It seems like everything I read says that Montessori is wonderful for GT kids. My son is not having the greatest experience. He is in his first year in a 3-6 classroom. He's not getting along with the other kids and refuses to pay attention to the work. I'm not sure what to do next year.

It isn't great for everyone. It also depends on the flexibility of the teachers and the arrangement that is at each place.

What are the teachers saying to you? Do you have specific examples? They wanted the children to do X but your son did Y? etc etc What do they mean "refuses to pay attention to the work" -- what was the work? How long were they suppose to do it? etc

Montessori has been wonderful for my dd9, who is still there in 4th grade (generally doing 5th and 6th grade work). I have read of cases where it wasn't a good fit for gifted kids--my impression is that may be at schools that are die-hard Montessori (you must progress in exactly this way and you will not be given new lessons until you can show that you have mastered the previous work). My dd's teachers have been pretty flexible. (also--I think her LOG is easier to manage than your child's and she is sort of a typical teacher-pleasing girl). So far for dd3 it seems like the best option for her...I don't think it will be that great when she is the oldest in a class though.

It really does depend on the teacher and the school. Is there any way you can go in to observe? Maybe that will help you to figure out if it is the method or the personality or the teacher that isn't working for your son.

I agree -- it depends so much on the teacher.

My DS was very unhappy his first year of casa (3-6 year old). The teacher was very rigid, had one style for everybody, and didn't allow "skipping steps". My DS wanted to do more advanced work, but she tried to force him to do all the preliminary steps (like learning to count to 10 and recognize the numbers when he was well beyond that). He spent way too much time sitting in the naughty chair.

We switched him to another teacher at the same school for the next two years of Casa and it was like night and day. I still have fond memories of his second teacher!

I suggest observing (they usually encourage that at Montessori) and talking to your son about why he is unhappy. My son at 4 years old told me he wanted to "break everything in the school" so that he wouldn't have to go back.

I'm sorry for being so vague in my original post. This is what is going on:

He's in Montessori, ages 3-6. I thought this would be good for him, because he has very asychronistic development. I figured he can work on the stuff he is behind on, and yet have the opportunity to work ahead in the areas he excels in. I also liked the idea that it was a mixed age classroom because he always gravitates towards older kids. (Actually adults mostly.) He's mostly around DH & I so I think that's where that comes from.

Anyways, none of this is going as I planned. LOL.


First of all, we have had several talks with the director of the school, who is also the head teacher. She thinks DS may have ADD. I'll admit, it's crossed my mind from time to time, I don't really see him focus on one thing for very long. He will read books, and catalogs for hours, and he will do legos, but a lot of times he starts things and doesn't finish them, which is what they are seeing at school. HE alo wanders around the room all day and wont choose anything that he already knows. He only wants new presentations on works, and once a teacher presents something, he's not interested in it anymore.

I personally think that it's not ADD, he just isn't interested in the work. I'm not sure why, I would have loved it, but maybe that's part of my problem, I'm projecting.

Also, he is reluctant to do work without a teacher present. This is obviously a problem because he can't always have a teacher present. We all feel that he is still dealing with a little bit of seperation anxiety. The poor kid has had a lot of adjustments, I had twins in the summer, and then he started school for the first time in the fall. I think he just feels a little insecure.



The more pressing problem is that he's having problems with some other kids. He keeps saying that he is lonely at school, and there have been several "altercations" between him and other students.

This all makes me so sad because preschool is supposed to be fun, and DS isn't having fun. Sometimes he talks about stuff he did at school that he liked, but it's always special projects. He doesn't like the Montessori work. He has said from the beginning that he doesn't want to go, and that he likes it "a little bit." He says it's boring. He says lots of things are boring, so part of me thinks it's his stock answer but part of me thinks that maybe Montessori just isn't for him.

I did have a chance to observe him two weeks ago. I was there for an hour, 20 minutes of which he ate snack. The rest of the time, he wandered around a lot, but he did pick "work" to do. He would do it for a minute or two and put it back. He looked a little sad the whole time which really broke my heart. He wasn't feeling well, so I'm not sure if I got the true picture of his school day. He was really good though, he seemed uninterested in the fact I was there, he went about his business and didn't try to talk to me. When I was leaving he got a little teary and I asked him what was wrong. He said, "I just really don't want to be here today." It took all my will power not to bring him home with me.

We had his IQ tested right before he turned 4, and the psych doing the evaluation recommended a gifted charter school for next year. He would technically be starting early, since he has a fall birthday, he should start in 2 years. His Montessori teacher feels that he isn't ready because of the attention issues, and he also has some fine motor problems, which he is in OT for now. The psych feels these will either resolve themselves by September, or won't be hard to deal with, since the teachers are used to dealing with gifted kids' quirks.

