His name is C.J., a thin, quiet 3.5-year-old boy. He'd been in school for a month. He hardly spoke. You could barely hear his voice. He didn't really like playing with the other children. He'd sit a little distance away, absorbed in watching what they were doing.
I first met C.J. and his parents when they came to enroll him. At first glance, I didn't see anything too concerning, but his mother seemed deeply worried about C.J.'s behavior. She described him as too unmotivated and difficult to manage.
Over that first month, I came to understand his parents' concerns. C.J. refused to do almost anything in the classroom. He'd just watch the other children work with the Montessori materials. After observing for a while, he'd approach a friend and start disrupting them.
Sometimes C.J. would take a piece of the Montessori material his friend was using, or he'd comment on their work, which would spark a conflict between them.
As guides, we have a responsibility to teach children to respect one another, including respecting each other's space while they're working. If a child wants to join a friend who is doing an activity, they must ask permission first. This is part of our Exercises for Practical Life lessons on grace and courtesy.
Every time we reminded C.J. about this, he would sulk and withdraw, refusing to do anything at all. He'd deliberately let his body go limp, as if he were boneless. Nothing we said could get him to stand or sit upright again.
C.J. could stay like that until the end of class. Of course, I shared his parents' worry. What if this was all he would do at school, day after day, for the entire year?
That day, as usual, C.J. was sulking, sitting still, pouting, refusing to look at me. Another challenge I faced every day was that he wouldn't eat unless someone fed him.
I sat down next to him. His bag was on the lunch table. He wouldn't take his food out of it, and he wouldn't let us do it for him either.
I decided not to start a battle over the lunchbox or over the incident with his friend earlier.
For weeks I'd been observing C.J., trying to discover what interested him. I could see that he was seeking attention, but he didn't know how to get it the right way.
I realized that C.J. wanted to be heard, but he didn't yet have the ability to express what he was feeling or thinking. On top of that, we use English exclusively at school. It was quite possible that the language barrier was also affecting his behavior.
Another thing I noticed was that C.J. received too much help at home, which meant he hadn't developed a sense of responsibility.
Does a child C.J.'s age really need to understand responsibility? Absolutely. But it starts small. If he takes out a toy, he puts it back. If he spills water, he learns to wipe it up.
Children love learning to do these things, especially when they see us doing them too. Children are natural imitators. So we should model the important behaviors we want them to develop.
Across from us sat Dani, another one of my students. I chatted with Dani, pretending not to pay attention to C.J.
I glanced at C.J.'s bag, which had a cartoon character on it. I started murmuring to myself about that character, how funny the show was, how sad I'd been when I missed an episode on TV.
Dani chimed in, munching on the grapes he'd brought for lunch. Before long, C.J. started joining in too, and before we knew it, the three of us were chatting and laughing together.
That became my approach. Whenever C.J. sulked, I'd use the same strategy, telling stories about anything and everything, without showing that I was trying to communicate with him. I did this deliberately because C.J. would shut down the moment I spoke to him directly.
After some time, I earned his trust. I could gently redirect him or ask him to sit up from the limp, floppy posture he used to take whenever he sulked.
C.J.'s parents were also worried about his eating. He was an extremely difficult eater. If his helper at home didn't spoon-feed him, he could go the whole day without eating, his mother explained. Even the helper needed more than an hour to feed him.
At school, we encourage and teach children to eat independently. Of course, this needs to happen at home too, so children can become self-sufficient more quickly. When school and home work together, children learn faster. They stop wondering which rules apply where.
I completely understood his parents' worry. And C.J. was far from the only child who struggled with eating.
I was determined to help C.J. with this. So that day, I decided to sit with him during lunch.
As usual, he refused to touch his food. So I started telling him about Angel's pet rabbit. Angel is my daughter.
While we chatted, I began feeding him one spoonful of his food. After he finished chewing, I put food on the spoon and asked C.J. to pick it up and eat it himself. "Ms. Corry will help with one spoon, and C.J. eats one spoon on his own, okay?" I said. We kept going like that, and in less than 30 minutes, he had finished his entire lunch.
To me, that was an incredible milestone. C.J. even sat calmly in his chair the whole time, right until he finished his meal.
He loved it when I talked to him about things. Our conversation topics would change: pets, favorite toys, friends at home, and so on.
Two weeks later, C.J. was eating on his own, although sometimes I still had to help with a spoonful or two at the beginning or at the end.
In the days that followed, C.J. learned many things. He became more confident and began choosing what he wanted to work on in the classroom. I no longer had to tell stories just to get his attention.
One day, two years later, I watched C.J. enthusiastically helping a friend color flags from different countries across Asia.
Nothing could have made me happier in that moment than seeing the joy on his face.
But how far C.J. continues to grow will depend on the consistency of the adults around him, helping him do things independently, like carrying his own bag to school, eating on his own, putting on his shoes, and so on.
“The child’s conquests of independence are the basic steps in what is called his ‘natural development’.”
- Maria Montessori
