To educate children to be autonomous and independent, it is important to respect their spaces, favoring the observation and preparation of the environment in order to limit the intervention of the adult
Patience is a virtue that we normally not recognize to children. On the other hand we only repeat phrases such as: “Wait for a moment!”, “Not so quickly!”, “Look before doing!”
But the adult? Maria Montessori asked the parent (and educator) to become humble and patient, an observer capable of waiting for the appropriate time to intervene, to speak, to help, to stop. The children, as they grow up, learn to protect themselves from the “invasion of field” of the greats, asking for time and space loudly, but in the first years of life this responsibility is above all in the hands of adults who, working on self -control, can guarantee children the right freedom of action and the possibility of manifesting themselves through behavior.
Gestures that communicate
Marta is 1 year and a half and takes mom by the hand: she wants to lead her somewhere. The mother accepts the invitation, gets up and lets herself accompanying the small room. The girl indicates a piece of puzzles on the ground, thus making her understand to bend over to collect him. Kneeling, the mother also finds the other pieces. Thus notes the empty box, probably escaped from Marta’s hands. Then he collects all the pieces, puts them in the container and, once the lid is closed, he sees that the girl returns to deal with her things. She too can now resume the chores she had interrupted. All this happens without a word, through a sequence of actions based on listening and reception.
Even when children cannot express themselves with verbal language, they have clearly clear thought plans and action planssometimes complex, and easily interpretable if they leave their time to communicate.
Give yourself time to observe
We sin of pride believing that without us the children are lost, disoriented and unable to find occupations: they do not just react, but act. Granting them the time to choose, do, organize, make mistakes, correct and move, we learn to know them and at the same time allow us to grow independent and protagonists. The humble adult knows: “I don’t know what you need, but I offer you an emotionally welcoming and materially suitable environment so that you can communicate”. Only after observing the child act, the adult can intervene to help him where he needs, less, not more. By opting for this attitude, a tight control of the child is renounced and the unpredictable is welcomed, which makes the relationship dynamic but also more demanding. On the contrary, satisfying the psychic needs of children by entertaining them with various activities, proposed one after the other, allows the adult to have under control the environment and the work of the children, but prevents them from growing autonomous and independent.
Take a step back
“Humility” for Maria Montessori also means Knowing how to admit that you have made an evaluation error, without getting blame on the child accusing him of incapacity for adaptation. Let’s take an example. Dad Carlo spent the whole evening to build a joint work for the 2 -year -old son: he recovered the need, he lined the box with a flower card, looked for a basket of suitable size and then, satisfied, he placed the material in plain sight so that in the morning the child found him and began, happy, to play it. But things do not go as expected: as soon as Mattia wakes up he sees the new object, he takes the sticks that would have served to complete the work, takes them to the balcony and starts putting them in the plants vases. In this case the adult could feel offended: after all the energy spent!
But children do not work for us, and every now and then they may even seem “ruthless”: if a game, a song, a reading do not arouse their interest, they get up and change room, without thinking twice. The humble adult and, as the psychologist Carl Rogers would say, “psychologically mature”, does not consider this behavior an affront, an escort or a lack of respect, but rather a failure. It was probably not the right time for that activity, perhaps in that circumstance Mattia’s interest was elsewhere, perhaps reading or songwriting were not so stimulating as to “capture” his attention.
In this case, with humility, you take a step back: you reciprocate the interlocking work and you expect developments, you put the book back or stop singing, without feeling offended, without blaming yourself, but simply taking note of the child’s response.
Knowing how to wait
Patience is accompanied by humility and is the ability to wait for the child to manifest himself. “To be free you need to be independent”, Maria Montessori teaches us, and to become independent it is necessary to exercise. In order for the child to commit himself and perfect in his independence, the life environment must respond to his needs and interests. Who must prepare that environment? Of course the adult. And in order for this environmental design work and preparation of materials to be punctual and effective, patience is needed. When the child behaves inadequately, dispersing energies, mistreating the material, manifesting anger, boredom or frustration, means that in the environment (physical, emotional, regulatory, relational) something does not work. Not in the child, but in the environment.
What does it need?
Anna is 2 years old and often runs for the rooms with cutlery in hand. It is a problematic activity, because it is dangerous and not very hygienic. Observing the girl, we realize that it is the drawer that arouses her interest. He opens it and closes it several times, takes what it contains and brings it around. If there were other objects in the drawer? Less dangerous? Or if we identified another drawer to direct it? Anna could satisfy her legitimate need in safe and acceptable conditions.
Only observation can help us find the solution. Observing means abstaining for some time from the action, carving out a space from which to look at your child as he acts. What does it do? What is looking for? What does it need? What makes him angry? How do you endanger? By answering these questions, it is identified where it is necessary to intervene. Instead of asking the child to behave in a different way, he changes the environment making him more suitable for the needs of the little one, and thus direct his actions indirectly: he will be the protagonist of the change.
