So this week we are talking about ways that we can support the development of concentration with our sweet babies. And this topic is super, super interesting and one that I found is truly essential to working with babies and toddlers and kind of understanding how babies turn into toddlers and how we can just help facilitate and optimize all of that throughout their development.
“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. It lays the whole basis for his character and social behavior. He must find out how to concentrate. And for this, he needs things to concentrate upon. This shows the importance of his surroundings. For no one, acting on the outside can cause him to concentrate. Only he can organize his psychic life.”
Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind
And so I have compiled my 5 best tips to having babies develop concentration, and I am so excited to share them with you. So jumping in to number one…
Tip #1: Minimizing their Toys
Essentially less is more when it comes to the toys that we give our babies. So if we give them the simpler, self-correcting type materials or even ones that they can just explore with their hands that make natural sounds or make sounds when they move it, they’re learning all types of things (like transforming their environment, for example),
And that means we’re really offering that next level of concentration because, you know, the child is working to do something with it beyond pressing a button. They’re manipulating it with their hands, discovering object permanence, fitting that puzzle piece into the correct spot, etc.
The less is more approach applies to the toy itself, but also the amount of toys we are offering. It’s really helpful if we limit those materials, focus on that Montessori toy rotation, and put out materials into their toy area on their shelf or however you organize their space that really interest the child.
Tip #2 Minimizing Their Space
this kind of goes along the same guidelines, the same idea as the minimizing their toys idea. And so within minimizing their space, one of the reasons I love Montessori is that she really looked at 100 percent of everything that affects the child. Click here for to get ideas from one of my favorite Montessori blogs, How We Montessori.
And one of those was the environment. I’m sure if you’ve heard about Montessori before, you know that a whole big piece is the prepared environment. So setting up their space in a particular way helps the child trust the space and work in the space, and optimize their experiences within the space.
And one of the ideas behind the prepared environment is a simple, beautiful environment. Because settling the environment offers a settled approach to all experiences within it. That’s why you’ll see a lot of the natural colors, woods, simple designs, isolated pictures and stuff like that in Montessori. Because that less is more approach is taken in Montessori.
So you’re really settling and minimizing the space. That way, their toys and materials and all of the stuff that we want them to be drawn to is really what they’re mainly drawn to within the space, naturally.
Tip #3 Choose their own materials
This can look like a directed choice at really any age & stage of development. So say a three month old baby is using their two hands in coordination. We can offer a choice between two grasping materials. And they’re reaching toward what they’re innately drawn to. And so we’ll be able to lay that foundation of offering those choices and talking to them about what they chose, watching how they explore it, and talking to them about that!
Later on it’ll look very similar to the Montessori shelf options for your mobile baby! They can slither, crawl, or walk on over to the shelf choose their own material from that. But when you start offering these limited directed choices at 3 months, you’re laying that foundation of offering choices between a couple of things that we have out for them. And then later on, it looks like the child led Montessori environment.
And when we have a child who’s driven by his own interest, it creates beautiful moments of concentration.
Tip #4 Points of Interest.
This is something that we actually really focused on in our Montessori training! And so points of interest are essentially either pieces or moments within the Montessori lesson that you’re offering that are naturally attractive to an infant.
For example, points of interest can be when you drop a ball into the wooden tracker, the sound that the wooden ball makes on the wooden tracker when it’s rolling down and drops. It can be the water drips from the sponge when you’re teaching them to wipe the table. It can be the sound of a rattle. It can be the sound of the rice pouring in a transferring type activity.
Anything within the lesson that can one in on interest, emphasize it! That’s the tactic I was taught in my training and BOY does it work with a little practice. Because they follow our interest, so when we show interest in these amazing (and fun) points of interest, they are far more likely to be drawn to them too!
Tip #5 As Often As Possible, Focus on One Thing at a Time & Make a Point to Complete the Task
Even if your child isn’t developmentally ready to put their grasping toy back in the basket and then back in their play area on their shelf, you can model that completion and show them how you can finish a task. Then, as they come into higher levels of consciousness, they see that. Then you start to include them as developmentally appropriate!
And that also helps hone in on the impulse control too. Because there’s so many interesting things in our babies’ new world, right? So when we help them focus on completing a task and that one thing that they’re working on, we’re really helping them with their development of concentration in that sense.
Turn taking is also amazing to help with this. So say you do a Montessori lesson. Sticking with that object permanence box example, if you show them how to do it and they’re reach for it, but you encourage them to watch and wait until you’ve shown them how to do it, at the end of that lesson, you’ve really honed in on that impulse control.
Then once you say “okay it’s your turn!” our sweet babies are so interested, excited, and ready! So that’s another way to help them learn and extend those moments of concentration. Because we’re really just extending that moment of interest while also helping them with learning about that turn taking!
And so those are are my 5 tips for Supporting the Development of Concentration in our sweet babies! I actually have 3 more helpful tips in our Montessori Babies Podcast Episode! We also lightly touch on the tv topic… 🙂
Click below to take a listen!
Xoxo,
Bianca, Your Baby Tour Guide