Supporting Independent Sleep

In Montessori, we talk a lot about independence because we want to help children in their process of becoming capable young people! For our youngest children, this means supporting them in mastery of basic functions such as eating, toileting, and sleeping. Supporting independent skills in these three areas is pretty significant because these are parts of life where children ultimately have complete control over what does or doesn’t happen. So it makes sense for us to avoid setting up obstacles in these areas and instead help children develop skills that will build up their confidence. 

Our Language Matters

The language we use is indicative of our goals. For example, when children are learning to use the toilet, we make sure our language reflects that process. We aren’t “training” children like we might train a pet. We are helping them learn life skills so they can be well-functioning humans who understand cultural norms. In fact, we even call what we do “toilet learning” because children are learning how to take care of their bodily needs by using the toilet. 

Similarly, when thinking about children and their sleep, we are not “sleep training” like we might crate train a new puppy. Rather, we are supporting children’s natural process of learning how to settle themselves, self-soothe, and eventually fall asleep independently.

Importance of Sleep

With more and more research about the role sleep plays in brain development, growth, and learning, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves about how best to promote healthy sleep hygiene. A 2007 study states “that the most fundamental requirements for healthy growth and development in young children include a) loving support and protection by parents/caretakers, b) adequate nutrition, and c) adequate sleep.” A 2020 review of sleep and early brain development details how “sleep plays a critical role in learning and memory, emotional regulation, and related brain structure development.” Establishing healthy sleep practices in the early years is critical for our children’s development. So how can we best do this?

Focus on Four Factors

In order to help our children have trust in us and strengthen a secure attachment, we need to provide safe boundaries. This includes helping them learn what is acceptable and what isn’t in regard to sleep. Just like we hold boundaries for dental hygiene, we can uphold healthy sleep habits, too!

To promote healthy sleep hygiene, we can focus on four factors: 

• establishing an environment that is conducive to sleep, 

• maintaining regular routines, 

• providing suitable associations for the onset of sleep, and 

• upholding limits while making adjustments throughout childhood.

Sleep Environment

To create a place that is conducive to sleep, it can be helpful to think about our own sleep needs. Are we more likely to fall asleep in a bright, noisy, active environment, or in one that is dark, quiet, and calm? The same applies to our children. A comfortable sleep environment should be dark because sleep hormones are triggered by darkness. Plus, natural and blue-based artificial light stimulates alertness. Black-out blinds or curtains (as well as aluminum foil over the windows in a pinch) help immensely. The designated sleep space, whether a bedroom or other area, should also be calm, quiet, and free of distractions like toys or other interest-provoking items. Finally, it’s best if the room temperature is slightly cooler.

Regular Routines

Our children depend upon us to establish healthy and consistent routines, including times for rest. When children stay up past their nap or bedtime, they can enter into an overtired zone. At this point, they experience a stress response, which leads to the release of adrenaline and cortisol. This influx of chemicals causes a “second wind” and children can become even more energized and awake, despite their intense need for sleep. 

To avoid this vicious cycle, it’s important to learn our children’s sleep window, which is the time it is easiest for the brain to switch to sleep. Children actually give us cues as to when they are in a window for sleep. They might begin to have some difficulty listening, lose focus, or become a little more irritable. Some children may rub their eyes, go for a comfort object, or seek contact with a caregiver. 

Every child is a little different, but when they start to indicate they are in a sleep window, it is time to wrap up the routine. The process should be very simple, for example, pajamas, toileting, teeth, one story, a hug, and a kiss. It’s better for extensive reading and a long bath to happen before the sleep window because these activities can very easily push children past the window of opportunity and lead to them entering the overtired zone. A predictable, simple pre-sleep routine allows children to unwind and feel secure in knowing that sleep is happening next.

Sleep Onset Associations

When children fall asleep, they form associations with the conditions that are present at the time when they actually drift off. So if we rock our children, read to them, or even snuggle in their bed next to them until they fall asleep, our children learn that they need that condition to be present in order to fall asleep. This also means that as children awake slightly during normal sleep cycles, they look for the same conditions they had when they first fell asleep. If children can’t recreate those on their own, they become dependent upon adult intervention, which can then can lead to more frequent night wakings. 

