A concept of justice is born at this age together with an understanding of the relationship between our acts and the needs of others. Children will react strongly against anything they regard as unjust. According to Montessori, Nature has equipped this age child with loyalty, a sense of responsibility, a strong sense of justice, admiration for what is outstanding and progressive, generosity, and a distaste for trivialities. The children of this age want to become self-sufficient, prove their new independence, and help their neighbor. The group beyond the family, the peer group, attracts the child.
Children form a society of their own peers and resist adult control as far as possible.
The child 6-16 is less gentle and less accommodating. Sweetness of character may give way to a hardness which continues until adolescence and this age may be an age of rudeness. But Montessori explained this change in terms of Nature's logic, whose aim is to arouse in the child not only a hunger for knowledge and understanding but also a claim to mental independence, a desire to distinguish good and evil by one's own power, and to resist limitation by arbitrary authority. II One of Montessori's basic principles is that the adult should understand the Natural tendencies driving the child at each Plane of Development and cooperate with rather than go against Nature. Children read and follow independent study cards which give direction to their individualized program and to their researches.