Attempting the Balance while we ALL work/learn from Home: Montessori Wisdom for this CEO.

My career path has been quite different from most. On a fairly fast track, I was living single in the city, feeling career burn-out by age 26, worried that I although I might make it to CEO, I might never have a family. By age 31, I somehow found myself a suburban stay at home mom, with a rambunctious (and wonderful) stepson and 4 children - under the age of four!

At age 48, I am a CEO...and a mom/stepmom to 8 kids. I could (and probably will one day) write a book on all of the fantastic training for my professional life that came from my time home with my family. Today I am just thinking about one important lesson I learned from helping out an 8-child preschool started in a friend's basement.......

I like a full house. And as a mom with now quite grown kids, it can get far too quiet around here during the normal course of the year. Now that we are in this strange non-normal, I am glad that the house is full of people, laughter, noise.... it's love. But of course I struggle with the time and space to work productively with it all going on around me just like so many others.

Many years ago, in a different country, in what feels like a different lifetime, I was one of a very small number of parents involved in a fledgling Jewish Montessori preschool. The vision of someone else, I learned as much as I could about the methodology and did whatever I could with my PR and non-profit background to help the school get off of the ground.

A couple of years later, my husband and I made the decision to keep our 4 1/2 kids ages 5 and under home for the year (!). That's right, 4 kids and pregnant, no preschool, no daycare for the year. I wasn't crazy enough to attempt an additional job at the same time, but there were many moments when the household needed me to be doing something other than sitting in a sandbox or pushing a swing.

So I took a note from that Montessori background that taught me that kids do GREAT on their own (for certain amounts of time) if you take the time to first PREPARE THE ENVIRONMENT. In the classroom, this meant setting up a quiet, inviting space with activities that sparked curiosity and the means to explore those activities in a focused but fun manner.

At home this meant that if I invested the time in properly preparing an activity, materials for free play, something new for them to explore or even "make your own sandwiches for lunch," that they would then engage quietly and I could manage to fold some laundry - or even, possibly go to the bathroom by myself!

As I said, that was many years ago. But the fantastic learning experience and Montessori-based principle not only remains, but has been a life-saver during this coronavirus challenge, and in fact reminds me of how much we need to do the very same for ourselves, not just our children. 

I know now that if I need to jump on a call interrupted from 2-3, that if I spend a few minutes from 1-1:30 making a batch of playdough, starting an intricate coloring page, or creating a set space for a specific lego challenge, that I am so much more likely to get that uninterrupted time I need. There is always room for my kids to reach a healthy stage of boredom, and of course they come up with activities on their own. But thinking ahead and staging the environment is a time investment that keeps coming back to me with positive returns as I try to keep them positively engaged, but also serve my clients to the best of my ability. 

But it really isn't just our kids who thrive with a "prepared environment.” I enjoy cooking in a fully clean kitchen, a fresh palette from which to create something new. I have to remember as I enter my "office”each day that in order to try to remain focus and tune out the "giggles that are about to turn into a screech of injury I just know it" sounds that if I spend a few minutes on my desk space and office before I do, it will make a difference. 

My next experiment will have to be my spouse. Is there an environment I can create that will spark his curiosity and inspire him to enjoying doing all of the dishes while I work?