Thus we need our children to go to bed when they are drowsy but still awake, so they can develop appropriate sleep onset associations. We can sing a song, read a book, or rub their back. However, we need to end any of these activities before our children actually fall asleep. We need to leave them while they are heavy-eyed but not yet asleep! Transition objects can help children, too. Some might like a special blanket, doll, or stuffed animal, which they can use to self-soothe as they drift off to sleep.

Limits & Adjustments

Sleep patterns change throughout early childhood and beyond. So while children need us to be consistent, they also need us to understand developmental changes. It can help to use resources like the Sleep Foundation to check on recommended hours of sleep for different developmental stages.

As children get older, they also get more sophisticated in trying to prolong the bedtime routine or keep us engaged when actually we should be stepping out of the process to allow them to fall asleep on their own. Work collaboratively with your child to establish or re-establish the routine (and the limits). Write down the routine and revisit it before bedtime. Stay calm and consistent. 

Children are hard-wired to test the boundaries and are just checking to make sure we are going to stay true to the agreement. If you feel like you are going to break down and not be able to uphold the agreement, find someone who can be your backup or reinforcement. If you are doing bedtime alone, find a friend who you can text or call and who will remind you about staying true to what was established. 

Above all, make sure you are taking care of yourself! If you are sleep-deprived it is much harder to hold limits or think clearly about the long-term goal of helping children become independent and capable young humans. If you ever want to talk or need support, we are happy to help. We love to share resources and support families!

Making Amends

Mistakes are a part of life. We all make them. Hopefully, we even learn from them!

Intellectually we probably understand that mistakes are part of our children’s process of learning and growing. Yet as parents and caregivers, it can be hard to know how to handle situations when our children don’t do the right thing.

Think about those times when your child is rude, breaks something, or hits a playmate. In those moments, we all too often want our children to immediately apologize. However, apologies can quickly become an easy and surface-level response. Plus, our children might not (yet) feel sorry for what they did.

 Although apologies can be a good first step, they are just that…a first step. Really it is the process of making amends that is the most meaningful. 

Making Amends

How do we support children who have made a mistake and aren't sure about how to make amends? Genuine apologies certainly aren't easy, but it's a lot easier to apologize for a mistake than it is to fix it. Diane Gossen's book, Restitution: Restructuring School Discipline, provides a framework for helping young people learn from their mistakes and hopefully make the right choices in the future. 

The definition of restitution revolves around the restoration of something damaged, lost, or stolen, which basically means restoring what was affected to its original state. When we make mistakes, it can feel like squeezing too much toothpaste out of the tube. Getting the excess back in can feel impossible. Yet the process of cleaning up and restoring what we can is how we make things right again. 

Recipe for Restitution

Gossen's recipe for restitution is designed to help the mistake-maker experience a healing process, which can be considered self-restoration. According to Gossen, the process of making things right again should include the following components:

• The person(s) affected by the mistake will feel that the restitution is acceptable and appropriate.

• The restitution will require effort.

• By making amends, the mistake-maker will be discouraged (or at least not encouraged to repeat the mistake. 

For the process to be really exceptional, three other characteristics may be involved:

• The restitution will be logically connected to the mistake.

• The process will connect to a deeper understanding of the big picture of how people treat each other.

• The experience will actually strengthen the mistake-maker.

In supporting the process of making amends, we must be very careful to refrain from criticizing, inducing guilt, or expressing anger. Also, we must not feel like we are overextending ourselves. The person trying to fix the mistake must own the process.

Opportunities

If we are attentive to opportunities for our children to make things right, we can approach mistakes differently. For example, if your child has been rude to someone, take some time after the fact to hear what your child was feeling at that moment. Perhaps they were upset about something that happened prior. Or maybe they were just hungry. The key is to let your child know that you are genuinely curious about what they were feeling. In the process, you can acknowledge and affirm those feelings. Likely your child already feels remorse for how they behaved. The next step is to brainstorm ways to make amends for those actions. Often children want to start with an apology, so it’s worth exploring if they want to apologize with words or with actions. From the apology, you can start to dig into how to make things right. For example, think together about how the relationship can be repaired so that the other person feels secure and safe, rather than uncertain or hurt.   

