Montessori Parent-Infant
The BEST Beginning!
About Susan Tracy McDaniel
After graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in psychology, I was a social worker in a facility for mentally challenged and mentally ill adults. In 1987, when I was expecting my first child, I was given the task of writing a life history for each client. I sat for months, alone in the dark basement of this facility, surrounded by file boxes stacked to the ceiling. As I worked, I was the realization that, in case after case, life after life, adult functioning is largely the result of our childhood experiences.
It was also at this time that I visited a Montessori program. I enrolled my yet-to-be-born baby, started in the class when he was 2 months old, and I never left! I was mentored by
the retiring teacher, took my first Montessori certification course at MECA (now called Seton Montessori Institute) and led Parent Infant programs from 1989 to 2010.
I have been busy at home raising four - now five - children, applying all I learned from great Montessori teachers. The techniques of observation, preparation, and prevention of problems worked as well at home as they did in the classroom. I took another Montessori course (AMI and completed a Master’s Degree in Education at Loyola College in Maryland. I also got certified as EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner, and I am now working on counseling.
I recite these qualifications so that maybe you will believe I am qualified... actually, all the books I’ve read and courses I’ve taken are nothing compared to what I’ve learned by observing children, day in and day out.
I have enjoyed training and mentoring Montessori teachers internationally since 1993, but educating parents is my true passion. I am grateful for all I’ve learned, and I am compelled to pass it on. I now spend much of my time providing parent coaching and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) by phone.
There is no more influential work than parenting, and most do it with no training. It is my vision that parent education will become as widespread as childbirth education, and available to all. My dream is that all new parents would have access to a program in their community.]
Blessings,
Susan Tracy McDaniel