Ten Signs of On-Track Development

by Maren Stark Schmidt | Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Curriculum, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Primary (3-6), Psychology

Children who are on-track with their development display ten specific behaviors and characteristics. In Montessori terms, we call this process of natural and normal development, normalization.

As parents and teachers, we are concerned about doing the right things with our children. When our children go through difficult periods, we can spend nights tossing and turning about what might be the matter.

As our tools can be friend or foe, depending on how we use them, it can be helpful if we understand the innate development characteristics of children under the age of seven.

Children are born with special affinities that aid their development. These particular characteristics of the young child help us know that a child is following normal development or is encountering difficulties where adult help is necessary. Children who are on-track with their development display all or most of the following: love of order; love of work; deep spontaneous concentration; attachment to reality; love of silence and working alone; sublimation of the possessive instinct; power to act from real choice not just curiosity or impulsivity; trust and obedience; independence and initiative; as well as spontaneous self-discipline. In Montessori terms, we call this process of natural and normal development, normalization.

Love of Order

The young child possesses a love of order that adults sometimes trample, because, as we become older, this sensitivity is less central to our lives and learning. Learning success for the young child, though, depends on this connection and understanding of order.

Brain research is showing that, during the first six years of life, the neural matter of the brain is growing at a tremendous rate. The brain creates neural pathways with the sensory information it is acquiring. We might liken this process to a footpath being created at a new school by students walking across campus. The most direct paths are created over time, becoming wider, deeper, and, at some point, are paved to make clear connections between buildings. As certain sensory pathways are trod in the brain, future access is being almost guaranteed by the children’s repetition of experiences, driven by a love of order.

Classification of objects and experiences in the child’s environment are also forming. Making connections of similar qualities among objects is an important skill for adult thinking. Here are some examples of the types of classifications the children are making: These are wooden objects; These are all the items we need to bake a cake; These are all the materials we need to build a house. Adults who lack critical-thinking skills also do not have an ability to classify objects effectively.

It is the child’s innate sense for finding and creating order that helps build later logical thinking. As adults, we disrupt a child’s sense of order mainly by being unaware of this order, by changing the child’s environment, which includes people, nature and ideas, as well as objects, and by not giving the child enough time to explore and orient him or herself.

For the child with a strong sense of order, changing a seemingly insignificant object in the child’s environment may create great anxiety. Rearranging the dining room furniture might provoke a crying jag in a two-year-old. When we are aware of the child’s sense of order we can be on the lookout for behavioral changes and try to connect them to changes in the child’s surroundings. Mom or Dad wearing a new outfit or new cologne may be enough to put a three-year-old out of sorts.

Not having enough time to explore prevents our children from tapping into their inborn sense of order that promotes positive brain development. Being taken from event to event or being distracted from exploration through television or computer usage are but a few of the many ways we disrupt our children’s sense of order.

Help your child’s natural development by being aware of the importance of a child’s innate love of order.

Love of Work

The young child’s love of work, or being involved in meaningful activities, is an inborn trait. With proper nourishment, this love survives a lifetime. Even in utero the child is involved in what can only be classified as work—growing and moving in a confined environment.

Movement defines a child’s activity from the first kick in the womb or grasp of a finger to learning to sit up, crawl, walk, talk, and thousands of other activities. The child has an innate need to move, and movement, in turn, aids development and learning in the human being.

Freedom to move, within the limits of safety, is essential to our positive growth. And do children love to move!

Children’s movements may not seem like purposeful work to us. If we could sit back and watch a child in an environment, where we didn’t have to worry about them getting into something they shouldn’t, we might observe the children’s natural impulses. With interesting objects in the environment and motives to be involved in activity, we should see children moving to explore and orient themselves and choosing to be involved in self-selected meaningful activities.

On the first day of school, three-year-old Andreas was constantly on the move. In the course of an hour, Andreas had touched almost a hundred different objects in the classroom. He climbed the bookshelves to reach framed pictures on the top shelves. His need for movement and need for creating order seemed to be at full speed. His activity was exhausting to watch, and his movements pushed the envelope of safety.