Perhaps your child, in a fit of frustration, ends up dropping a plate on the floor. When it shatters, the trick is to not react. Rather, let your child feel the intensity of the moment. Take some deep breaths. Offer to help and yet be clear that all the broken pieces need to be cleaned up so they don’t cut anyone’s feet. The process may be long and effortful. Yet your child’s care of the broken plate is part of the experience of making amends. Later, you can acknowledge how hard your child worked to fix the mistake. 

A similar process applies if your child hits a playmate. Staying non-reactive is especially important in these moments, as we are modeling how to stay in control when emotions get heightened. Check-in with the hurt child to make sure they are okay. Then wonder about and acknowledge your child’s feelings. “You seemed really frustrated and then you hit. It can be hard when we have big feelings. It’s also not okay to hit.” There is no shaming or forced apology. Just a clear translation of what happened. When your child feels calm and grounded, you can offer some ways to make amends. “I wonder how we can show your friend some kindness.” 

Younger children need our support in working through these steps. They often will need some modeling or suggestions for restoring the relationship or repairing the damage. As our children mature and internalize the restitution process, they will need less guidance and perhaps only a bit of gentle support.

If you are curious about how all of this works amongst a community of children, please schedule a tour of our school. We would love to share how we help children embrace mistakes as part of their learning!

Montessori at Home: Caring for Pets Montessori-Style

The summer months can be a wonderful time to integrate some Montessori principles and practice into our home environments. With that in mind, our focus this week is on how to care for pets, Montessori-style. 

Montessori classrooms regularly have pets as part of the community for a number of reasons. When children have contact with the natural world, especially when they are part of taking care of living things, they develop a deep reverence for life in all its forms. In addition, as children are learning how to independently care for themselves, they can apply their skills to caring for an animal, leading to increased self-control and responsibility. Becoming aware of and attuned to another being’s needs supports the development of increased empathy and compassion.

“Children have an anxious concern for living beings, and therefore the satisfaction of this instinct fills them with delight. It is therefore easy to interest them in taking care of plants and especially of animals. Nothing awakens foresight in a small child, who lives as a rule for the passing moment and without care for the morrow, so much as this.”

— Dr. Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Daily Care

If you already have a pet or pets at home, encouraging children’s participation in their daily care is a good place to start. The easiest first step is giving a pet food and water. Even young toddlers can do this! The key is having the correct amount of food prepared in an easy-to-dispense container. The container can be placed on a tray or consistent place that is available for your child to access, carry to the pet’s food bowl or space, and then pour or place for the pet. 

If the pet is a fish, a small dish for the food can work. A hermit crab might need a small piece of fruit stored in a container that can be easily opened so the fruit can be retrieved and placed into the habitat. Whereas a larger animal like a dog or cat, will likely need a portion of food in a container that can be poured into their food dish, or, in the case of wet food, scooped out and transferred to the food dish.

The same approach can be applied to refilling a water bottle for hamsters or gerbils or pouring water into a water dish for larger pets. Ensure your child can access the water source and has a child-sized pitcher or measuring cup that holds just the right amount of water for your pet. 

Break it Down

To make the process most successful, it’s best to think about breaking down the steps and making sure the materials are accessible and child-friendly. Does the container open easily? When pouring does the food or water come out from one place so it goes where intended? How far is the reach to get food into a habitat? Look at everything from your child’s perspective and anticipate any obstacles. 

After figuring out the best materials and set-up, the next step is to show your child how to complete each part of the process. For young children, always make sure there are a limited number of steps. It can help to have a visual guide available, too. For example, if the pet needs to be fed once in the morning and once at night, you can have a picture that represents this. The visual guide can be laminated or put in a sheet protector and hung at your child’s eye level. Older children can use a dry-erase marker to check off when they have fed the pet. 

Cleaning or Grooming

The same practice can be applied to other parts of pet care. Perhaps the food area needs to be cleaned by washing the dishes, wiping a mat wiped, or sweeping spilled food. The learning process can be incremental. In the beginning, maybe your child is just misting something like a hermit crab habitat but over time learns how to clean the enclosure, too. Other animals might need their bedding replaced or washed. If a pet needs a bath, a young child can be part of filling the tub with water or scooping water for rinsing. Eventually, children can take ownership of more and more of the process. If your child is ready for more responsibility, they can also learn how to independently clean or groom your pet. From brushing to bathing, children can be involved in various aspects of pet care!

