As children grow, the way society responds to them often changes. Curiosity and patience are gradually replaced with suspicion. Independence is mistaken for defiance. Adolescence, rather than being understood as a vital stage of development, is frequently framed as something to manage, control, or worry about.
This fear shows up in subtle ways. Parents express concern about older children being around younger ones. Communities tighten rules instead of strengthening relationships. Adolescents are treated as risks rather than as developing humans learning how to belong, contribute, and navigate growing responsibility.

Adolescence isn’t a problem to manage. It’s a stage of profound growth, identity formation, and social learning. Research in developmental psychology consistently shows that adolescents are deeply shaped by their environments. When they are trusted, given meaningful responsibility, and included as valued members of a community, they are more likely to act with care, empathy, and accountability. When they’re treated as threats or liabilities, those assumptions can become internalized over time.

Healthy adolescent development depends on relationship and trust. Research on attachment, belonging, and positive youth development points to the same conclusion: young people thrive when adults hold clear expectations while also offering respect, connection, and opportunities to contribute. Adolescents need boundaries, but they also need to be seen as capable. They need guidance, not constant surveillance.

In mixed age communities, older children often play an important role. They model problem solving, leadership, and social negotiation. Younger children observe what growing up can look like when it’s grounded in responsibility rather than fear. When adults respond with excessive anxiety, these natural learning opportunities can be lost.

Developmentally aligned, relationship centered education doesn’t rely on control to keep communities safe. It relies on preparation, trust, and ongoing relationship. Adolescents are given real work, real responsibility, and real support. Expectations are clear. Adults remain present and attentive. Safety grows from connection, not exclusion.

Every child will become an adolescent. How we speak about older children today shapes the world our own children will inherit tomorrow. When we choose trust over fear, and relationship over control, we help build communities where adolescents are supported in becoming thoughtful, capable adults.

Our adolescent program is intentionally designed around these principles of trust, responsibility, and relationship. You can learn more about how we support adolescents here.

As the holiday season approaches, many children arrive with excitement, stories, and big feelings. Some talk about Christmas morning and what Santa might bring. Others share family traditions or cultural celebrations. Children naturally bring the stories from home into school, and in our Montessori-based environments, they’re invited to share these experiences while learning how to be in community with peers who may believe differently. The classroom becomes a place where respect is practiced and belonging matters.

In recent years, we’ve seen more young children eager to repeat what they’ve been told about Santa from home. When they voice these ideas, they aren’t being unkind; they’re processing something new and trying to understand where it fits. As adults, it helps to remember that very young children aren’t yet able to hold belief-related information quietly or navigate nuance for the sake of someone else’s feelings. Sharing aloud is how they make meaning, test ideas, and seek connection. Recognizing this helps us support community rather than expecting children to manage what they aren’t developmentally ready to hold on their own.

Young children naturally live in imaginative thinking. They create meaning, test ideas, and explore big questions long before adults step in to clarify the world. At this age, superheroes, princesses, holiday figures, talking animals, and cultural stories all feel equally possible because children haven’t yet differentiated pretend, symbolic, and real. They aren’t analyzing or comparing stories; they’re simply processing information out loud as it arrives.

Developmentally aligned education doesn’t require adults to manufacture fantasy or script pretend play; childhood already includes it. Because of this, we can’t expect children to approach holiday figures with adult logic when other imaginative worlds in their lives are still held as fully true and alive. Consistency matters, and childhood unfolds most peacefully when imagination and reality are allowed to develop in rhythm rather than collision.

Families in our community hold different beliefs and traditions. Some include Santa as a joyful part of childhood. Some treat Santa as a seasonal story or symbol. Others don’t include Santa at all for cultural, personal, or religious reasons. All of these choices are valid, and the goal is never to determine which approach is correct. Instead, we aim to help children speak about their own traditions without correcting or dismantling someone else’s.

