Bring toddlers along for the next shopping trip might sound like your idea of a nightmare. However, in the Montessori approach, we see it as including our child in daily life, helping them to take responsibility, and we can help manage any emotions that arise during our trip out.
- Keep them involved – they can push the trolley, hold a shopping list with pictures cut out of food magazines or you can go online and make your own shopping list to print out.
- Give them jobs to do – this is great for using language and numbers. “Can you please hand me the yoghurt?” “Would you like to pick two pears?”
- Sensorial experiences – We can show them how to smell the fruit, fish or other. They can feel the weight of 1kg of rice as they place it in the basket. They will hear the sounds at the checkout. And likely lots of other sensorial experiences.
- If they have big feelings – If they become dysregulated during our visit to the grocery store, we can pause our trip to help them manage their feelings. You can deal with it in the store and apologise if it is disrupting others or move them as gently as possible out of the store (leave your trolley if you need to and you may be able to pick up where you left off).
- They feel like they are helping – This builds trust in our child, scaffolds skills and they learn to be part of the family.