Interacting & Playing

Learning how to interact with pets offers children opportunities to learn how to read non-verbal cues and anticipate needs. In treating animals with care, children get to practice grace and courtesy which helps them extend these skills throughout all their relationships. We all appreciate gentle touches, soft approaches, and respectful care!

Different pets require different kinds of toys and handling. Children can be involved in creating some play items for particular pets, such as toys on a string for cats to chase or making a yarn pull for birds. Children can get creative with finding things around the house for a pet to use, like recycling toilet paper rolls for gerbils to chew. Older children can research healthy treats or training tips. 

Children can take on other responsibilities, too, such as taking a dog for a walk or being involved in training. Even small animals can often experience different levels of training, such as parakeets learning how to make certain sounds or to perch on a finger. Having books and resources available for children to learn more about their pets is another nice extension and cultivates more curiosity about what living things need and how to provide for them. 

Ultimately, children like to be involved in the care of their pets. It is important for them to feel the connection with their beloved animals, and foster the feelings of responsibility and self-confidence that come with it.

If you would like some inspiration for how to support your child’s care of pets, let us know! We are happy to share our experience with having pets in our classrooms. 

Symbiosis: The Newborn’s First Months

Those first moments after giving birth are some of the most precious. Newborn and mother come together for the first time as separate beings. This relationship is so intimate and incredibly unique because of the symbiotic link between the birth mother and her newborn child. 

The word symbiosis comes from the Ancient Greek “σύν” which means "together" and “βίωσις” which means “living.” As a biological term, symbiosis means the union of two different organisms based on mutual benefit. The mother and the newborn both need each other. Their lives are intertwined. 

Mutual Benefits

We generally recognize how a newborn is dependent upon their mother. Because of the increased size of their brains, human infants are born before their gestation is complete. Often called the “fourth trimester,” the first three months is a time when babies are still developing dramatically outside of the womb. 

A mother’s dependence upon a newborn is perhaps not as obvious. Yet after birth, a mother needs contact with the newborn for her own body to complete the birth process. Immediate breastfeeding stimulates the secretion of oxytocin which helps the mother’s uterus contract, thereby helping the placenta detach and eventually helping the uterus return to normal size. Breastfeeding also reduces the risk of maternal hemorrhage. In addition to the release of oxytocin, breastfeeding induces the pituitary gland to release prolactin. This hormone is not only responsible for lactation but also contributes to hundreds of other bodily processes.

The mother also needs contact with her baby for bonding and her own emotional stability. A process of attachment develops from this contact. The process of birth has been trying for the mother and infant and both need reassurance. Through the closeness of cradling and caressing, the mother and newborn experience mutual benefits.

In addition, the newborn relies on their mother for points of reference to help them adapt to an otherwise unfamiliar environment. When held close, the newborn can hear the mother’s heartbeat and can hear the mother’s voice. Maternal warmth and closeness allow the newborn to feel secure. 

Needs of the Newborn

This is a critical time for the mother to establish a bond with her child. And in doing so, she establishes the future relationship between her child and the environment. When a baby can relate to familiar points of reference, they feel secure and their energy can go into their growth and development. 

The newborn has five basic and immediate needs: 

1. direct contact with the mother, 

2. adherence to biological rhythms, 

3. temporal, physical, and social order, 

4. space for unhindered vision and movement, and 

5. opportunities to explore with all the senses.  

The newborn is reliant on the mother (and any other family members) to meet these needs so as to develop into a healthy human being.  

During the first six to eight weeks of life–the symbiotic period–there are three aspects of the mother-child relationship that provide opportunities to meet these basic needs: holding, handling, and feeding.  

Holding

Holding, with skin-to-skin physical contact between the mother and newborn, is ideal immediately after birth. Being held during the weeks after birth continues to be important for the child’s feeling of acceptance and assurance. 

The infant should feel physically secure when held. Ultimately, though, emotional communication when being held is most important for the infant. They need to feel love and acceptance transmitted through touch, which thus provides a sense of trust. 

