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Montessori and the Age of Rudeness

6 min read

Today I want to talk about the "Age of Rudeness", which starts in the second plane, ages 6-12.

Click here to read more about the Planes of Development.

The "Age of Rudeness" describes a developmental phase when children begin questioning authority, challenging social expectations, and experimenting with behaviour that adults might consider rude.

If you have a child between ages 6-12, you’re probably surprised (and maybe relieved?) to hear there’s a term for that.

The good news is two-fold:

It’s developmentally appropriate
There are ways to manage it and encourage children to grow into respectful adults

The Second Plane of Development

First, I want to give some context around this developmental stage.

The second plane has many other important changes:

1. It’s the plane of social development.

2. This is when morality and fairness become more important.

3. This is also when children start to move away from the family unit. There’s a push-pull going on as they start to look outside the family unit and more towards peers, other adults, and even the media for sources of information and influence.

So while the second plane is not considered one of the turbulent planes (like planes one and three, where there’s a lot of obvious change and growth), there’s still a lot going on here.

This is when a child’s social development really starts to blossom.

And as adults, it's important that we consider this social development work, just as much as learning the multiplication tables or cursive writing.

Personally, I think knowing this is empowering because it recognizes that we can support and teach social skills, just like we can math.

Managing The Age of Rudeness at Home

1. Set Clear Expectations and Consequences

Like toddlers, children in middle childhood are also little scientists.

They are experimenting with:

what they can get away with
what boundaries they can push
what happens after they do something

They want to know what happens after they call someone dumb or push their brother.

This is when it’s important to show them what’s acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

Not just with punishment. This is when we have the opportunity to teach them alternate ways to communicate and interact with people.

First, by acknowledging that a behaviour is not acceptable, and then giving them a chance to come up with an alternative. If they can’t do that, we can offer a choice. Getting their input is important during this phase.

For example, "When your brother takes your lego, should you ask for help from a parent or ask for it back and explain that you were using those pieces?"

2. Encourage Perspective Taking

Children ages 6+ have a greater capacity to imagine and see someone else’s point of view.

This makes it a great time to encourage perspective taking.
At home, when sibling conflicts occur, help children to see things from the others perspective.

You can have your child self-reflect about what they just said or did.

If they’re not capable of that yet, you can reflect it back for them. For example:

Your sister was angry when you knocked over those blocks. She was in the middle of setting up a house and that disrupted her. Now she'll have to start again.
You hurt your brother’s arm when you pushed him. He banged it on the table and it’s going to feel sore for a while.

We can walk them through these three questions:

What’s the problem?
How are you going to fix it?
How can we do better next time?

And while children ages 6-12 are now able to understand the perspective of those around them, children ages 9-12 can begin to extend their empathy globally.

For this age group, you can start to talk about life outside of their direct social sphere and share global issues.

You can begin to talk about topics like mental health, global conflicts, and climate change, in age appropriate ways.

When possible, try to find books that address these topics so they won’t have to consume the visual component, which can still be overwhelming for young children.

Eric Walters has written many books about current events for young adults.

3. Modelling and Empathy

Understand the behaviour you’re modelling is the behaviour your child will learn is acceptable.

If we want our children to be kind and empathetic, we need to model kindness and empathy.

If we want our children to be patient, we need to be patient.

As the adults, we also need to extend our empathy when these undesirable behaviours are happening and consider the possible root causes:

Is "back talk" simply your child pushing back when they’re being rushed? Could it mean - "give me a few seconds, you’re rushing me"?
Could they be repeating something they overheard but don’t realize is inappropriate?
Are they lashing out after having a bad day at school?

Just like toddler tantrums, now is a good time to be a "stress detective".

For screaming toddlers, we consider whether they’re hungry, tired, hot/cold, etc.

For children in middle childhood, we can look at those factors and more - what’s going on socially or academically that could be causing them to behave the way they are.

4. Be Mindful of Media Exposure

Children at this age are still like sponges. They’re absorbing the influence of those around them and the media they’re consuming.

In the first plane, a child's primary caregivers are their role models. In the second plane, they’re looking beyond the family unit for role models.

Consider:

Are they watching tv shows where the characters are always calling each other stupid?
Are they overhearing the news where celebrities or politicians are always name-calling?

Regularly consuming this kind of content is going to shape what children view as acceptable behaviour.

So what do you do? Shield them from the world?

Since that’s not realistic, instead we can use these opportunities to talk about what they're seeing and hearing.

Ask them what they thought about what they saw/heard and how they would feel to be on the receiving end of it.

5. Read Books

Even if your child is old enough to read independently, it’s still a good idea to read to them throughout the elementary years.

There are lots of books out there about making friends and bullying for children ages 6-12. Find some at your local library to bring home.

6. Host Family Meetings

Family meetings provide a time to talk about problems and conflict resolution strategies when everyone is cool-headed rather than in the moment.

Schools have a code of conduct that students often participate in creating. A family meeting could also be a good time to create something similar for the home environment, outlining acceptable behaviour and strategies for conflict resolution.

The Positive Changes in the Second Plane of Development

As parents, we tend to focus a lot on the negative parts of development. Probably because they're the loudest.

So while this post is focused on a negative area of development in the second plane, there’s also so many wonderful things happening, like:

Children now like to build and create on a bigger scale. Children at this age don’t want to make one paper airplane, they want to make a hundred and then set up a booth to sell them.
They can be more responsible, having the capacity to take on more jobs around the house and become more independent.
They can start to think more globally and become more interested in social justice, specifically towards the end of the second plane.
They are more interested in the world outside of their immediate social sphere. This is a great time to travel and show them different environments.

One of the privileges of running The Montessori Room is getting to know some truly incredible educators.

And one such lovely person, Margaret Whitley, has been helping us to create our Montessori Elementary School packages.

Margaret is a former Montessori Elementary teacher and head of school. Like many great Montessorians, she views education through the lens of childhood development. She understands that math and reading are not taught in isolation. They are taught to a developing human, one that needs support and guidance in all areas of life. She truly embodies the Montessori approach.

Margaret helped me write this newsletter and she’s going to help me write more about the 6-12 age range so look out for those in the coming months.