had been waiting to hear how things went. I told her we had not made it to school yet and described the morning. And before I even registered what I was doing, I was defending myself. Explaining every choice. Saying all the things I would say to a parent who came to me with this exact story: no one is to blame, you read her correctly, you did what the moment needed.
My mom listened. And when she finally spoke, she said: I am so sorry. Being a mom is hard. She told me she is still haunted by those mornings. Her own five kids at the door. I am her oldest. I am 41.
I teared up.
That was all it took. Just having the morning acknowledged. Not fixed. Not assessed. Not turned into a teaching moment. Just, this was hard, and I see you.
It is the same thing we try to give our kids when they are in the thick of something. Acknowledge the feeling, hold the line, guide from there. That order matters. And I was reminded of it, standing on the sidewalk outside my car, that it matters for us too.
She had a great day.
September 2026 · Rebecca
Why Parents Don't Tell the Teacher Everything
This is something I thought about for years before I ever said it out loud.
For nearly a decade, I worked in a Montessori toddler classroom. I loved the work. I held parent conferences twice a year, kept up regular communication throughout the year, and genuinely cared about every family. And still, I knew I was only getting part of the picture.
Parents would come to conferences and everything would be fine. Thoughtful, engaged, asking good questions. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I could tell there were things being left unsaid. A behavior at home that never came up. A struggle that got softened before it reached me. Nothing dramatic. Just the gap between what you say to someone and what you actually live with.
Once in a while something would crack the surface. A parent would stay after conference was technically over and say, well, actually. And that was always where the real conversation started.
COVID changed something.
When our conferences moved to Zoom and parents were suddenly at their own kitchen tables, something shifted. Part of it was probably exhaustion. COVID with young children was a particular kind of hard, and desperation has a way of making people honest. Part of it was being on their own turf. Whatever the reason, those conversations opened up in a way I had not seen before.
They told me what was actually happening. The things that kept them up at night. The behaviors they did not know what to do with. The quiet guilt about choices they had already made. And because they told me, I could actually know their child. Not just the classroom version. The whole picture. That changed what I could offer them.
It also helped me name something I had only half-understood before.
Parents are careful about what they share with the person who cares for their child every day. Not dishonest. Just careful. You want your child's teacher to see your kid the way you do. So without meaning to, you lead with the good stuff. The hard moments get left out or softened. It is not calculation. It is just how we protect the people we love.
Which means the teacher is working with an incomplete picture. And so, in a different way, is the parent.
I started thinking about what it would look like to be someone different in that equation. Not the teacher. Not anyone with a stake in the classroom relationship. Just someone trained in child development whose only job was to be in the parent's corner. Someone you could actually tell the whole story to, without worrying about what it means for how someone sees your child.
That is the kind of support I wished had existed when I became a mother. And it is what I am trying to build with Wide Eyes Little Hands.
September 2026 · Rebecca
Why Montessori Starts With Less, Not More
When most parents first hear about Montessori, the first thing they do is open a browser tab and start shopping. Wooden toys. Neutral baskets. A shelf system. Montessori math materials that cost more than a car payment.
Here is the thing, though. That is not actually where Montessori begins.
Montessori starts with subtraction.
One of the most reliable things I see in my work with families is this: when a child seems restless, unfocused, or bored with everything, the solution almost never involves adding more. It involves taking some away. Too many choices overwhelm young children. A room full of toys is, paradoxically, harder to engage with than a room with a few carefully chosen things in view.
Children under three are working hard to make sense of their world. That takes mental energy. When you reduce the noise in their environment, you give them the space to actually focus. You will see it almost immediately. The child who bounced from toy to toy with nothing for longer than 30 seconds will, given fewer options, settle in and work on something with real concentration.
So what does this look like practically?
It looks like a low shelf with four or five items on it, not forty. It looks like a basket with a few real objects instead of a bin full of plastic. It looks like rotating what is available, so that when something comes back out, it feels fresh and interesting again.
The hardest part is letting go of the fear that fewer toys means a deprived child. It does not. A child who has learned how to focus, how to sustain interest, how to return to something and keep working on it, that child has something that cannot be bought in a toy store.
You do not have to buy a single thing to start doing Montessori at home. You just have to put some things away.
September 2026 · Rebecca
What Your Toddler's Behavior Is Actually Telling You
A toddler throws a block across the room and hits the dog. A two-year-old melts down completely because the banana broke in half. A child who was fine ten minutes ago is now biting their sibling.
From the outside, this all looks like bad behavior. Like something to correct, suppress, or get ahead of.
But here is a different way to read it: your toddler is not giving you a hard time. They are having a hard time. And they are doing the only thing they know how to do about it.
Children this age do not yet have the neural development to manage big emotions. The part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation is not even close to finished growing. So when a toddler loses it over a broken banana, that is not a tantrum in the dismissive sense. That is a child in genuine distress, overwhelmed by a feeling they have no tools to handle yet.
This does not mean behavior has no limits. It does. But understanding what is driving it changes how you respond. And how you respond determines whether your child learns to manage it or just learns to hide it from you.
A few things that look like bad behavior and what they often mean:
- Hitting and biting in toddlers is almost always about frustration and underdeveloped language. They want to communicate something they cannot say.
- Throwing objects is often about sensory need or cause-and-effect curiosity. It is not defiance. It is physics.
- Refusing everything is a toddler asserting that they exist as a separate person with preferences. Developmentally, this is a milestone, not a problem.
- Clinging and regression, especially after a big change, is the child's way of restoring connection when something feels uncertain.
None of this means you accept the hitting or ignore the meltdown. It means you start by asking: what is happening for this child right now? What do they need that they do not have? What are they trying to tell me that they cannot say?
When you start there, the response comes easier. And over time, your child begins to feel understood. That, more than any correction or consequence, is what actually helps them develop self-regulation.
September 2026 · Rebecca
The Hardest Part of Montessori Has Nothing to Do With Toys
People come to me expecting I will tell them which shelf to buy or how to set up a sensory bin. And sometimes we do talk about that. But the thing that actually changes most families is not about the environment at all.
It is about slowing down.
In Montessori, the adult is an observer first. You watch before you intervene. You wait to see what the child can figure out before you step in to help. You offer less so the child has the chance to do more.
That sounds simple. In practice, it is one of the hardest things I ask parents to do.
We are wired to help. We see our child struggling with a zipper and every instinct says: just do it for them, we are running late, it is faster. We see them frustrated with a puzzle piece and we want to guide their hand. We see them faltering and we rush in, because that is what love looks like from the outside.
But from the inside, from the child's perspective, the moment you step in before they have had a real chance, you send a message. Not intentionally. But the message lands. It says: you cannot do this. I do not think you can handle it.
And children believe us.
Slowing down looks like counting silently to ten before you help. It looks like narrating without directing: "You are working on that zipper." It looks like sitting nearby and being available without being intrusive. It looks like letting your child fail at something small so they can succeed at it later on their own.
It also looks like letting them be frustrated for a moment. Frustration is not harm. It is the feeling that precedes a breakthrough, and children who are allowed to feel it and move through it develop a capacity for persistence that will serve them their whole lives.
The toys help. The environment helps. But the adult who has learned to pause, to watch, to wait, that is the real Montessori practice. And it is available to every parent, in any home, starting today.