Directive v. non-directive work with children

A response to class discussion about working with children from several weeks ago: During this discussion, I was really wishing I had this class and information available to me during my first year internship. I worked with both high school and kindergarten students, and with the kindergartners mainly engaged in “non-directive play therapy”, meaning I took the lead from the students, and was very focused on providing a different response to behavior than other adults, a safe space for them to show me whatever they needed to, and an opportunity for them to be in charge – within the “change expectation about how environment will respond” goal.  I think this is always valuable, but I think my skill was limited to that realm. I had one student who, week after week, wanted to do the same thing: print out a coloring book style outline of Ironman, and color it in, or alternatively, have me draw the outline and color it in. I tried many times to see if the student would draw the Ironman or to play with it in different ways, but the student was intent on this plan. I don’t know how much I served him by indulging in this. I couldn’t really control the materials available because he knew that the school had computers and printers and that teachers and administrators could be asked to print things. Lack of a stable and private space was a barrier in creating boundaries in what materials were available. I would be very curious to hear ideas of what I could have done to move this relationship in new and meaningful directions. Meanwhile, teachers were happy because his behavior had generally improved, but it's hard to say what the cause of this was- he may have simply figured out how to better navigate the school system he was newly a part of.