Maria Montessori Quotes

In the first three years of life, the foundations of physical and also of psychic health are laid. In these years, the child not only increases in size but passes through great transformations. This is the age in which language and movement develop. The child must be safeguarded in order that these activities may develop freely.

Early childhood education begins early, even before birth.

It's hard to think of a 16-month child being anything other than a delight to be around.

I don't think I have ever done anything for this age of children before, a pre-school audience. Generally speaking, we don't have vivid memories of that age and what influenced us, yet clearly they are hugely formative years and it's really important that we can create television of a high quality for that audience.

I honestly think that kids should not exercise: they should keep fit through play. The most important age is zero to seven, both for the kid and the parent - for parents, because this is the time when your kid learns how to walk, talk and other behaviour.

It's critical that children spend time before they arrive in school in a warm, attractive and inclusive environment, where they can learn through play, master social skills and prepare for formal schooling.

By providing our young children with opportunities for free, child-directed play, along with proper nutrition, we are setting them up for a lifetime of healthy habits, versus interventions needed later in life.

I just happen to believe that what's at stake in the early child's development is so vital and so important, and I think it is founded in the main, in the broad cultural sense, on the relationship between the mother and child.

I believe that the first 8 years are most important and the time in a child's life when parents must be absolutely and completely present.

Don't forget that compared to a grownup person every baby is a genius. Think of the capacity to learn! The freshness, the temperament, the will of a baby a few months old!

I think much of what you learn as a kid comes before age seven.

The social and educational value of preschool is undisputed.

At three years of age, the child has already laid the foundations of the human personality and needs the special help of education in the school. The acquisitions he has made are such that we can say the child who enters school at three is an old man.

We've got to understand that the ages of zero to three are the most formative years of a person's life, the time they learn the concept of reward and punishment and develop a conscience, and that 50 percent of all learned human response is learned in the first year of life.

There is nothing that compares to the bonding between parent and child in that first year of life. Study after study shows how both parents being involved in the early weeks and months of a child's life is good for the child's development.

The period from conception to two is about the development of a baby's emotional capacities. Mum saying, 'Oh, darling, I love you,' and singing baby songs and pulling faces literally stimulates the synapses in the brain.

One of the best investments we can make is to give our kids the ingredients they need to develop in the first five years of life.

My children, who are almost two: watching them develop has made me pay much closer attention to how we become who we are.

Babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species, and we grown-ups are production and marketing.

Research has shown time and time again that infants who receive the high-quality child care and early education programs do better in school, have more developed social skills, and display fewer behavior problems.

If you can teach a child, then her family and her future is taken care of.

I think day care is terrific. Kids get to be around other kids, and they're playing, and they're teaching each other. When I was in college, my summer job was being a preschool teacher. I loved it, and after that experience, I said I can't wait to put my kid in day care because I could see how much they loved it.

The first decade of your life is really important; it's formative.

Kids still can be said to live in their own little world. Even if their parents are helicoptering around them, assigning play dates and so forth, I think they're still living in some sense of their own little perceptual worlds.

By four years of age, the average child in a family receiving public assistance has heard about 13 million words, compared to 45 million for a child from a wealthier family. The disadvantages developed during their first four years are usually still present in high school.