So, that's my long drawn out diatribe.

ETA: About the kind of Montessori it is, they are pretty hard core. But, they have skipped some things for DS, because they realize that he's so stubborn, he'd rather do nothing all day than something boring.

I worry about this too!

I would be very reluctant to attribute his behaviour to adhd at this stage. When I consider how I feel and behave when I am not intellectually challenged it gives me much more sympathy for these kids, and I can completely understand why a gifted kid who is not might appear to have adhd. I have to say...I spend most of my days at my kids' school and very few of the kids (even those who are identified as GT) seem to be bored. Maybe a lot of it is just wanting to be home with mommy? Or maybe it is his LOG. I'm not much help. But maybe keeping him home until next year would be something to consider.

I can say re: the OT issues that a lot of the Montessori work is really really excellent at helping with OT stuff. The OTs are always impressed with the fine motor skills of my 7-yr. old with Down syndrome and attribute it to his environment at Montessori.

Good luck-sounds like the gifted charter would be a good option for next year!

I completely agree! I've mentioned this to his teacher, that lots of gifted kids are misdiagnosed with ADD, etc, etc. We just can't figure out how to get him to focus, and I think he also has a little underachieving thing going on, if it's not easy from the get go, he tries to avoid it. He also avoids anything with writing.

My gifted son with visual and motor issues had a horrible time in his Montessori pre-school experience. He spent the entire time either bored or frustrated. He wanted to spend the day in the reading corner, or in the classroom with the lower elementary children, but he wasn't allowed. His teacher would gush to us about how he always already knew everything they were going over in circle time, and she just didn't get that that was the heart of the problem. The motor tasks were simply impossible, and there was nothing else for him to learn.

Not a good fit for my dd. She was too creative and divergent for the Montessori way. After doing anything a couple of times one way, she would explore different ways of using the materials and was therefore not doing her "work".

Then we had the social aspect. This kid is extremely sociable, so she would always choose work where she would work with other kids (serving tea), or things that were too hard for her (sewing when she was 3) because that guaranteed the teacher would be there helping her. In short, she got her social needs met because that was what was most important to her, but then did not do the work she was ready to tackle. In Montessori philosophy she would naturally gravitate towards the "just right" level of challenge, but she did not.

There were other issues. While she is HG+, she was not interested in academics as a preschooler so it was not like she was ahead.

I could have written the identical post about my DS (now almost 8). All I can say is GET HIM OUT OF THERE!!!! In our case, it went from "not so great" to "bad" to "disaster" in a matter of weeks, and it's taken us literally years to undo the damage that year did.

Now, 5 years later, I've got a second DS (PG, as his brother is) and a DD who is too young to test, but clearly headed that direction, and we went the totally opposite direction with them...they go to a COMPLETELY play-based preschool and they do wonderfully there. I would never have chosen that with my oldest - and now I would LOVE to go back and do it all differently with him.

We have had great success with Montessori. Our son (now six) had a miserable experience with our state-run pre-k. We took him out and put him in a new Montessori school.

He was there last year (which would have been pre-k) and this year (which would've been kindergarten). Our school identified issues which lead to evaluation and occupational therapy. He is simply a different kid. Much happier, more social, more physically capable.

Montessori isn't always a perfect fit, however. Our son is not a self-starter, which is a main thrust of Montessori. The teachers, however, would allow our son to initiate. After a while of watching him choose things that were well below his capability, they would push him towards more challenging activities.

I think, with everything, it just depends. It depends on the kid, it depends on the school, the teachers, on everything, and the combination therein. We have a next door neighbor who has a daughter the same age as my son. They initially went to the same pre-k, and it was perfectly fine for her. My son was absolutely miserable.

Is this the first time your son has been away from you? If so, it may be separation anxiety combined with being compelled to do activities he is unaccustomed to.

If, however, he truly seems unhappy, I would urge you to pay attention and do what feels right. I shudder to think what my son would be like emotionally had I left him in that pre-k.

I wish it could be easier, I really do! I know how gut-wrenching it is to just "fly by the seat of your pants" and not know what is the "right" thing to do!

Amber,
Try going the other way, provide him with something he doesn't know and would love to learn... is he able to focus then?

But then also consider that even if he is able to focus, for "Normal" children, focus ability from age 3-6 varies quite a bit.

He needs/wants something more than what that environment is providing him.

Best wishes,

Montesorri didn't work for us at all. DS moved through everything really quickly, even when they made him take every step, one by one.

