Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book has a couple of interesting philosophical points - mainly the fact that true self confidence comes from being capable and able to contribute - but no doubt these are ideas that can be found in any montessori book, and most of these ideas are contained in the introduction which is available online as the free review chapter. Its the best chapter in the book. In terms of practical advice the book has very little - it describes loosely the things it proposes, but I found myself always waiting for them to actually set out what they were suggesting. For example, you can glean from the chapter roughly how they suggest you should set up a childs nursery based on the stories they tell about how the example couple set theirs up, but I never felt I had a full and clear understanding of what was ideal. Other Monessori books not only clearly describe recommended tools and the skill they foster but also give you templates so you can make the tools at home. I'm not sure what world the authors live in but some of the suggestions are plain funny - they talk about having someone stay in your babies room each night for the first couple of months to give the new mother time to recover - as an example they have a woman quietly knitting in the babies room all night so that she can resettle the baby and only wake the mother up when the child really, truly needs feeding... sounds great - where do I get one of those? They also talk about setting out a shelf in the kitchen for the childs kitchen tools, and another for their baking tools, another for their lunch time place settings - again - where do I get a kitchen with that many spare shelves? One of my favourites describes how a child should only need 4-6 pairs of pants (plus a couple of dress outfits). Sure if I wanted to wash their clothes EVERY night... Then there are the ideas that are plain dangerous - such as giving 18 month olds knives to chop their own apples, or glasses because they should learn the very real consequences of mishandling their cups. I dont want my my 6 month old to learn the hard way that glass can cut his finger! (Yes - they give glasses to 6 month olds who are forced to sit in a wooden chair to eat, which must be a strain on their back). Of course after my child has shattered their glass I should encourage them to sweep up the mess with their own dustpan (from yet another shelf in my imaginary giant kitchen). Just in case they didnt cut themselves already. I should also (from the age of 6 months) carry my childs table settings: bowl, pitcher etc to the table ONE AT A TIME and using two hands because this is how the child will have to do it when it is eventually able to set the table itself (in a year or so...). The next part of the book says that you should NOT eat with your child as that is lazy, you should just help your child to feed itself and you eat later or earlier (and of course the child wont be trying to climb onto my lap to get a taste of what Mummy has for dinner because it is a Montessori child and will be busy cleaning up the broken glass). Aside from those two priciples being directly opposite each other (on the one hand demonstrate carrying but on the other dont let them watch you eat), it also seems to go against other Montessori books that I have read where they talk about children learning from the calm example of their peers ie they will want to use their spoon when they see you using yours, they will learn table manners from watching how you behave etc. This book also left me with the idea that everything should be moving along at the pace they have outlined or else I'm holding my child back. This is totally contrary to the other Montessori books I have read which have talked about allowing each child to develop at their own pace. The book pays lipservice to this idea (eg it says that the idea is not to get the child to do things for itself but rather to give it the sense of independance), but it re-inforces all the time that if you do this your child will be independant earlier than other children, and that feels like the goal and the measuring stick. Regarding breastfeeding - the authors just plain tell you that you should stop breastfeeding them at 9 months because you know best and that will help them feel independant. Thats totally contrary to health advice, and on the other end of the spectrum makes no allowance for women who can't breastfeed that long. Either way you'll get a guilt trip if you dont stop at 9 months. Which is typical of this book - the entire thing sounds like you are getting a lecture from an old fashioned catholic school teacher and if you arent doing everything exactly as they say then you are a bad mother, if your children arent the perfectly independant angels described you have ruined them. As a confident mother of 2 I got a pleasant buzz of indignation at most of the diatribe, but I shudder to think how I would have felt reading it as an overwhlemed, sleep deprived, hormonal first time Mum. I think this book would have totally shattered my self confidence and made me feel guilty at every turn. It says things like 'Everyone knows it is easier to do for the child rather than teach it to do for itself, but to do that is just being a lazy mother'. New mothers are so vulnerable and there are ways to give advice that bolsters their self confidence and their enjoyment of their new role. This book does the opposite of supporting parents - it gives them ultimatums, guilt trips and unrealistic yet vague expectations, and I think that can be dangerous to a new Mum. Don't buy this book - it doesnt provide real Montessori principles, has little practical advice and is so negative and lecturing that anything good in it is lost guilt trips.