On the second day of class, Andreas’ teacher invited him to sit next to her and watch the other children in the classroom, who were working on self-selected activities. Andreas’ sense of order started to come into play as he watched how the other children where interacting with the objects and people in the classroom. When his teacher asked him what looked interesting to him, Andreas mentioned sweeping with a broom. After having a lesson on how to sweep wood shavings into a square outlined on the floor and then use a dust pan, Andreas spent 15 minutes sweeping up large wood shavings, re-scattering the shavings, and sweeping them up again.

Movement directed towards purposeful work created calmness in Andreas. In these moments of calm reflection, Andreas was able to choose another interesting activity, do it to his satisfaction, return the activity to order, and then choose the next activity. In this way Andreas created a cycle of work, lengthening his concentration and aiding his learning.

Andreas’ teacher helped him by connecting his innate love of work to choose an interesting and purposeful activity. His teacher’s understanding and support of the inborn characteristics of young children—love of order and love of work—calmed Andreas’ hyperactivity. Instead of seeing his behavior as impossibly chaotic, Andreas’ teacher understood a young boy trying to connect to his natural love of activity or work.

Deep Concentration

Children naturally come to an intense, self-generated ability to focus attention. It is how we are wired as human beings to learn.
The modern-day world offers many distractions and a variety of attractions that didn’t exist fifty or sixty years ago. Today, the amount of technological change we see in a year may well be more than many people saw in a lifetime a century ago.

Before I started kindergarten, my days were spent at home. The radio created a serene backdrop with quiet music. Television provided a rainy day diversion. My weekly car trip was on Sundays to go to church and drive to visit my grandparents 30 miles away.

The distractions in my life were few and, as I developed focus, I learned to ignore distractions. As I learned to read, I also learned to tune out the noise from my brothers and sisters. To this day it takes a tap on my shoulder to get my attention if I’m reading.

My childhood environment made it easy to develop deep self-generated concentration. I was given quiet, uninterrupted time and the objects in my environment were appropriate. The adults in my environment—my parents and grandparents—created structure by keeping regular meal, snack, and bed times. This protected my time and attention needed to develop concentration.

Our children’s brains are seeking opportunities to create this deep concentration by choosing activities that are interesting to them, that they have time to explore and complete, as well as the opportunity to repeat.

When these opportunities are not available to a child (and to adults also), frustration builds. Reactions to not being involved with interesting activities due to environmental and time constraints fall within the spectrum of anger on one end and apathy on the other.

Newly-enrolled Jocinta shuffled into her preschool classroom. There was no pep in her step. No enthusiasm in her smile. Jocinta showed little interest in any activity. Even songs like the Hokey Pokey didn’t engage her. Jocinta didn’t cause any problems. She was quietly unexcited about life. She complained daily about her stomach hurting.

After a couple of weeks trying to engage Jocinta in what are usually irresistible activities for preschoolers, her teacher visited with Jocinta’s parents. Asking about what a typical week looked like for Jocinta, her teacher discovered Jocinta’s disjointed days. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after morning preschool, Jocinta went to a babysitter with various caregivers and children. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jocinta stayed at her grandparents’ homes. Dinner was in different restaurants every night. Bedtime and dinner times were based on Jocinta’s parents’ work schedule.

Her parents viewed Jocinta’s personality as reserved and shy. What Jocinta’s teacher saw, instead, was a child who never had the time to learn to focus her attention and create natural spontaneous concentration.

Fortunately, Jocinta’s parents were open to the idea of creating a more predictable daily routine for Jocinta. Dinner and bedtimes were scheduled, and grandparents volunteered to create a consistent afternoon situation.

Within six weeks, Jocinta bounced out of her car in the mornings, ready to get busy with the day’s activities. Her eyes sparkled, her checks looked round and rosy, and she laughed easily as she sang, If You’re Happy and You Know It.

A consistent environment with clear expectations and transparent structure helped Jocinta develop deep, spontaneous concentration, a sign of healthy and normal development of the young child.

Attachment to Reality

The almost four-year-old boy visiting my classroom was wonderfully verbal. He had just given me a detailed explanation about his family’s move into their new home.

• “What’s your name?” I asked.
• “Batman,” he answered.
• “And what is your name when you’re not Batman?” I asked.
• “Bruce Wayne,” he answered.
• His mother chuckled. “Isn’t that cute? James thinks he’s Batman.”

