Children under three, especially toddlers often have a very negative reputation.
Those terrible twos.
We often think toddlers are unruly,
that they are very egotistical,
which they are and need to be for a while.
We often think of them as being very difficult to handle,
very difficult to discipline…
Before the will develops there is an energy
that is directing the child’s development.
That energy is referred to as the Horme.
The Horme is sometimes defined as a life force.
And it’s evident in all living organisms.
It’s that force that pushes that organism to become what it is supposed to become.
Dr. Montessori talked about the idea that
we are able to touch the periphery of the child.
The exterior of the child if you will,
and there is a center inside that child.
And inside that center is this secret of childhood.
This incredible bundle of energy that she called Horme.
This is what is the core inside of each of us.
That we’re born with and given the ability to construct ourselves.
No parent taught their child to speak or taught their child to move,
it was because they are driven from inside.
Young children have a very active Horme.
So children aren’t being disobedient to adults.
They’re really obeying this very strong, very internal force that they can’t deny.
So a child who has to move all the time is being moved from inside to do that movement.
That’s the power of this Horme.
Nature knows that’s the process
and is putting that child on that path of development
so that they can stand and free their hands
and then they can explore the environment
and that’s when we need to give them materials
to manipulate, to develop the control and coordination that happens.
The art of working with young children
is to try to figure out what it is they are needing to do--
they are being pushed to do from this energy--
and ask them to do it.
Freedom is a point of arrival.
It is not where we begin.
It’s not a point of departure.
And children are given various freedoms, depending on their increasing ability
to handle the responsibilities that come with those freedoms.
Montessori talked about the development of the will.
That as a child’s will developed
their ability to make a choice and take responsibility for that choice,
it had enormous impact on their ability to function in a social setting,
with a set of rules, accepting those rules gradually,
whether or not they even agreed with them.
The child first starts out just lifting their head.
And then slithering.
You can’t even notice it sometimes when they are slithering,
and all of a sudden you notice,
they are two feet from where they were when I looked last.
And then, slowly, rolling from back to front.
And eventually crawling.
And pulling up.
And attached walking and walking…
and then beyond that with the challenges of running.
As soon as they walk, they want to start running and climbing
and challenging themselves in more difficult ways.
So we look at the whole continuum from birth to three,
in terms of gross motor
as well as fine motor.
So the development of the grasps,
from reflexive all the way to a fine pincer grasp,
that they can learn by the age of nine months
if they are given the opportunities.
And the materials to help those muscles to develop,
and to help those neurological pathways to connect
so they can use their hands to affect their environment.
Movement is the key.
It’s through movement that we develop our brain.
An environment for young children really has to have enough space
so that the environment itself
is not an obstacle to their development.
And often unconsciously we create those obstacles
by making spaces too small or too cluttered or too crowded with furniture
so they really can’t practice the movements they need to practice.
Sometimes the obstacle is an adult’s attitude.
“Stop moving so much.”
“Stop climbing up and down off the chair.”
“Stop pushing, stop pulling, stop climbing… stop…”
All the movements they need to practice.
We often try to stop them because it is an annoyance us.
And yet we have to understand that to perfect their gross body movements,
but also their hand movements, they HAVE to practice.
And they need a lot of practice.
So the environments they need for the whole first three years
are going to change significantly.
But the change is based on their developmental needs.
The hand is so allied to the development of the brain
and the work of the brain
that sometimes I think we shortchange it
by not giving enough to the work of the hand.
Neurologically, children can make what is referred to as a primitive pincer grip,
which is a very flattened kind of index finger and thumb grip.
That’s a neurological acquisition.
To move this from this real tight flattened pinched movement
to a refined pincer or what’s called a mature pincer is experience.
That’s not neurological-
it creates a neurological pattern, but that comes from experience.
This comes from neurological development.
How many of our children are stuck here?
Rather than being allowed to move to something like this? And it comes early.
Still if you are a three-to-six teacher
you see children coming in to your environments
with very immature hand skills.