Handling

In addition, the infant needs their mother and caregivers to handle them lovingly while dressing, changing, bathing, and otherwise caring for them. During these times of “handling” when a caregiver uses their hands to care for an infant, it is important for the caregiver to make a meaningful connection. By collaborating and communicating with the infant, caregivers establish yet another form of trust and ultimately social security. 

In providing these caregiving routines, it is critical to establish a predictable pattern while also respecting the infant’s biological rhythms. The newborn is trying to adjust to day and night while also establishing a sleeping schedule that meets their needs. Having an order to the daily activities is essential for providing a frame of reference. For example, it is best to have one parent give the baby a bath at the same time each day, such as before bedtime. This process of establishing meeting points provides a sense of predictability and thus security for the child. These daily activities should also include time for the child to move on their own and experience appropriate sensory richness in the environment.

Feeding

Through feeding, the mother and infant develop a powerful sense of togetherness and direct union, thus establishing physical and psychological unity. With this in mind, how breastfeeding happens is significant. Even though a baby needs support in coming to the breast, they should be allowed the freedom to choose when to suckle. This establishes a fundamental basis for their relationship with food. Food can always be offered with love and placed before someone, yet not inside, a person. This establishes healthy boundaries.

Eventually, the mother and infant will be in communication about feeding so that the mother will recognize the child’s signs of hunger and the child will feel secure in their ability to have their needs met. This relationship around feeding forms the basis for the child’s understanding not only of how food is nourishment but also how to relate to others. It also helps when the mother can give her total attention to her nursing infant. 

Key Experiences

Through these key experiences of holding, handling, and feeding, the infant forms a fundamental understanding of their environment. With positive experiences during the symbiotic period, the child develops a trust that their needs will be met. They experience how their environment is a place in which they feel safe. This eventually leads to being able to confront new situations with assurance. 

The symbiotic period is an important foundational time for the mother and child. The collaborative experience provides mother and child with the physical, psychological, and emotional basis for the next stages. After the six to eight weeks of the symbiotic period, the newborn should have a basic understanding that the external world will be responsive to their needs. The mother will feel secure in this new relationship with her child. Mutual needs and close connections lay the foundation for all the wonderful development to come!

Curious to learn more? Be sure to check out Understanding the Human Being: The Importance of the First Three Years of Life by Silvana Quatrocchi Montanaro. Another informative resource is Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin by Ashley Montagu.

Adolescence: Time of Transformation

Adolescents have such power and potential. They can achieve so much when they have a supportive space that helps them develop their incredible abilities and ultimately realize their possibilities.

The book, The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults, shares a helpful analogy for understanding adolescence: “...the teenage brain is almost like a brand-new Ferrari: it’s primed and pumped, but it hasn’t been road tested yet. In other words, it’s all revved up but doesn’t quite know where to go.” 

To best support adolescents who are all primed to go but don’t yet know where, we can work to better understand their developmental characteristics and needs. 

Time of Transformation

The first three years (ages twelve to fifteen) of adolescence are comparable to the physical and cognitive transformation that happens from zero to three. Adolescents are forming themselves, physically and psychologically, into the adults they will become.

This is a transition from childhood into adulthood, evidenced by dramatic bodily changes. The relative calm and stability of the previous years shifts to a more tumultuous time. During this period of intense change, adolescents’ health becomes more fragile. They require more sleep and are more prone to acne, depression, bulimia, anorexia, mono, etc. As Frances E. Jenson, MD, and Amy Ellis Nutt explain in The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults: “Adolescence is a time of increased response to stress, which may in part be why anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, typically arise during puberty. Teens simply don’t have the same tolerance for stress that we see in adults. Teens are much more likely to exhibit stress-induced illnesses and physical problems, such as colds, headaches, and upset stomachs. There is also an epidemic of symptoms ranging from nail biting to eating disorders that are commonplace in today’s teens.” 

Adolescents need a special kind of care and protection during this time of transformation. Like caterpillars that need a chrysalis in order to metamorphose into a butterfly, adolescents need a protective space for reconstruction.