James introduced himself to his classmates as Batman. Every activity became a Batman adventure for James. The wooden knobbed cylinders became grenades against the invisible bad guys on the other side of the room. James as Batman was dangerous and unpredictable.

An attachment to reality is one of several outward signs that healthy learning is occurring in a child. James’ behavior was a sign that his normal development had veered off track. James’ fantasy of being Batman and imagining learning materials into fanciful objects, such as the Batmobile and the Batcave, indicated that James had run into a developmental obstacle.

The nature of obstacles is such that they can be difficult to figure out. Fantasy is often a call for more vocabulary and enriching experiences. To help the child reattach to reality we need to feed the child’s mind with real objects and experiences that make the real more exciting than the imaginary.

Around the age of four-and-a-half, children experience a growth spurt and legs grow longer. There also is a growth in vocabulary and children, when given the opportunities, can learn upwards of 250 new words a week. At this age, as might be expected, a second language is usually of great interest to the child.

When the need for intensive language is not met, children often begin to create fantasy worlds and imaginary friends to help keep the mind engaged, taking a detour from normal development.

I took James’ fantasy object of Batman and connected it to a study of bats. A trip to the library armed me with lots of facts and pictures of bats. James and I studied bats, naming the parts of their bodies, delved into terms such as nocturnal, sound waves, amplitude, altitude, radar, insectivore, and more. This study of bats led us into learning about other flying animals—birds and insects. In a matter of days, visits from Batman began to occur with less frequency and intensity.

The need to feel safe may be a component of superhero fantasies. I invited a police officer to the classroom for a 15-minute visit. Officer Joe told us about his job of keeping children safe. Officer Joe looked around the classroom checking shelves and closets, then made the declaration that our classroom had no bad guys. I watched a look of relief come over James.

In a few weeks, I knew James was back on track when a new student entered the classroom and James extended his hand, saying, “Hello. My name is James. What’s yours?”

Being a four-year-old boy is a very fine thing to be indeed. Better than being Batman. James’ attachment to reality showed that his development was back on course.

Love of Silence & Working Alone

The nature of the young child following natural and normal development is one that loves silence and working alone. Until children enter into a different stage of development, around the time that they lose their first tooth, this love of silence and working alone remains. The desire to be out in the community and working with others are characteristics of the elementary-aged child. These elementary-aged qualities, in many ways, remain for the rest of our lives.

The young child is working on self-mastery of skills and “sharing” or doing an activity with other children may frustrate and hamper the child’s personal development. Young children appreciate quiet and are thrilled to hear the smallest sounds in silence—the drip of a faucet, a bird’s chirp through a closed window, the rustle of paper in a breeze.

Love of silence. The young child is in a period of development of refining the senses, along with language, movement, social relations, and understanding order. The child’s sense of hearing is learning to differentiate among a multitude of sounds, and the child delights in learning to name each sound.

Three-, four-, and five-year-olds enjoy the game, “What’s That Sound?” To play, gather up ten or so items that you can manipulate to create a noise, for example: clicking a pen; moving the teeth of a comb; crumbling a piece of paper; tapping a fork on a table; flicking a fingernail against a glass; opening and closing a clothespin; etc. Invite your children to turn their backs to you. Tell them you’re going to make a noise, and they should guess what it is. Make sure the room is as quiet as possible, with television and radio turned off. Make three or four sounds and have the children guess. Ask them to turn around and repeat the sound activities with the children watching, so they’ll be able to decide for themselves if their guesses were correct. Do another three or four sounds, including any sound that was not guessed previously. After this game, children are usually calm and ready to select another activity to extend the quiet.

Love of working alone. Working alone connotes that there are others nearby, but the child is working on an activity alone, without interruption or interference of others. Working alone allows the child to think and analyze the activity in a way that suits his or her specific learning needs. The child loves being able to work through an activity without being told what to do by others.