Both of my kids had trouble in Montessori classrooms for different reasons. My older son is 2E, though we didn't know about either E at the time. He needed direct instruction and was befuddled by the Montessori way.

My younger son was reading at the time he started Montessori preschool at age 2.75. Even so, the teacher insisted that he do the work in a specific order. He spent a *year* doing the "scratchy letters" and another year doing some weird thing with sight words. He was bored out of his mind. We finally got a clue and took him out just prior to his kindergarten year to homeschool.

That said, I know that the Montessori elementary school in our town is a haven for gifted kids, and they need one, as the local district acts like they've never heard of gifted.

We used a lot of Montessori methods with my DD when she was ~2-4. I love the philosophy, myself. The local Montessori schools were more Waldorf-ey than Montessori, however, and it was crystal clear that they were not the right places for DD.

Unfortunately, as a few others have noted, Montessori isn't always a good fit for some gifted kids. A lot depends on the exact details of the individual classroom teacher's philosophy.

Mine seemed to always know how to think symbolically, which translated into a loathing and utter bewilderment regarding manipulative items. She also has sensory issues and loathes anything sticky, scratchy, or messy to touch. Her earliest learning profile with her school lists her learning style as "ANTI-tactile." LOL. That's no exaggeration, actually. She didn't want to write in sand. She didn't want to play in water. In fact, getting a drop of water anywhere on her clothing was a guarantee that she would strip the offending articles immediately. Let's just say that doing a handbuilding pottery class with my then 3 yo was a disaster, and I hope she'll forgive me by the time she's 18.


She refused to trace sandpaper letters with her fingers and thought that the sight-word cards were just weird. She didn't WANT 'instruction' from anyone in the first place, and she certainly didn't want to be prevented from actually doing what she could see perfectly well how to do... so the entire philosophy of "introduce, demonstrate, let child do" didn't always work out as planned with her, and even if it did, she was certainly not going to do the same activity more than a time or two before she moved on to something more compelling-- unless there was something more in it for her than learning.

I'm also laughing at the description of a child 'choosing' activities for their social value. This is precisely how my DD has always approached Montessori environments, and it was exactly what she did with childcare settings, too.

My ds wants the social interaction too. We really don't know what to do with him next year. His teacher is a wonderful person, I just worry that she doesn't get him.


Thanks for the replies everyone. You made me feel less crazy.

Amber,

Couple of things. First the writing comment. Have you tried to mask writing in a fun activity? One that crosses my mind is to make a soft paste in a cake pan and have him write his letters with his finger. I'm sure there are many others and the OT should have lots of ideas.

Second, given your description I think I would try the gifted school. Have you contacted them? You could ask them how they handle lack of interest or boredom. I, too, would be hesitant to jump to the conclusion of ADD. When the psychologist did his/her testing did they hint at ADD? Time will tell if this really is the case but for now I would chaulk it up to not a good fit. Montessori schools are not all the same and depending on the teacher and the school policy it could be too rigid for what your little guy needs.

This has been a *very* useful thread to read. We're potentially in a bind for my son's kindergarten next year, and one consistent recommendation I hear is Montessori. I now have a list of things to look for and ask about when visiting on top of my own concerns.

For kids that already think symbolically, is there any aspect of Montessori math education that is particularly successful? DS is at a point where he can make and interpret the physical representation, but gets frustrated very easily at having to do it to prove his answer for more than one example.

We're going the Montessori route so hopefully I'll be answer this soon. I've been very drawn to it due to the multi-age classrooms, focus on child-led learning, and the calm environment (DD would probably loose it in a play based classroom if there was a lot of noise and it was chaotic). I also love that they work with the child to be responsible for putting away their own things, prepare their own snacks, etc.

That's what I love about it... but will it be a perfect fit? Only time will tell. DD gets VERY freaked out when her hands are dirty but on the other hands loves to touch things so I'm guessing stuff like the sand paper letters will be a big hit for her (she also seems to focus more on writing than reading so again it seems like it might be a good fit). Our hope is that it will help with her fine motor skills since those always seem to be a bit behind the rest of her skills.

I will say, though, that we looked for a Montessori school that appears to be more focused on being a child-led environment than one that has to have everything in a certain order. So maybe it's not super strict in that sense?

All Montessori schools are not created equal so just because this one is a bad fit doesn't mean another wouldn't be too (I can't tell you how many times I've heard of families switching to a new one and loving it but hated their first or second tries).

Also, have you tried talking to the teacher about your sons problems at the school? Is there another classroom that he could switch too? Have you viewed the gifted school? Have you asked him what he thinks about switching schools?

