Many times parents ask us how our children are so organized, confident and abide by the rules of the environment. One of the keys is to catch them doing good. In the Montessori environment, one of the main responsibilities of the adult is to observe the child. Whenever the child does something nice, the adult genuinely appreciates the child’s effort. Few examples are
- If the child waits for her turn to do the artwork – adults appreciate “I know you are eagerly waiting to paint, thanks for waiting for your turn”
- It is such a pleasure to see the child carefully, slowly and with such control over his movements to put the chowki down without making a sound. Adult appreciates – you kept the chowki down without making a sound.
This motivates the child to repeat it in the same manner again and again. In case if a child does make a noise or mishandles the material, we do not point it out directly. The Adult demonstrates how it has to be done or brings the child’s attention when another child is doing it right. Most often the second option is very effective.
Unfortunately, in our day-to-day routine, we expect things to happen as expected and our antennas pop up only when we see things not happening as expected. As we keep pointing out the correction, we are sowing the seeds of reinforcing the negative behavior instead we take some time out and observe them doing good and positively reinforce the same, the behaviour is blossomed and nurtured. The reinforcement could be eye contact, smile, hug, pat on the back or a genuine appreciation of effort and thoughts.
This also helps to build a healthy relationship and bond between the adult and child. Also, we need to ensure that mistakes should be expected, encouraged and are self – corrected / realised. The child also needs to see role models who make mistakes, quick to recognize them, ask for forgiveness and improve themselves.
It is our responsibility to nurture a positive environment for the child to explore, grow, and learn from mistakes and blossom without any fear.