My clearest memories of being a two-year-old are of quietly working alone. Try as I might, I cannot conjure up an image of my parents in these memories, though I am certain they were in the next room. One memory contains a quiet room in the afternoon and the sun is coming low and golden through the windows. I pour a drink from a bottle into a glass and then pour the liquid back into the bottle, over and over again. In my memory, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction as I repeat the activity and don’t spill a drop. At some point, the activity feels complete, and I eat some crackers and drink from the glass I’ve poured. This is one of my happiest memories, sitting by myself in the quiet doing something that most adults would have stopped. Goodness, I might have spilled and made a mess!

We need to be alert and protect a child’s love and appreciation of silence and working alone. They are signs of healthy and natural development.

The Transformation of the Possessive Instinct

For the child under the age of seven, another indicator of on-track development is the sublimation of the possessive instinct. This transformation of the possessive instinct occurs when the child is given an environment, where he or she has the right to use the materials as long as he or she wishes, while respecting the rights of others to do the same.

In the next stage of a child’s development, from around six to twelve years, “mine” becomes an important concept as the child brings tools and toys for group activities. But for the younger child, the materials in the environment are seen as community property, much like the way we think of a library. When we check out a book, we can use it knowing that no one is going to ask for it back or take it from us until we are finished.

Our inner being knows when our needs are being met or unmet, as the case may be. When needs are being met in the young child, the possessive instinct modifies and we rarely hear the word “mine” coming from the young child.

The child’s love of working alone, as discussed previously, and being able to naturally develop the other qualities inherent in normal and healthy development, transform this instinct for the child to own individual items in the child’s environment.

Over the years, parents have asked me about the right age to get a pet for a child. My usual answer is that children are ready for a pet after they have kept a plant alive for a year.

In the initial stages of taking care of a plant, a young child is in the first stage of gaining knowledge by simply learning the facts of life about the plant, sometimes through mishandling (which at this point is ignorance) of the plant. The child learns, by taking care of a plant, some of these realities: plants need soil to grow; plants have roots that need to be kept in the soil; plants need water, sunshine and warmth. They need their leaves. They need their stems or trunks to be unbroken. They need to be protected from outside forces—rainstorms, snow, animals, insects, etc.

As the child gains knowledge of the plant, a true understanding of the needs of the plant develops within the child, an understanding that we might also see as love. From this love comes a desire to serve the needs of the plant. The plant then thrives with the care given by the child. From experience comes knowledge, then love and respect, and at last, a desire to be of service.

To the child, the plant goes from being “my plant” to “the plant” during this development of knowledge, love and service. The child doesn’t need to “own the plant” once the “need to know” the plant is being satisfied. In normal development, the child’s interest in an object becomes one of seeking knowledge of the object versus having possession of it.

Knowledge, understanding, love, and service create a sublimation of the possessive instinct in the child. That is the path of normal development for healthy human beings. When you see it in your children, you’ll know that they’ll be ready and able to take care of the dog and many other things, living and non-living.

The Power to Act from Real Choice

My husband likes to stop and indulge in an Italian dessert at our local gelato shop. On any given day, there may be thirty different varieties of gelato on display. New and untried flavors, such as mango/lime, are frequent. My husband usually asks to taste five or six flavors before deciding on two scoops. “How can I make a choice unless I know what I’m choosing?” he says when I wonder out loud why he feels a need to “try” so many flavors.

But it is true. Unless we have knowledge of what we are choosing, how can we choose? Without knowledge, a choice is more like a gamble or a lazy way to move to the next thing. Without knowledge, our decisions may place us in positions that we never imagined, and that we may not want to be. Ordering the mango/lime gelato without a sample might have you wishing you ordered chocolate instead or thinking that you threw your money away.

When we can choose something because we know we like it, we might even call the experience the beginnings of love.

Choice requires a series of experiences for all of us, child or adult. When working with children, we sometimes confuse the act of choosing to satisfy curiosity with the act of choosing, based on knowledge and experience.

Choosing out of curiosity—like tasting samples at the gelateria—helps create knowledge and experience. Once we have knowledge and experience, we have a new-found power, the power to act from real choice. When we know that we like mango/lime, chocolate, strawberry and caramel pecan, we can act from a vantage point that allows true choice. Curiosity is factored out of our decision.

