For this episode, I sat down with Simone Davies, a Montessori educator who runs Jacaranda Tree Montessori in Amsterdam and founder of the online home The Montessori Notebook, which helps people apply Montessori principles in daily live through free articles, downloads, and e-courses. I love Simone’s perspective on education, parenting, and positive discipline, and I wanted to share her insight with listeners.

We talk about a number of different issues during our conversation, but the primary focus was on handling emotionally charged and difficult situations with our children, including when our child is having a tough time in public and all eyes are on us to respond “appropriately.” We talk about how difficult it is to stay emotionally detached and not let our own angry or frustrated energy add further fuel to the situation, and Simone shares some useful strategies for staying (mostly) calm and cool.

Simone Davies has over 10 years experience as an AMI-qualified Montessori teacher, working with both young children and their parents. Simone is a parent educator, runs Jacaranda Tree Montessori, a Montessori playground in Amsterdam for babies, toddies and preschoolers, and is the founder of The Montessori Notebook. 

Things you’ll learn from this episode

• What the Montessori philosophy entails
• Specific strategies for not absorbing your child’s energy during difficult moments and diffusing the situation instead
• An approach for handling public meltdowns
• How to practice empathy with a child
• The value in getting comfortable with big emotions
• Why making amends and taking responsibility works better than punishments
• How our thoughts about a child’s behavior can worsen a situation

Resources mentioned about how to be a calm parent

• The Montessori Notebook
• Simone’s e-course Setting Up Your Home Montessori Style
• Jacaranda Tree Montessori
• The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children, by Ross W. Greene
• TiLT Parenting Podcast episode featuring Margaret Webb (Finding Peace in Parenting the Child You Didn’t Expect When You Were Expecting)

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