What is Aid to Life?

What if unlocking your child's potential means simply not getting in the way? We explore how Montessori's "Aid to Life" aligns with cutting-edge neuroscience.

We'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. Research Scientist at StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

What is Aid to Life?

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What does it mean to prepare the environment?

Yati
Today's topic is "Aid to Life", a cornerstone concept you'll discover whenever you explore Montessori education.

Hiro
Right. How should we understand it?

Yati
To summarize the international teacher training course lectures: "Life" means natural development, and "Aid" means preparing the environment.

Hiro
Okay. Does that mean raising children outdoors in nature? Like, for example, Waldkindergarten emphasizes spending time in the forest.

Yati
Of course the outdoors plays a vital role in the environment. But it extends far beyond nature alone. Language, using tools, exposure to numbers and culture, all of these are necessary parts of the environment too.

Hiro
So "natural" here doesn't just mean "nature" in the outdoor sense. I'm thinking the environmental requirements would change depending on how we define "natural development."

Yati
Natural development means allowing the innate developmental blueprint within each child to unfold as nature intended. Maria Montessori discovered this through observation: children around the world show the same developmental tendencies. She observed these changes both physically and mentally.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
Within this framework, Montessori education calls the emergence of mental developmental processes "sensitive periods."

Hiro
How is that different from the brain's "critical periods"?

Yati
They're similar, but sensitive periods aren't as strictly time-bound as the brain's critical periods. For example, a classic critical period is imprinting, which happens only immediately after birth.

Hiro
Right. The language acquisition window closes around age 6 to 7, after which learning language becomes nearly impossible. Some say it might extend to around 12. Because it's unethical to test directly, we infer this from tragic cases of children found after isolation who hadn't acquired language. In cats, researchers did rather cruel experiments, like keeping one eye closed, to identify the critical period for vision.

Yati
This diagram (Figure 1) shows the sensitive periods based on the international teacher training course. Imagine sensitive periods like a wave: interest in acquiring a particular ability gradually builds, peaks, then gradually fades and disappears. Maria Montessori described them as "very strong sensitivity to certain knowledge or skills appearing during successive short periods of varying length."

Hiro
Got it. So sensitive periods track the rise and fall of interest intensity, while critical periods mark windows when learning is structurally possible?

Yati
Exactly. I've summarized the comparison in Table 1.

Table 1. Comparison of Sensitive Periods and Critical Periods

Hiro
That's clear. I wonder whether Montessori's sensitive periods apply beyond animals with brains.

Yati
Let's dig deeper into that in another issue. By the way, recent research has revealed that children raised in Montessori environments have different brain responses to errors (Denervaud et al., 2020).

Here's what happens: when the ACC, the brain's error detector, fires, Montessori children activate the right parietal lobe and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to think of new moves on the spot. On the other hand, children in traditional education don't show such responses during errors. Instead, during correct answers, their ACC strongly connects with the hippocampus and striatum, the memory and reward systems, showing a response of "burning the correct answer into memory."(Figure 2). In other words, this suggests that growing up in traditional education makes you lean toward a strategy of "remembering and recalling correct answers."

Hiro
That’s why Sota Fujii, the seven-crown shogi champion and one of the most famous Montessori-educated figures in Japan, is so incredibly strong, right? For other shogi players, it must feel like fighting an AI that thinks of moves on the spot.

Yati
Exactly. And there's more recent research showing that Montessori children have various brain regions that cooperate more strongly with each other. They also develop brains that can sustain concentration better (Zanchi & Denervaud, 2024).

Hiro
Ah, okay. Now I understand why Google and Amazon are so incredibly strong. [laughs] In the end, it's because the founders' brains are on another level, right? If you don't miss the sensitive periods, brain performance can increase that much?

Yati
That's right.

Hiro
So I understand that sensitive periods are concepts that hold up even with the latest science, but what should parents actually do?

Yati
Don't interfere with the child's sensitive periods. For example, during the sensitive period for spoken language, if all the adults around are wearing masks and the child can't see how mouths move, I think that had a considerable impact. Also, not letting them do what they want to do, not allowing failure, not letting them make choices. Telling them to be quiet, or keeping babies in confined spaces. There are so many restrictions on movement. The earlier discussion about brain connectivity is probably because Montessori education's learning method always involves movement.

Hiro
That said, raising children in modern society is quite difficult, especially in cities.