We should offer our children experiences as just that: experiences that can create knowledge that will allow them the power to act from real choice. Otherwise, our children’s behavior may appear to be like running from toy to toy in a huge store, or like taking a bite of every chocolate in the box and never eating one.

Experience doesn’t have to be a long drawn-out affair. It can be like a taste sample at the ice cream store. We need to offer our children a wide variety of simple experiences with clear and accurate information so that they gain knowledge. Using the correct word for items, for example, cardinal instead of red birdie, is one way to help. Offering small tastes of new foods is another. Giving a short demonstration on how to do a task, such as turning a page is another. Smells, textures, shapes, movement, sounds, temperatures are only a few areas of experience, where small bits of information will help children gain precision.

The power to act from real choice begins with curiosity being satisfied with clear and accurate experiences. The knowledge gleaned from that will allow our children to truly choose what they like and like what they choose, in all aspects of their life, from activities to friends, to careers to vacations. As well as in selecting a scoop of gelato.

Listening & Following the Adult

Children naturally want to connect with the adults in their lives. Obedience to these adults is a sign of natural and normal development in a child. Obedience, though, does not refer to an automatic and unthinking response to an order. Obedience, comes from the Latin, oboe di ere, meaning to listen to. When the relationship is built on trust, our children with on-track development should listen to us and choose to follow our respectful requests.

For the child who is “misbehaving,” or not behaving in accordance with adult wishes, we need to recognize that we have a situation where a child has lost a vital link of trust with an adult in his or her world.

An obedient child listens for directions from a trusted adult and then chooses to follow that direction with confidence based on previous positive experience If our child ignores direction, he or she has veered off the path of normal development, and we must figure out what has caused this detour.

Carol, mother to three-year-old Matt, would tell Matt that is was time to leave a friend’s house and then would continue talking for another 10 to 20 minutes. Carol thought nothing of it since she was from a family where it took that long to say good-bye. What Matt learned, though, was that when his mother said it was time to go, it really didn’t mean anything in his immediate world. Carol had created a situation where Matt didn’t believe what she was telling him.

Carol would say it was time for lunch, the cell phone would ring, and lunch would be delayed for ten to twenty minutes—an eternity to a three-year-old, and again, another learning experience that taught Matt to not pay
attention to his mother’s words.

At bedtime, Matt’s father, Jim, would tell Matt to get ready for bed and continue to watch his television show. Day after day, inconsistencies between words and actions taught Matt that listening to his parents and following their lead were not coherent events.

Are we surprised when Matt begins to ignore his parents’ direction and requests? Should we be surprised if Matt throws a temper tantrum when he’s been told it is lunchtime then has to wait for an undetermined amount of time? Should we be shocked if Matt, after being told for the fifth time that it’s time to leave grandma and grandpa’s but no one makes an effort to move to the door, cries when he is picked up and scolded because he didn’t “listen”?

As parents and teachers, if we ask our children to do something, we must realize the power we hold—the power to create a trusting relationship, or one of rebellion. Our children are born to connect positively to our adult words and actions. To create authentic relationships with our children, we must have integrity in our words and actions.

Our words and actions must guide our children to listen and choose to follow us based on the confidence of our leadership. That is true obedience, and not blindly following an order.

Independence

We are raising adults, not children. Our job as parents (and parent-support systems) is to guide our children to complete independence. Little by little, day by day, we help our children develop skills and take on more responsibility until they can run at full speed on their own two feet.

Unfortunately, it is often easier for us to do skill-building jobs ourselves or hire someone to do it, than to teach our children these skills. If we don’t teach skills, how can we expect our children to act with responsibility, or “respond with ability” when opportunity knocks?

When we allow our children to be coddled too long, we help create adults without clear direction and who have a failure to take on the challenges of adulthood. We even have a popular phrase for this phenomenon: failure to launch.

A three-year-old is able to do a multitude of tasks independently when given the tools and environment to do so. Three-year-olds should be able to dress themselves, get themselves a drink, fix a simple snack, wash hands and face, brush teeth, and much more.

