Maria Montessori believed that there are no bad children, just bad upbringing or education. This blog was prompted by the e-mail which I recently received and which is posted below. Embedded in this grandmother’s question is a deeper one, namely, are some children evil by nature, the so-called bad seed?

“It's very disturbing to see a child be intentionally cruel, but I believe I witnessed such behavior this week when I took my 17 month old granddaughter to the mall. I let her enter a play area where many children were climbing on large cartoon characters built for just this purpose. I watched her very closely as she is quite small for her age and didn't want her to be run over by other children. I became aware that a young boy of about 6 years old, following her all around the play area. Wherever she went, he would follow. At first I thought he must like babies. But I watched more closely and realized that he was making mean faces at her, sticking out his tongue etc. I continued to watch as he would look around to see if anyone was watching, and would put a foot out in an attempt to trip the baby. I approached closer, as he was unsuccessful in his attempts and he continued to follow her. As she climbed off a toy, he walked up behind her and used his body (not his hands) to push her down and walked off as if it didn't happen. I saw it coming and tried to stop him, I told him "that wasn't very nice"...he looked surprised to be caught and quickly ran off to a different toy. However, he continued to watch her from a distance, and if she approached a toy he was on, he would look around to find me nearby. I found his behavior disturbing in that he seemed to intentionally find the smallest child there and "stalk" her. He knew what he was doing was wrong because he kept looking to see if anyone was watching him. It was obvious to me that he had done this before, especially the way he used his body and not his hands to push her down. He actually attempted to make his behavior look like an accident! Is this normal behavior in a child? I am a mother of 4 and grandmother of 3 and have never seen that type of behavior in mine or anyone else's children until this.”

Disentangling what comes from nature and what from nurture is perhaps the most difficult when it comes to psychological traits. Indeed, there is a long standing controversy over this issue. Puritans, for example, believed that children were born with original sin and believed, as Puritan minister Cotton Mather solemnly intoned, “You are never too young to go to hell.” On other hand, social philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that, “Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man.”(Rousseau 1956).

My own clinical experience tends to support the views of Rousseau and Montessori. Over four decades of working with troubled children, I have never treated one who did not come from a troubled family. My guess is that the young boy, about whom the grandmother wrote, has been mistreated at home, either by parents or by siblings. I do not believe such behavior is inborn. Young children are great imitators and his behavior was learned not inborn. At the same time it is also true that while every troubled child comes from a troubled family, not all troubled families produce troubled children. Some young people are extraordinarily resilient and use adversity to strengthen their resolve to overcome it. The success of such children, who overcome extreme adversity, can indeed be attributed to nature.