It’s simply environment that has caused that.
It’s not their brain.
It’s not. It’s just their experiences that have caused that.
During the second year the child is becoming a socialized human being.
Up until that point they are very egotistical.
But gradually they come to understand that everyone in this group has certain needs.
Has certain rights. Not just me.
And as they understand that,
this social development is occurring simultaneously with the Horme declining in its power
and the will becoming stronger and stronger.
And we support that development by giving young children choices.
But also allowing them to experience the consequences of those choices.
We empower them by giving them choices.
You can do A or B.
We’ve controlled the situation by the choices we give them.
But we empower them to make that choice.
“You need to get off the table.”
“Can you do it by yourself or do you need me to help you?”
“We’re going outside.”
Can you put your shoes on by yourself or do you need some help?”
It’s a choice.
So when we can empower them that way, we’re also feeding this developing will.
Because they are making choices that they then get to see the responsibility for. ..
I think one of the secrets to making all of this work with toddlers
is to have very few rules.
We have one overriding rule:
you may do nothing that hurts yourself, others or the environment.
If you think of that overriding rule,
that gives you such a big parameter to guide this development.
And we try to use a positive approach.
“We walk inside, we run outside.”
“We talk inside, we yell outside.”
So we give them all of these limits, if we want to call them limits,
by voicing them in a positive way.
If children are living in an environment where there are no limits,
where they can do anything they want, whenever they want, however they want,
that is absolute abandonment. The greatest fear of a child.
So that the limits that we do create, and there aren’t very many,
but the ones that are there are very clear, give a child the structure.
Give them the security of knowing this is what I can do here.
This is what I can’t do here.
And gradually, they reach a point where they can consciously choose to obey that structure.
Practical Life with toddlers is interesting.
It’s often messy. It often involves a lot of water.
And you just know that.
You know that’s part of the attraction of it to them.
There is a lot of collaborative work around Practical Life in the beginning.
And as the adult, we watch how their motor skills are coming along,
how their cognitive skills are developing,
and as they appear to be able to do bits and pieces of a piece of work independently
the collaboration diminishes and they take over more and more of the work.
Till the next thing you know, they are doing the work independently.
People marvel sometimes that these children are able to bake bread, for example.
The smell of baking bread is a great aspect of a community.
But this is a contribution they are making to the communal lunch.
It’s not something that they are just doing for themselves.
Their initial motivation is of course, an egotistical one.
But at the lunch itself, someone asks: “who baked this bread today? It is so good.”
“Thank you so much for baking this bread.”
“Yes! Pizza!”
When I go into an environment I’m looking for order and cleanliness
and the appropriate materials for specific ages.
One of the things that is challenging for teachers
when they first come out of training
is which materials do I have in my environment?
However you don’t always have every single child that needs
every single material that’s in your album at the same time.
So you have to look at the children that are there.
That are present.
Are there things on the shelves that children don’t even look at? Or notice?
That environment needs to be dynamic.
It needs to change according to the child’s needs.
And that doesn’t mean we change the entire environment every week.
But it does mean that we have to observe.
To pay attention to what the children are using, what they are not using,
what they are misusing as well because that can be also a flag telling us…
okay, this is not an appropriate material right now.
They are trying to use it and it’s just not working
and they are not getting anything out of it, and they are actually being destructive with it.
So it’s not feeding a need.
So I’m looking to see that the materials are connected with the children.
And somehow helping the teacher to understand that also.
To train her to observe, to train her eye to see those kinds of things.
What the child really needs in terms of their motor skills,
in terms of their interests.
Because it is not only about ability and what they can do,
it’s also about what they are interested in.
Children of this age are showing us every day what they need.
Child: “Look it!” Teacher: “Can you see your face in the mirror?”
Meeting the child’s needs and realizing they will get there one day.
They have their own path.
And they are also going to do it very differently than the way that you do it.
So you’re going to go in
and when you finally do that button presentation you’re going to do it perfectly!