Neural Changes and Emotional Needs

The adolescent brain is also undergoing dramatic changes, from neural pruning when unneeded neural synapses are removed, to an increase in myelination which allows for faster neural transmission. 

Due to these dramatic physical and cognitive changes taking place, adolescents can have difficulty concentrating and staying focused. This also leads to a decrease in their organizational skills and judgment, as well as a reduction in their executive functioning abilities like working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control. Because of this diminished executive functioning ability, adolescents often make decisions based on emotion. Their brains are relying upon the limbic system rather than their developing prefrontal cortex. 

Thus, adolescents can experience strong and tumultuous emotions and it can be a struggle for them to gain mastery over these emotions. As such, adolescents need time for personal self-reflection, and yet this need exists in the midst of an intense desire to be within and accepted by a group. 

Rational and logical expression can be challenging during this time, thus adolescents also need creative outlets for releasing and exploring emotions, thoughts, and any conflicting experiences. Creative outlets can include dance, writing, art, music, sports, etc. In addition to providing an expressive outlet, physical activities also release endorphins and help regulate hormonal balance. 

Finding Equilibrium

Because adolescents are working to integrate their new physical and emotional selves, they need as many opportunities as possible to integrate manual work (work of the hand) and academic work (work of the head). In addition to experiencing an equilibrium in mental and physical activities, adolescents need opportunities to explore their personal identity in the context of their social identity. 

Like younger children, adolescents are somewhat ego-centric. After leaving the elementary years of calm and confidence, early teens become self-conscious and are highly sensitive to peer acceptance. This results in a sensitivity to the looks, comments, or actions of others, which is further complicated by adolescents having difficulty reading facial expressions. It’s no surprise, then, that our teens often imagine that someone is upset with them or thinking negatively of them. Close relationships and feeling accepted by their peer group become extremely important to balance these feelings. 

Being Valued

Because this is a time of extreme vulnerability, adolescents need to be treated with understanding and respect. They want to know their value, their role, their contributions, and their worth. Adolescents benefit greatly from opportunities to contribute to their community in meaningful ways. This is best achieved through adult-level work. When this contribution is acknowledged by their peers, adolescents feel valorized, or recognized, which leads to a bolstering of their self-confidence.

Having choices is also a vital component of adolescents’ work. This opportunity to make a choice about what to do and when to do it provides teens with a strong sense of empowerment and allows them to practice making constructive choices. 

Role of Adults

Adolescents need the guidance and support of adults. They also rely upon and appreciate the opportunity for side-by-side work. We can shift into more of a supportive, coaching role with our adolescents, which can more easily be achieved when we are working alongside each other. Adolescents relish this opportunity to collaborate in what it means to be an adult by engaging in adult-level work.

This side-by-side work also offers us, as adults, the opportunity to respectfully share information and teach skills, without risking offending our adolescents. In “Three Ways to Change Your Parenting in the Teenage Years,” Christine Carter explains: “When we give our adolescents a lot of information, especially when it is information that they don’t really want or that they think they already have, it can feel infantilizing to them. Even if we deliver the information as we would to another adult, teenagers will often feel disrespected by the mere fact of our instruction.”

Respectful treatment connects to adolescents’ need to feel a sense of justice and personal dignity. While elementary-aged children focus on distributive justice (e.g. fairness), adolescence is a time when young people begin to grapple with and understand restorative justice, social justice, and economic justice.

Adolescence is a period of dramatic growth and change. Although the dramatic physical changes that accompany the onset of puberty can rock the stable foundation of elementary years, if we understand adolescents’ needs, we can help our teenagers emerge as empowered and full of creative energies.  

The First Six Years: Conquests of Independence

As caregivers and parents, we have a bit of a bittersweet role. While we want to keep our children close, we ultimately need to support their path toward independence. 

We expect dependence at the beginning. Yet our newborns take their very first step toward independence at birth. Once born, they have to breathe on their own. And rather than get nutrition through the umbilical cord, they use effort to begin latching on or suckling. 

Throughout their first six years of life, our children achieve so many milestones of independence. Let’s take a look at some of these conquests of independence. You can use this framework as a guide and reminder of how we can support our children as they grow and develop. 

