PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT

• 0-6 infancy: age of transformation
  • 0-3 child absorbs envrionment
    • home environment and family most important
    • needs: love, security, routine, order, movement, exploration, stimulation
  • 3-6 age of activity, experience
    • child absorbs social group
    • needs: school environment, purposive activity, positive social experience, order contribution to environment and group
• 6-12 childhood: age of abstraction
  • stability, robustness
  • needs: peer group, organized social groups (ie. Scouts), adult sounding board for right/wrong/injustice, cosmic education
    
• 12-15 adolescence: age of adjustment
  • sensitivity, irregular growth, caught in-between
  • needs: encouragement, religious study, humanities, physical activity to gain coordination
    
• 15-18 maturity: age of developing stability
  • experiences and influences last, abstract love for others, responsibility
  • needs: job/money, parents as guides, friends

TENDENCIES

Universal principals which guide development. Consider and encourage:

THE ABSORBENT MIND

• 0-6 child ABSORBS ALL
• Child's mind acts like a sponge, integrating everything accurately, nonjudgementally, uncritically, effortlessly.
• 0-3 absorbent mind functions unconsciously. 3-6 function consciously. Child takes in the environment through the senses, movement and exploration, and ADAPTS.

SENSITIVE PERIODS

Transitory periods during which the child acquires a certain characteristic. Child's attention is drawn irresistably to certain elements. Once the characteristic is acquired the sensitivity disappears.

• LANGUAGE: 3 months to 1 1/2 years. Needs: clear articulation, proper use of language, creative use of language, show/teach love of reading/communication.
• ORDER: 1 - 3 years. Needs: routine at home (stay flexible!), order in home environment.
• SENSORY REFINEMENT: 0 - 5 years. Senses are gateways to perception. Child learns classification thru matching, grading, categorization. Needs: sensorial exploration. Play with color, shpae, texture, sound, taste, smell. Give language after experience.
• SMALL THINGS: 2nd year of life. Child fills in his BIG PICTURE with the details. Needs: Explore the tiny things in the world. The bugs in the grass, designs on a tree trunk, patterns in a leaf, blossoms. Small details in a picture, shades in color, design in fabrics, little toys and objects around the house, go on a tiny treasure hunt on a shelf.
• SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: 2 1/2 - 5 years. Child explores, absorbs the group and social behavior. Needs: modeled acceptable social behavior at home and in a positive school setting. Natural consequences for improper behavior, ie. removal from group nucleus if behavior is unacceptable. Calm, graceful, pleasant care.

Suggested reading:

• Montessori: A Modern Approach, by Paula Polk Lillard
• The Absorbent Mind - The Discovery of the Child, by Maria Montessori