Lillard AS, Jiang RH and Tong X (2025) Perfect timing: sensitive periods for Montessori education and long-term wellbeing. Front. Dev. Psychol. 3:1546451. doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2025.1546451

Perfect Timing: Sensitive Periods for Montessori Education and Long-term Wellbeing

This month AMI Research threads brings you - hot off the press - another paper from the lab of Angelline Lillard. The paper builds on previous research, which found that when children had attended a Montessori school during the early years and during childhood, they had a higher sense of well-being as adults and the longer they had spent, the higher the well-being. Here Professor Lillard digs deeper and asks the next question – “If Montessori fosters well-being in adults – then does it matter when children leave the school?” Montessori advocated that children spent 3 years in the same class with the same teacher – but sometimes for a variety of reasons this does not happen. However, this paper suggests that when it comes to well-being, then the real benefits happen when children experience the full 3 year cycle – it is in this third year that we see their self-confidence and sense of agency blossom – those of us who have seen this with children know it to be true – but now research backs this up – and we need to share this with parents and policy makers or whoever makes the decisions that denies children the opportunity to build themselves so that – as adults - they have a  “felt experience of health, happiness and flourishing”.

Louise Livingston, AMI Global Research Committee