Just slowing down and letting him explore was amazing...

I am so honoured that one of my families has allowed me to place our email dialogue on the blog. I am sharing the communication I had between myself and the mother of one of my students because I truly believe it is an important message. As an educator you hope that you are able to not only inspire your students, but can also share in the learning with your families. The words from A. K. M. brought me to tears with happiness and joy! Thank you again for your wisdom and authenticity, and being so transparent with your personal experience.

Dialogue

A. K. M. 

I love all of your blog posts and this one and the Humber Arboretum post really struck me. Adults have so much to learn from children and these posts presented me with yet another lesson. Life & business aren't about competitiveness, they're about inclusiveness & inquiry. This morning I decided to take a page of your book and just watched how O's mind wandered as opposed to telling him we needed to move on to the next task (grocery shopping, cleaning rooms etc). We had the BEST morning! Just slowing down and letting him explore was amazing (and even caused his very active 2 year old brother to take a moment longer to check things out). 

Me

You have made my weekend! 

Thank you so much for the kind works and more importantly taking the time to slow down and listen to O as he explores and investigates things at his own pace. This is my number one goal in having created the blog. I hope people use it as a reflection piece and are able to see just how capable and competent children can be if given the chance. Thank you again for the kind words. 

A. K. M.

It was such a wonderful morning and something that I plan to do MUCH more often. In conjunction with reading your blog, I also read this article on Trying Out Slow Parenting which held so true to me.
When passing on advice about parenting my mom (mother of 4 in 8 years!) always says "if I could do it all over again with the knowledge I have now, I would have stopped doing all the chores and and gotten down on the floor and played with you guys more". Wise words. Thank you again for your blog post & pictures because it really brought home how much I was missing by not just being in the moment with O and letting him explore at his own pace. Here are two pictures from yesterday mornings "Spider Habitat Adventure" :-)

Me

Wow A! Those are very profound words of advice by your mom. I wish this message could be shared even more! I am so happy you are building in these moment of free exploration for your children. This is the way they learn and experience the world. Thank you for the article. It was very informative.

A. K. M.

It really has been profound learning for me this weekend. This morning we purposely set out time so we could watch what the kids were doing. O woke up wanting to check his spider habitat and make sure no animals had disturbed it overnight. After a while, his imagination took him to our back yard once being a castle from long ago with dungeons & bad guys (and the inevitable digging for treasures :-) It was so much fun! To be honest, I'm so grateful that this lesson was learned while our kids are still so young. Now I just need to remember it when life get busy!

A couple of pictures are below of his early-morning exploration.

I can only imagine how much learning and joy O experienced this weekend! 

Thank you again A. K. M. for sharing your insight with us.

J. C.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Just what I needed as I figure out how to be a mother of three! I took a step back this morning and relaxed and let W lead the way. We ended with puddle jumping, some car playing, finding mushrooms and making a snail habitat with C at lunch.

I was a tad bit 'stressed' over the weekend with managing all three and this blog post really reminded me what is important in life.

So thank you so much for sharing!!

Cheers,
J

Dear Anamaria,

Thank you and your team so much for creating such an incredibly enriching year for L and her classmates! I've seen her grow and develop in a very positive way.  

Your approach to discovery and wonder with our world, I believe, has also helped to reengaged many parents with their children and how we interact with them...many have shared this with me. Your dedication to your vocation of teaching is truly commendable.   You are an inspiration to the profession and I greatly admire your commitment to your work and students.  

G and L