Montessori Principles for Parents: The Basics

Children Create Themselves: The Absorbent Mind

“The child has other powers than ours, 

and the creation he achieves is no small one; it is everything.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

The child’s mind is a sponge, designed to absorb and process the information around it.  Before the age of three, the child does this without conscious thought, and the method of absorbing and processing information is guided by every experience and stimuli around him.  He impulsively acts and reacts with his environment.  The brain is hardwired to allow unconscious processing (meaning without specific intention) in order to allow the small child to develop the skills necessary to function.  Those skills must come before his mind is able to consciously (activated by the child's thoughtful intention) process information.  Examples of how this learning process naturally happens are how the child learns to sit, crawl, walk, and talk without being “taught” to do so.  These actions happen naturally and each child has his own process to achieve them.  In this manner, the young child creates who he is and what his abilities are.

After the age of three, the absorbent mind continues for three more years, but the child creates himself consciously, developing the ability to have more specific interests and intentions.  The first three years created foundational skills the child may now build upon, working towards his own specific interests and abilities.  Children are driven by their interests and there intention is to seek, explore, and discover new information based on those interests.  Humans are an incredible species in that our survival is dependent upon our ability to learn and think.  For that reason, the developing brain's main purpose is to learn and strengthen the ability to think.  Children are born with the desire and need to learn at all times and they are driven by this.  They are driven to create themselves.

Follow The Child Through Observation

“No guide, no teacher can divine the intimate needs of each pupil and the time of maturation necessary to each; but only leave the child free and all this will be revealed to us under the guidance of nature.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

Because of the child's unique drive for learning and creation, it is his impulses and interests that best drive the process.  Understanding this drive shifts the adult’s role from deciding what, where and when the child learns to guiding the child through his own process of learning.  Dr. Montessori coined the phrase “follow the child” to reflect how adults make those guidance decisions.  Closely observing the child allows the adult to take note of what interests the child and what the child is trying to work on or discover, and allows the adult to guide the child towards or through tasks that achieve the child’s goal.  The adult may help a child be successful with a task by providing assistance (but not doing it for them) or may help guide them to something that interests them while making certain that activity is safe.  The adult can provide information about something that peaks a child’s interest (a word for an object or information about something unknown, for example).  When a child directs the interest, he is more likely to be engaged and more likely to process the information.  Learning is most valuable to a child (and desirable) if it is driven by his own interests.  Only by observing the child’s interests and focus during an activity can an adult help guide that process.

Promote Independence

“These words reveal the child's inner needs: 

‘Help me to do it alone.’"

-Dr. Maria Montessori

When guiding any process or activity, the best goal for the adult is to help the child achieve a sense of independence.  The more a child is allowed to do for himself, the more capable he becomes.  This leads to self-discipline, a desire for success, and the child’s own belief that he can achieve success.  If a child is able to do something, we should allow them the time and patience to accomplish the task no matter how long it takes (or how imperfectly it is done).  If a child needs assistance during a process, we should give that assistance but only so long as they need it, and let them continue onward independently in the process if and when they are able to.  We should the child assist us in the daily tasks of life, so that he may learn to accomplish these tasks.  Dr. Montessori once wrote that we should never do for a child what he can do for himself.  To do so corrupts the child’s belief that he is capable.  The less capable a child feels, the less he wishes to achieve.  It is through the adult’s promotion of the child’s independence that he becomes secure in his abilities and becomes driven to achieve more.

Prepare the Environment

“To assist a child we must provide him with an environment 

which will enable him to develop freely.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

While it is the child’s own interests and intentions that drive his learning process, it is the environment that provides the experiences and stimuli from which he becomes interested.  In this way, the adult has the ability to have some control over what the child uses to create himself.  If we provide simple child-sized tools that children are able to use, they are more likely to be successful with tasks.  The adult has the ability to set up a task so that the child will be most successful.  If we secure the environment and make certain that it is safe, the child can be more free to explore without safety being a concern.  If we provide appropriate materials in the environment, then we can protect the child from exposure to inappropriate materials.  If the adult focuses on what he can control, the environment around the child, then he can allow the child to freely explore and follow his own instincts.

Guidance Instead Of Correction

“Our care of the children should be governed not by the desire to 'make them learn things', but by the endeavor always to keep burning within them the light which is called intelligence.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

When children begin to do things for themselves, they often do things “incorrectly” as they begin learning.  The adult’s instinct is often to correct the child, focusing on what has been done wrong.  When the focus becomes the negative, the child often feels stifled and loses the desire to continue.  Children faced with correction often walk away from a task.  However, when we focus on what the child does correctly and reintroduce what needs to be done, the child feels energized and looks to continue.  Children benefit more from positive examples of how to do something rather than negatively pointing out what they have done wrong.  For example, if a child spills water, instead of pointing out that they spilled, refocusing the child on how to carry the object containing the water illustrates the same thing without negatively impacting the child’s desire to continue.  If a child answers a question wrong, it is unnecessary to point out that they are wrong.  Not correcting a child does not imply that they will always be incorrect.  Rather, it means that you have more to explain to them (either then or a later time).  The self-discovery of correcting himself is far more valuable to the child than your own correction.  For example, a child may say “two plus two is five.”  Rather than say, “no, it’s four” we can say “let’s see.” Take two objects and add two more.  Let the child count again.  The child will excitedly announce, “it’s four!”  Through this process, the adult has guided the child without correction, allowing the child to discover the answer himself.