Natural childbirth - Is it for you?

Take a look at the story today in Huffington Post "New Mom's Uncensored Photos Reveal The Beautiful, Messy Reality Of Home Birth"

You may have to register to read the story.

Natural births difficult unless you prepare for it correctly. 

In Finland it is not permitted. I have covered this in one of my tutorials.
Although Finland has the lowest mortality rate with regard to childbirth, something is missing in the mother/child relationship. 

That develops out of natural childbirth.

Please see the details in my book "Raising a Child the Montessori Way" where the importance of natural childbirth is discussed.

In my case, our first daughter was born in a hospital in an English village (Cross Houses), the second, our elder son was born in our home in a very small English village (Shawbury), while the next two, a daughter and then our youngest son were born in Willingdon Hospital, in Chennai. Each was difficult in its own way.

I have just uploaded Tutorial 5 A, 5 B and 5 C on Scribd.com

Tutorials 5 A, 5 B, and 5 C by Annikki Matthan

The next upload of the Tutorial series will be in a couple of days.

Correspondence Course Tutorials 4 A and 4 B

With this tutorial we are moving into areas which are important from the parents point of view of how they react to the development of the child.

You can find this tutorial at Scribd.com.

MMCC Assignment Correspondence Course Tutorials 4 A and 4 B

Which 2 books should be on your bookshelf?

Together with late Dr. Benjamin Spock's book on "Baby and Child Care", my latest publication "Raising a Child the Montessori Way" is my most important work to help build the next generation. 

I was a mother at the age of 23, alone with my husband. No parents to help us in the middle of nowhere in a remote English Village! 

I raised our four children in England, India and Finland using my own method - which is similar to what Maria Montessori has expounded in her theory "The Child is the Father of Man."

I have blended the work of educationist Maria Montessori and that of spiritualist Ellen G. White (author of "The Great Controversy") to produce a masterpiece which gives a detailed account of how to bring up a child from the prenatal stage till the age of 6 years. 

I also tackle the problems that would be encountered when a new sibling arrives in a household. 

The roles of parents and the Community are essential to raise a child of the future. Living in a strange and distant country makes it even more important to develop the important skills as the local language while keeping your mother tongue also strong.

I tell you on reality being the essence of child upbringing rather than fantasy. Building blocks are far more important than Computer Games! 

You have to create the strong foundation in your child. That is your child's healthy future at stake.

I explain how you do just that.

The basic philosophy is that the Child is the Father of Man. 

Below is a picture of granddaughter Maria, aged 5 making her own cake in my kitchen, and thoroughly enjoying the experience. rather than playing games on computers. 

Such experiences are what children want and need.

You can forget toys which keep the attention span of children for a few hours or days and spend doing with them as a parent or grandparent what the child wants to do and enjoys - doing work to become a better individual.

This is an eBook which you cannot afford to miss!

Raising a Child the Montessori Way

This work is based on the intensive study I completed as Correspondence Course Tutorials. My Tutorial Guides are available online eBooks, also through Scribd.com.

Are you interested in news way of life?

My problems with putting my book "Raising a Child the Montessori Way" on line has continued. I am trying many ways to overcome the quality problem to make it readable.

So I took another job on hand and put up the INTRODUCTION TO THE TUTORIAL COURSE pamphlet to my series on Tutorials for the Maria Montessori Correspondence Course.

To complete a course in teaching children using the Maria Montessori method requires the student to complete a series of assignments. 

I completed this 22 part series and achieved an unbelievable 98% average. My answers were not based on the material which came with the Correspondence Course, but my own research.

To help students I am put up the text of what I wrote for my assignments which students can use to do their own tutorials quicker and faster. 

Also as I have done my research so thoroughly, I may have no equal in the knowledge of Montessori Education of Infants till the age of 6! 

This is because I used it with my own family before I knew about Maria Montessori.

Tutorial Guide Introduction

I have also put up the first course tutorial book Tutorial Course Tutorials 1 A and 1 B which answers two important aspects of this course. The questions are:

Tutorial 1 A:  The Role of the Child in the Finnish Society 
Tutorial 1 B: Montessori sees the Child as the Father of Man

In the first ! A, I remain controversial as ever, as when I wrote this assignment in 1992, Finland was considered as one of the best countries for low Infant Mortality rates and Child Care. 