Parents can support this at home with simple language that reinforces respect:
“Every family celebrates differently.”
“That’s what our family believes.”
“People believe different things.”
These responses help children honor their own experience while recognizing and protecting the experiences of others.

As children grow, their understanding naturally shifts. What feels fully real at three becomes meaningful in new ways later on. For some families, traditions like reading Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus help that transition unfold gradually, allowing the story to evolve rather than end abruptly. No deception is required, and wonder remains intact.

Preparing children to be in community doesn’t depend on preserving a single story. What matters is nurturing childhood, honoring imagination, and helping children learn to share space with others respectfully. When children learn to live alongside difference with curiosity and kindness, community becomes something deeper than celebration — it becomes belonging.

If you’re curious how we approach childhood, community, and development in practice, you can explore our lab schools here.

As more founders enter the microschool movement, many are discovering that starting a school is one thing, and sustaining it is something else entirely. The early stages are full of vision, energy, and possibility. But once the real work begins, most founders realize that the success of a microschool depends less on a perfect model and more on the support that surrounds the person leading it.

The truth is that no amount of coursework, templates, or strategy calls can prepare a founder for the weight of decisions that affect families, staff, and their own capacity. What keeps a microschool healthy over time is not charisma or clever branding. It’s perspective, reflection, and having someone beside you who understands the work in lived experience rather than theory.

That is what mentorship offers. It’s not a funnel, a formula, or pressure to scale. It’s a relationship with someone who has walked the long arc of this work and is willing to be honest about what it takes. Mentorship doesn’t remove the hard days, but it keeps a founder steady enough to move through them.

At Meridian Learning, we’ve supported microschool founders since 2016, long before the surge of new programs, promotions, and coaching offers that now surround the movement. What we’ve seen is that real sustainability grows through relationship, not reach. Many of today’s coaching offers are built for scale and visibility. Our work has always been built for depth, walking alongside a small number of founders with the time and attention this work deserves.

The Grassroots Microschool Mentorship was created for leaders who want to build schools that last, schools rooted in service, sustainability, and integrity rather than rapid growth or market pressure.

The microschool movement doesn’t need more hype. It needs support that helps schools endure and founders who are given room to grow without urgency.

Applications for Meridian’s 2026 Grassroots Microschool Mentorship cohort open in January. Learn more here.

Children learn essential skills from adults, like safety, language, and trust. But the skills that allow children to function confidently in the world — emotional regulation, flexibility, resilience, and social problem-solving — are built differently. They develop through sustained time in peer community, where parents aren’t mediating every moment.

Research in child development and neuroscience has reinforced this reality for decades. Skills like attention, impulse control, and flexible thinking strengthen through real-time experience, not instruction alone (work by Adele Diamond and the Harvard Center on the Developing Child). These capacities grow in environments that include both harmony and friction.

Experiences like co-ops, enrichment classes, and organized activities can be valuable, but they’re structurally different from consistent peer community. These settings are often short-term, adult-directed, and emotionally buffered. Research on peer culture and social learning (including Vygotsky’s work) shows that children develop deeper social competence through repeated daily interactions within predictable group environments.

Peer conflict isn’t a breakdown in development. It’s part of how development occurs. Children build resilience by encountering discomfort and learning to repair rather than being protected from all tension. Children don’t become capable by avoiding challenge; they become capable by moving through it.

When children spend extended time in environments where adults manage their social experiences, skills aren’t lost. They’re simply unpracticed. When a child later enters a regularly scheduled peer community, the visible gap doesn’t indicate harm. It indicates opportunity.

At Meridian Learning, we intentionally design environments that give children regular rhythm, real peer interaction, and meaningful chances to practice communication, collaboration, and repair because we believe strength comes from experience. Our micro lab schools offer an ideal environment for children to grow within a multi-age, life-like community that is both real and protected. Children aren’t shielded from relationship, conflict, or challenge; they’re supported inside spaces that are sized for safety, dignity, and true social learning.

Curious how we build environments that support healthy peer development? Explore our lab schools here.