Spiritual Embryo

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Spiritual Embryo

Spiritual Embryo

Dr. Montessori believes that the spiritual embryo begins before birth. She gives the example of a premature baby born at 7 months and that is already able to function and to have a psychic life. He must build himself up until he becomes a full human being. While it starts building up, the first thing that occurs is intelligence.

The definition that we can give to the term “spiritual embryo” is that the spiritual embryo is the phase of development that starts right when the baby is born and continues by the age of 3 years old. It is the baby’s life in the new environment after the womb. During this time they form themselves. They absorb the informations from their environment, through observation, which is going to be their great foundation to build upon for later learning.

During the post-embryonic period children experience an extensive growth, patterning and maintenance of the adult form. The child will be able to develop his individual capacities. That first period of life is so important, that we must take care of the newborn mental health as much as we take care of his body.

For example, while I was observing a 5 weeks baby I noticed that when he was calm, lying on his bed, he had his eyes open and was just listening to us talking around him and moving h is head slowly towards to where the voice was coming from and whoever was going on top of him was really trying to look into his eyes and move his legs and arms like he was trying to communicate in his own way.

His parents had on top of his crib a toy with stars that displayed music and the sealing was full of bright, big stars, that were moving slowly. Besides giving them a nice warm bath as well as a massage afterwards, we can talk to them with a nice calm voice so they can develop their trust in us and reassure them that everything is going to be fine.

As Dr. Montessori said:

“There is in the child a special kind of sensitivity which lead him to absorb everything about him, and it is this work of observing and absorbing that alone enables him to adapt himself to life”. (Maria Montessori)

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