Yati
That's true. For example, due to space issues, it's difficult to have children cook or keep children's dishes within reach.

Hiro
So how should we solve that? Even if it's not an ideal environment, there must be small things that can make it better just by being aware of them.

Yati
One thing is to understand developmental stages and sensitive periods (Figure 1). When the number sensitive period emerges, show them counting anything. Acorns or beans are fine, and counting in the bath works too.

Hiro
That seems doable for any household.

Yati
For the written language sensitive period, just prepare paper and pencils. Since children from 0 to 6 years old learn through imitation, it's important to show them adults writing as a model.

Hiro
What about ages 0 to 3?

Yati
When it comes to babies in Montessori education, mobiles are iconic, but that's also for visual development, in other words, the sensitive period for eye movement. You could also go outside and look at leaves swaying in the wind together. Mom and Dad's faces peering at the baby's face are also the best material for the baby's eye development.

Hiro
Oh, really?

Yati
What to be careful about after birth is interfering with motor development by putting them in a crib or fixing them in a bouncer. It's better to lay them on a wide futon from right after birth so they can move freely.

Hiro
Got it. For example, when you give birth at a hospital, they naturally recommend all sorts of things through marketing, like formula and diapers. There are tons of baby products, and information comes at you with this "everyone uses these" vibe. But you're saying we shouldn't just go along with that.

Yati
Right. Many things actually go against natural development, like pacifiers. Also, living in sync with natural light is surprisingly not well known.

Hiro
So blackout curtains aren't good either?

Yati
Exactly. Even for newborn nighttime diaper changes, if you keep the light minimal, like draping a towel over an indirect light, then just nurse, the baby will calm down and fall back asleep. Living in tune with natural light naturally helps establish the baby's circadian rhythm.

Hiro
Huh, interesting.

Yati
Also, babies have a grasp reflex in their hands from birth, so they can play with a light rattle. Even without a rattle, they can grasp family members' fingers and play. I want people to try this when a baby is crying and you can't figure out why. Sometimes they cry just because they're bored.

Hiro
That's a helpful tip. How should we respond to the terrible twos that start around age 2?

Yati
From a Montessori perspective, it's a sign that they've developed their own ideas, so we respect the child's viewpoint. First, acknowledge their feelings when they say no. Then offer choices between two options.

Hiro
That advice didn't solve things for us, so I did some independent observation and experimentation. This is purely a personal hypothesis, but I think the terrible twos might actually be "a period of acquiring the logic of negation."

Yati
That's a fascinating hypothesis. It's true that before this stage they didn't understand negation, but now they're using it precisely.

Hiro
So the response is to let them negate as much as they want. [laughs]

Yati
What do you mean?

Hiro
The child wants to put "not" in front of everything. Mom is not me, Dad is not Mom, what I want to do now is not that, what I want now is not that.

Yati
[laughs] So if adults don't affirm their negation, the negation can't be established.

Hiro
Right. If you respond to negation with negation, they start thinking, "Wait, is Mom me? Is Dad Mom? Is this what I wanted to do? Is this really what I want? No, that's not it! Definitely not!" That's what happens.

Yati
You're totally simulating a 2-year-old's brain. [laughs]

Hiro
So that first negation 2-year-olds often make is a pure negation for the purpose of acquiring negation itself. The continuous negations that happen, which we call the terrible twos, are negations that arise in response to the parents' negations. I think parents confuse them by responding to negation with negation. When I tried this approach with my child, instead of a terrible two-year-old, they became a two-year-old learning logic.

Yati
If you get double-negated when you're just starting to understand negation, that would definitely be confusing.

Hiro
I noticed this because my second daughter would often say "not this." Like, "What do you want? Milk?" "Not milk." "Water?" "Not water." "Tea?" "Yes, yes.(nodding)" And she'd have this really satisfied look on her face. When language isn't that developed yet, children can't negate verbally, so I think they end up expressing negativity through emotional behavior. But I think overall this corresponds to a sensitive period for negation, though it's embedded within language development.

Yati
I looked into this academically too, and the terrible twos period does overlap with the acquisition of cognitive negation, so your hypothesis might be right.

Hiro
I'm glad I wasn't negated. [laughs]

Yati
To sum up what we've discussed, scientifically speaking, the Montessori principle of "Aid to Life" isn't wrong. In fact, evidence supporting it seems to be accumulating.

Hiro
I'm glad we can continue "Scientific Montessori."

Yati
Me too.