Maria Montessori says children as young as 18 months have a strong sense of order. This sensitivity to order starts at around 18 months and is at its peak between then and 2.5 years. There exists a very fervent need for established routines and any kind of disorder may disturb a child.
I witnessed such a thing with a child a few days ago. I normally pick up the children of my school and this boy is the first child to get into my bus. Everyday this child sits in the front middle seat of the bus but on this particular day I decided to make him sit on the second row seat as I had to pick up the other teacher too. But as I made him go behind, he showed displeasure and so I let him sit in the same place. But then he still kept crying. I tried talking to him, distracting him but nothing worked. He wasnt looking at me and this perplexed me because he never did that before. Then suddenly I remembered that I had tied up my hair that day, so I opened up my hair and then made him look at me. He turned and then stared for a bit and stopped crying that very instant. It was amazing. After 5 more minutes he was back to his cheerful normal self and I knew what Montessori said was true!
"Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces real happiness” - Dr Maria Montessori
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