ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of core dimensions of Waldorf education's understanding of earliest and early childhood development in order to bring it into dialog with essential research findings of modern developmental psychology. To achieve this goal, it describes fundamental aspects of Waldorf education for preschool age children and then compare them with the results of attachment research, in particular. This process brings up very interesting commonalities, which may provide a good basis for further research. Waldorf education should attentively follow the research in developmental psychology regarding child development issues. This offers people the opportunity to compare its findings with Steiner's statements, to critically examine them, and, if indicated, integrate the revised results into the fundus of Waldorf education's scientific knowledge. In the perspective of Waldorf education, people cannot really understand early childhood development and the forces that drive it without a concept of “I” as an active force that is operative from birth on, example, in the imitation process.