I just thought I would update for anyone in the same situation. We had a parent teacher conference last week, and there hasn't been much change. We are going to go ahead and send him to the charter next year. Everything the teacher described as a problem, just screamed to us that he was bored. For example, DS cannot concentrate on washing the table work.


Thanks for all of the advice everyone!

We have had great success with montessori for my dd from 2nd grade thru 6th. My ds began in kindergarten and it has been great for him thru his current 4th grade. At our public charter school the 7th grade is quite different from the typical montessori classroom. I see that my daughter needs the classroom structure montessori offers in the lower grades so that she can then pursue her work with passion to the depth and width she so desires. The 7th grade is very teacher driven, not challenging enough and too loud. WE are partial homeschooling now and looking for options for next year. The school has been very flexible and really willing to work with us.

I've posted on this before. There is a huge spectrum of "Montessori" for schools. We were in a full-on, AMI Montessori school for my 2 gifted boys for 2 years. We were really unimpressed and moved to our public school.
The negatives to a "real" Montessori school:
1) Tends to have huge class sizes. My son's class had 36 kids with one teacher and 2 "helpers," who were not allowed to teach the lessons.
2) The child must get taught the lesson and then repeats it on their own. If they already know the lesson, they still have to do it, and do it "the Montessori way." That can be very boring for a gifted and/or creative child.
3) Frequently not alot of writing. Not alot of "traditional" topics like history, social studies, or hard science.
4) No accountability- no homework, no tests. Although that sounds great, how do you know that your child has learned what they are supposed to learn? It's a huge leap of faith on your part.
I will say that the math can be fantastic. My kids started exposure to multiplication and long division at age 4. My older one in first grade tested at 5th grade for math, partly due to Montessori.
Both my kids were bored silly by the Montessori. I realized how many deficits the curriculum had, and I ended up teaching them things afterschool to compensate.

PS- my little one loved to bake bread in the Montessori! He would bring home this (yucky) bread that he made almost every day. I finally told him, knock off the bread-baking and start reading!
HAHAHAH, but it's follow the child with Montessori. If your child doesn't want to read or do math, they can't/won't really force them to do that.

The problem is, he doesn't want to do anything. Lol. They finally got him to do some golden bead addition, so that's promising.

My older boy wandered around the Montessori room most of the school day, doing nothing and eventually just doing math. It took me six months to figure this out. The school shrugged their shoulders and said that they "follow the child." They expected him, at age 6, to come in, write up a list of what he wanted to do, and then do it!
Well, he didn't do it! I think he's average in that department. After awhile, I noticed that at least half the kids in their kindergarten level couldn't read; probably kids who didn't right away want to read or gravitate toward that "job.:

Yeah.... What they said. Our experience lasted one week and it was a complete waste!

Thanks for this thread. It's very helpful. I'm putting this here because I need to vent.

I really loved the primary classes for both of my kids. They were able to work at their own speed and flew through math and geography and science. By the end of primary, both were doing math, geography and science at the 4th grade level. I'm less impressed with the reading program. DS1 taught himself to read before we started Montessori, so that hasn't been an issue. DS2 avoids reading and they don't push him at all. DS2 also treated his first three years of primary as a big party. I'm okay with that, (it's his personality), but he wasn't doing a lot of work. At the end of DS2's kindergarten year, he is reading at a kindergarten level. I think he could probably do more; he just doesn't want to and they don't push it. I'm not sorry that I sent both my kids to Montessori for preschool and kindergarten. The math, science and geography was worth it.

Our elementary experience has been mixed. DS1 is finishing Lower Elementary this year. He has been in that classroom for three years. It has 15 kids, a teacher and an assistant. He had a rough year during year 1, mostly due to behavior issues and a speech/language disorder. He had a good year in year 2, because we diagnosed his 2E issues and got him into speech/language therapy.

He has had a terrible year in year 3, mostly because of boredom. He is through most of the materials that they are making available to him in 3rd year. (He has literally read every book available in the reading boxes.) They aren't making more material available to him. I finally started broke down and started working with him at home to design projects and sent books and materials to school with him to work on. He refuses to do many group lessons because he is bored with the material. He does a lot of creative writing, but his teacher insists that he isn't working when he is doing this, and will tell me that he isn't working when he spent two hours writing a story. His teacher complains that he talks about video games and super-heroes "all of the time." Yes -- he's writing stories about them and writing and designing video games. His focus on creative work this year has really been driving the teacher crazy. She doesn't see it as valid work. (I do. I'd love to have a kid who grew up to write and design video games as a career.) He does do other work. He's read a ton of American history this year and many biographies. She gets annoyed because he reads multiple biographies on the same person. (I think he read 5 or 6 long-ish middle school age books on Martin Luther King and other people involved in the Civil Rights movement this year,and then he read several on Ghandi because MLK was inspired by Ghandi.) He does lots of math, but prefers worksheets and math books to working with manipulatives.

