If you've ever tried to help a two-year-old put on a shoe and been met with a full-body protest, you've seen one of the clearest signals in early childhood: the drive toward independence. It rarely arrives at a convenient moment. It shows up when you're late, when the shoe is on the wrong foot, and when the child insists on starting over from the beginning. But that insistence isn't defiance. It's a child telling you, in the only way they can, that they are working on something important. What's actually happening Maria Montessori described this as the child's inner drive toward...