Snippets From The Absorbent Mind – On Infancy and Environment

According to Maria Montessori, the first six years of life is when the child develops his own mental flesh, using which he explores, judges, embraces and fights the world for the rest of his life. And it all gets kickstarted the moment they are born into this world. Right from infancy!

◎ The absorbent mind of the newborn orients itself in the environment; so it is necessary to prepare the environment with much care.

◎ Aiding a positive absorption of the environment is important so that the child may feel attracted towards it instead of repelled and does not develop phenomena of regression.

◎ The progress, growth and development of the child depend on its love for the environment.

◎ The newborn should remain as much as possible in contact with their mother and the environment must not present obstacles to the same.

◎ There are certain forces within the mother to which the child is accustomed and these forces are important during the first difficult days of adaptation.

◎ Once this first period is passed, the child adapts itself happily to the environment without feeling any repugnance.

◎ A major milestone that occurs during this phase is the activity of the senses – vision, audition, olfaction and somatosensation.

◎ The child’s eyes are very active. No matter how tiny babies are, they certainly perceive impressions in addition to being an active research worker in the environment.

◎ This impression (be it positive or negative) that the environment gives to them are so intense that some biological psycho chemical transformation makes them resemble their environment. Babies evolve into the combination of factors they love.

◎ It is in infancy, by virtue of the unique powers of infancy that the child acquires the human characteristics that distinguish them such as language, religion, racial character etc.

My word? Never take your newborn’s immobility or innocence for granted. Your littlest bundle of joy learns more than you think they do. Value the unseen efforts they put into absorbing the environmental lessons we supplement them on a daily basis. If you are a mom or a primary caregiver of sorts, work on your own peace and happiness too. Being a parent, you are the most influential person in your child’s environment. The merrier you are, the happier the child will be.

Happy weekend folks.

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Images from Pixabay

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Read more about The Absorbent Mind here.

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