And they’re going to go in and they’re going to pull.
And they’re going to try and –you know— rip that button off
because they really want it to get out of that hole right now!
And you’re going to have to be patient with that and allow the child.
And it’s not that you didn’t do your presentation correctly,
it’s that the child is learning.
And they are in a process.
And we have to see what they need before we just step in.
That classroom has to be immaculate clean.
You have to be able to organize the toilet education, toilet awareness,
the snack, the food preparation, the practical life.
In that toddler class, you know that at the beginning,
the moment that that child goes into the environment,
he will touch everything. Everything!
In the toilet environment there is no way you can say you can not touch this.
So I would start with very few things.
With many conversations, basically it is a matter of order, routine,
how to go into the toilet, how to take off your clothes,
how to change your shoes…
So they are such tiny little things that you have to do,
so to establish a routine
and also to establish that the child feels very comfortable
and the child feels that he can predict exactly what’s happening in the classroom.
Order is extremely important for the child.
And in setting up the environment.
So things need to be found in their place.
And the adult needs to help in that process.
With children under three,
we can’t expect them to be putting things back from where they are…
from age 8 weeks, it’s a process that happens.
And in Nido, it rarely happens.
It’s the adult that’s keeping the order.
But the child still needs to be able to find what they need to
in order to satisfy whatever development is going on inside of them.
So if they are working on that four-finger-to-thumb grasp,
they can go over and find the rocking base where it was.
It’s not going to move to a different area.
Even though they can’t put it back.
They need to be able to find it there to satisfy their development.
Then when they get to the infant community,
they start to understand things can be found in the same place.
This is how order is; it gives security to the child.
They form points of reference that makes them feel more comfortable
in their environments so that they can find things.
Usually they don’t learn how to put their work away
until they are transitioning to the primary.
That’s kind of one of the signs that we know they’re ready
because they can do a complete cycle of activity.
So in the beginning, they’re just going over and working at the shelf.
Knowing where that item belongs.
And as things move along, they might take that item to rug or to a table to work with.
And then it stays at the table. It doesn’t get back.
But at least they know work goes on a rug or a table.
That’s a sense of order that they’ve gotten from the environment
in terms of the adults and in terms of other children.
Then they start putting their work back on any shelf in the classroom.
So that rocking base might go in the shelf that has shoe cleaning on it.
Any shelf in the environment.
But they have internalized that order.
That work goes on the shelf.
They know that that work goes on a shelf.
They don’t go over and put it in the sink. They put it on a shelf.
Because they have internalized that order.
So they are putting it on any shelf,
and then eventually, they’re putting on the correct shelf.
Not in the correct spot, but on the correct shelf!
Then finally, it goes on that spot where it goes.
Having works that are complete as well is important.
So that means that all of the cloths for handwashing need to be present,
otherwise the child can’t be successful in doing handwashing
if he doesn’t have a towel to dry his hands.
So, we need to make sure that the child when they are done replaces those cloths
and if they don’t then we’re replacing those cloths.
If there are no more cloths, then we’re removing the material somehow.
Putting it somewhere it’s not available anymore
because the child doesn’t understand there are no more cloths.
They will go over and they will still try to do that activity.
Being comfortable with getting messy.
Being comfortable with letting children do things that aren’t in your album,
being comfortable with allowing them to make mistakes, to see what happens if they do things in a different way,
things like that are challenging when you are working in a community.
We have to give up a lot of control and be patient and breathe
and have a strong center and be really grounded.
Open to accepting these children’s possibilities and their accomplishments.
And what an accomplishment is,
an accomplishment is learning,
and having a smile and being joyful
and feeling good about yourself.
You are there because you are the support
and you are the one that prepared this physical environment
so that the child can do that independently, can do that work,
can succeed and can gain that feeling of normalization
of using their mind and body together to be a happy human being.
That positive experience of being able to do for himself and to succeed
without anyone interrupting is going to stay with him
and that’s what we want him to take away.