Birth to One Year

• The first conquest of independence is birth which comes with the cutting of the umbilical cord. At this point, infants must breathe and gain nutrition on their own. Even our expression “It’s time to cut the cord” indicates the shift to increased independence.

• Movement is another acquisition of independence in the first year as children begin to use their arms and legs, sit up and crawl, and move from one place to another. With this increased locomotion children no longer need to be held or carried.

• Our children also begin to feed themselves. Even in the beginning when babies are nursing, we want them to indicate hunger. The weaning process and shift to using the weaning table supports this path to independence. As our children begin to eat and drink on their own, it is important to have foods and tools they can use independently (e.g. a shot glass for water, finger foods, etc.) rather than having an adult putting a utensil or bottle in their mouth. 

• Children can also start to practice basic use of utensils. Having utensils that are child-sized and functional is key to independent use. 

• In addition, our children need the opportunity to develop the ability to be by themselves. To become independent, they need to practice separating from their caregiver(s). Healthy separation depends upon healthy attachment, and our children need the chance to have some time without adult engagement.

• Around the end of the first year, children begin to develop language to communicate their needs. Prior to this time, they are able to use other methods to communicate: crying, cooing, smiling, etc. This communication is the beginning of social skills and children’s ability to relate socially to others.

One to Three Years

• During this time children can walk confidently and begin to run and climb. Once children can walk, they can begin the process of becoming independent in toileting. 

• They become more independent with the use of their hands, which become tools for exploration. Because of this, children no longer need to rely on others to hold and carry items.

• Language use allows children to begin to express themselves independently.

• Children can start to become independent in dressing themselves. 

• They begin to be able to use simple tools (crayons, sticks, cups, utensils, etc.).

• They become more capable of caring for their own personal hygiene (brushing their teeth, washing their face, brushing their hair, etc.).

• Children become more proficient with and capable of carrying their own items. 

• They have the capacity to clean up after themselves (putting away belongings, folding clothing, wiping spills, sweeping crumbs, etc.).

 As children get older, they need opportunities to develop their will. Thus, during this stage of independence, it is really important that children can make choices. Making a choice means they are acting for themselves and exercising their will.

From Three to Four and a Half

• If it hasn't happened already, children experience separation from the family (e.g. going to school). To be able to separate from one’s family is a new skill of independence. For children who haven’t been able to be by themselves, this is a harder process. During this time, children realize they can survive and trust others, which is a significant step in independence.

• Children develop a wider range of social skills.

• Children’s motor and visual skills become more developed and refined.

• They are able to engage in more games (e.g. catching and throwing a ball).

• They have finer manual dexterity (using individual fingers) as well as refined fine motor skills (when all fingers are working in unison).

• Children begin to develop the ability to use language to express their emotions. They can learn a multitude of words to be able to express feelings. 

• They can use utensils and tools to prepare their own food (which ideally happens prior to age three). Research shows that children involved in preparing their own food are more likely to try diverse foods.

• Children learn to master fasteners (zippers, buckles, bows, etc.) and thus the self-care involved with dressing and undressing.

• They can contribute to their community and care not only for themselves but also for the environment through simple responsibilities like setting the table, folding towels, etc.

• They are more independent in caring for their own hygiene needs.

• Because their vocabulary is expanding, children can use words to express emotions, as well as to better express their thoughts.

Four and a Half to Six

• Children have more social independence and can not only do for themselves but can also use acquired skills to help others.

• They become more independent in their social skills so they can internalize and apply the social norms of their community (e.g. pushing in chairs, greeting visitors, communicating that they need space, etc.).

• Children become proficient in dressing themselves and can help younger peers with the dressing and undressing process (e.g. getting dressed for going outdoors).

• They acquire the capacity to have empathy and compassion.

• They have a basic understanding of quantities and how they are represented, instead of just mimicking or rote counting.

• Children begin to recognize and use the symbols of our language (e.g. expressing themselves through writing or interpreting the thoughts of others through reading).

These conquests of independence are ultimately about becoming functionally independent. Young children are in a process of mastering different aspects of their lives and they need us, their caregivers, to support them in this process. 

Our children are so capable and they benefit when allowed to move toward increasing independence. If you’d like to see how our Montessori environments set children up for success, please schedule a tour!