I had another opinion which I expressed raher freely. What I wrote then still holds true 15 years on!

The second part of this assignment is the statement of the philosophy of the Maria Montessori Method. It is no surprise that former American President, late Theodore Roosevelt, was of the same opinion.

I hope you enjoy this series.

Tutorial Course Tutorials 1 A and 1 B

Even if you are not a student of the Mara Montessori Correspondence Course, you will the answers to these two assignment topics of great interest. It sets the tone for your own life and work - there can be another opinion to widely held views.

When should the cat play?

As all the children grew up in the mid-90s, I had much time on my hands. I wanted to do something in my life that I liked.

Maria makes a cake with Grandma
Cover of my new book

After working for the English Club of Oulu teaching little children to maintain their English language skills, I had become fascinated with education of little children and I looked around for something to study.

I discovered Maria Montessori and that her view about Education was radically different than what I had learnt - but it was identical to the way I had tried to bring up my own children. She gave importance to the child rather than the parent or the teacher. 

Her philosophy was centred around the phrase that "The Child is the Farther of Man"!

She wrote volumes upon volumes about Child Education. Everything she said rang a bell with me.

I visited the Maria Montessori St. Nicholas Institute in London and enrolled for a correspondence course in the subject.

As luck would have it, there was a tutor in Oulu, Finland, who was heading a Maria Montessori school for young children here. She is a Venezulean and she is married to a Finn.

Anna Eskola was given the task of receiving my correspondence course tutorials and marking them. This consisted a series of questions to which I was expected to write the answers based on the reading material provided in the tutorial available.

I got almost every book written by Maria Montessori and her son into my personal library. I started to study the subject with great gusto. My tutorial answers were based on much more than what was contained in the course matter!

This was an interesting phase as I studied each subject and then wrote the answer to the question on paper. As I did not type, I then dictated it to Jacob. He is a ferocious typer and could keep pace with my dictation.

Soon I was rolling out the tutorial answers. My tutor was immensely pleased with the thoroughness of my answers. I was very happy with the replies, the comments and the grades I was getting. 

Writing in English, I did have the assistance of Jacob's enormous editing skills as he corrected my Finnish/Indian English into British English, or rather the English he used for editing scientific text which could be understood all around the world, from China to Argentina and from Zambia to Bangladesh!

As a result both of us got educated, but Jacob in a lot simpler way! :-)

The course went much faster than I expected and before I realised it I was through it all except for visits to schools, Montessori and other types to do the practical assessment. As we were going to India, I chose two schools in the small town of Kottayam, one a small Montessori children's school and another, called Corpus Christi, which handled children from Junior to High School.

Corpus Christi was the premier school in Kottayam. It was founded and being run by a lady called Mary Roy. She is the mother of Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize winner.

Mary Roy is the same age as me, but she has had a stormy life, with her parents, her husband, her brother and her daughter. But she is a fighter, and it was this that helped her start one of the most famous schools of Kerala.

She is not a Montessori follower, but her education theory which she has implemented is very close to the Montessori system. I was surprised that when we met two little children for dinner the night before we visited the school, they were waiting to get to school the next day. (That little girl, Naiomi, is today a friend of mine on Facebook and got married a few months ago!)

I completed my course and my tutorials received an average of 98%. Now that I have got the hang of how to publish eBooks, I intend to publish my tutorial work as an eBook series!  The answers to each tutorial question are available with the assessment.

I wrote a condensed book -  "Raising a Child the Montessori Way" but unfortunately the original computer files have been lost.

But I do have the original and already in 1998 many people wrote to me asking me to publish it.  I made it into a paperback, and already wrote the Preface, but never published it.

I have been struggling for the last four days to put this book online. (That is why the blog entries have been missing!) The scans were not good. 

I am now trying several methods to ensure I can get this book up as soon as possible. I will not change the original version but add a few comments to update the context as 15 years is a long time since writing it.

I captured a picture of granddaughter Maria wanting to make a cake just like her grandma during last summer. I am intending to use it as the cover of the boo as it depicts what educating a child is all about.

Hope you will tell other about this book and also find it useful in raising your own child/ children. Very workable and it will result in a well rounded up-bringing!