It's been a frustrating year for me because of the constant complaints that he isn't doing work.I didn't know it was possible to get outside of the box at a Montessori school, but he's outside of the box. He is doing work at school. He just isn't doing what his teacher wants him to do.

We're not going back next year. I'm not unhappy with his academic work. His Iowa Basic scores were very good, with high marks in everything. He knows what he needs to know at this grade level, and knows a lot of other stuff besides. I am very unhappy with the constant tension and complaining over what he is or isn't doing. They're unhappy with his refusal to toe the line. He gets yelled at a lot. He makes his teacher miserable, she makes him miserable, and they both make me miserable.

OMG KateZ
I can't believe that wouldn't make 4th grade materials availible to him! That sounds very un-Montessori like!

How many more weeks of school are left?

Have you gone up the chain of command at the school to complain about this? I just don't want you to jump 'out of the frying pan and into the fire.'

Would your son have the same teacher next year? It sounds like the narrow box is in her head. Would he be moving to a new room and teacher next year anyway? To me it sounds like he had lots of time to do creative writing and that is a beautiful thing.

You have every right to vent, and I'd love to hear more about it.
Smiles,
Grinity

For those of you with positive montessori experiences - I am jealous

For those with not so positive experiences, I can relate. We also had an AM Certified school for DS for 2 years ages 6-7. They would not allow DS to advance at his level of readiness. In fact in the 2 years that DS was in the school in addition to a multitude of other problems that we continue to work on with psychiatric help, he actually regressed in all of his educational levels.

My suggestion is to listen to your child. Mine was actually emotionally abused by the way the program was implemented at his school. If your parental warning system is going off - There is probably a good reason to explore and try to pinpoint the problem.

Grinity,

The Lower El teacher is the head directoress. She *IS* the chain of command. We've had lots of talks about what would help DS1. She just shakes her head and says "We've never had a kid like him. We don't know what to do with him." (I always have to bite my tongue. She's been teaching for 40 years and NEVER had a kid like DS1? Really?) She's placed this kid in the "bad kid" box (because it's easier than adapting the curriculum) and we're never getting out of it. Time to go.

We had similar poor experience with a Montessori. They kept my son in directoress' office almost everyday to make tecahers' life easier. We were told everyday that they've never had a kid like him and we'd better quit. We withdrew after 4 weeks. That was not the end of the world. My son has been doing great ever sine.

Mr W was in Montessori. And it worked fine for about 12 months.

A few weeks ago we noticed a change in his behavior after school. And he was no longer the happy kid when we dropped him off.

When the school shared its "eval" of him - they had stopped the testing at his age level when in fact he knew everything they had on their "eval" through K.

We also reviewed everything that they do with him and the older kids in his room and he has known it all for about a year now. I asked him what he did during the day and he said he thinks about being at home with his toys and books.

When we suggested that he might be bored, the teacher immediately said no. LOL.

Mr W is very extroverted and that is another issue. None of the kids talk at his level, nothing in the room is at his level, and the teachers work at a much lower level. So he just phases out into his own world and they let him.

So, like its been said on here before, let the kids tell you what they need by listening to them. One year its fine and the next it is not.

We did not have a positive experience at Montessori (3-6) either. It lasted about a term before we realised just how bad it was for him and took him out. It's taken over 6 months for him to start to move beyond it.

I just wanted to return to this thread again, my Ds has been out of school for 2 weeks, and is back to his old self.

We've pretty much decided on HSing for now, it just seems like the best fit.

Thanks for all of the advice everyone!

amber I am glad that your decision worked best of luck with the HSing

Hello Amber,
I discovered your post while doing a search for Montessori education. My son is going exactly thru the same issues you described about your son back in 2011. He doesn�t want to work much, he is very social and wants to �play� with his friends the whole time. He can work the materials with the teacher but once she leaves he is gone too to tour the room.
He is mainly doing Practical life and his teacher feels he can�t move up to other material because of his short attention or lack of focus and has mentioned also that maybe he would do best in a traditional school. Like you, I think his teacher is a wonderful person, but she just doesn't get him nor has found a way to captivate him.

Anyway, I saw you decided to take your son out of the Montessori school and I wonder how that worked for you? Did he go to a traditional school? Did he do better in that setting?

I hope everything is going well for you and your son. I would appreciate your answers.