In order to dress themselves, children require several considerations. Clothes should be easy to put on and off, for example: t-shirts and pants with no zippers or buttons. Shoes with Velcro fasteners are helpful for self-dressing, though for five-year-olds shoelaces to learn to tie are important. Tags in back of clothing can help avoid backwards dressing. Sets of clothes grouped together help make choosing an outfit easier. Low shelves or hanging rods help a child get clothes without adult help. Of course, a hamper or basket helps establish a habit of putting dirty clothes away and not on the floor.

Children can pour themselves a drink of water if glasses are placed in a low cabinet and a small pitcher of water is available on a tray placed on a low table. A child-sized table in your kitchen with a pitcher of water available, along with a lesson or two on how to pour, will be of great help to your child.

Preparing a snack or sandwich are other activities that children can do in their quest for independence. Small jars of crackers on low shelves can help your child prepare his or her snack and eat it at the child-sized table in your kitchen. Peanut butter in small jars (think pimento jars) and a small canapé knife can help your child make peanut butter crackers or a sandwich. Place a slice of bread in a sandwich bag or plastic sandwich container for easy availability.

A step stool in the bathroom or kitchen can help your child wash hands and face, as well as brush teeth independently. Washcloths work as child-sized hand towels, and a basket full of washcloths by the sink can make hand washing inviting.

Be an adult raising an adult. Help your child attain independence by providing tools and an environment that promotes independence.

Spontaneous Self-Discipline

An indicator of healthy and normal development in children (and adults, too!) is the presence of self-discipline that seems to appear almost out of nowhere. In reality, there are factors that contribute significantly to the development of self-discipline in the child and adult.

As a child’s will is strengthened by the use of free choice; spontaneous self-discipline appears and we see concentration, coordination, order and independence develop within the life of the child.

As mentioned previously, children are born willing to listen and follow adults whom they trust. When we, as the adults in a child’s life, can provide the child with clear direction for independent activity, concentration is strengthened and self-discipline forms.

The word, discipline, has roots in the Latin word, discere, to learn. Self-discipline connotes that we are able to learn and follow a path with self-determination and control.

Sue and Steve worked to create a home environment for their three-year-old daughter, Tasha, where Tasha could make appropriate choices for her activities. Their home contained a variety of independent tasks for Tasha, from working puzzles to making a snack for herself and others. Steve and Sue used their home to create a place where Tasha could tap into the natural tendencies of early childhood—love of order, love of purposeful activity, love of silence, obedience, attachment to reality, practice in choosing, and support of independent activity. All these factors contributed to Tasha’s development of self-discipline.

Tasha showed the signs of healthy and natural development—joyful activity, a sociability to help others, the ability to concentrate on self-chosen tasks for over an hour at a time, as well as the ability to listen and follow directions from the trusted adults in her life.

A morning with Tasha might look something like this:

• 7:00 am Wake up, go into parents’ room to tell them good morning and get a hug and kiss.
• 7:15 am Choose clothes and get dressed independently.
• 7:30 am Pour milk on oatmeal, put jam on toast, and carry to table.
• 8:00 am Put dishes in dishwasher and brush teeth without reminder from parents.
• 8:15 am Help Sue sweep porch.
• 8:30 am Choose puzzle from activity shelf.
• 9:00 am Put puzzle away. Choose blocks.
• 9:30 am Put blocks away. Choose beading necklace.
• 10:00 am Put beading necklace away. Make snack in kitchen with Steve.
• 10:30 am Go outside and feed dog.
• 10:45 am Swing.
• 11:00 am Dig in garden.
• 12:00 pm Go to bathroom, wash hands, set table for lunch.
• 12:30 pm Help clear table. Choose book for Sue to read at naptime.

Tasha’s parents have created an environment where Tasha can make successful choices for purposeful activities in an independent manner. Tasha is able to live with quiet dignity, gaining self-discipline and self-confidence with each activity chosen and successfully completed.

Summary
Children who are on-track with their development display all or most of the following: love of order; love of work; deep spontaneous concentration; attachment to reality; love of silence; love of working alone; sublimation of the possessive instinct; power to act from real choice not just curiosity or impulsivity; trust and obedience; independence and initiative; as well as spontaneous self-discipline.

The main sign of normal and natural development, or normalization, is joyful work. Nurturing this process of normalization is our most important work.

Tomorrow’s Child / November 2016 / p10