Do the Next Thing

If you don’t do it now, you’ll be in the same state
Tomorrow, the next day, you will still hesitate.
Trying to decide causes more delays
And some day you’ll weep over all the lost days.

Habit formation, according to Charlotte Mason, is one of the most important duties of a mother to prepare her children for fulfilling God’s purposes in their lives.  Instilling proper physical habits allows children to automatically behave appropriately—quickly and without arguing or deliberating.

Not only must we teach children to pick up their socks, brush their teeth and be helpful and alert, we must also help them form intellectual habits, which will enable them to use their God-given mental abilities in a disciplined manner.

• Attention is the foundational habit upon which others are based.  Our children must learn to focus their thoughts upon one thing for a time, rather than their minds continually flitting from one idea to the next.  Charlotte suggests using high interest, short lessons rather than long ones, and varying the location of the lessons from indoors to out.  If a student knows that each lesson is to be a set amount of time and isn’t unbearably lengthy, he learns that he can successfully meet his mother’s expectation of focusing on the material for that length of time.  If younger children’s thoughts are wandering, Ms. Mason suggested adjusting the length of the of time of the lesson until you have captured their attention for the entire time.
  

• Imagining is the result of providing children with heroic, breathtaking adventures in exotic lands, even in their pleasure reading.  Care must be taken to fill their minds with exciting ideas and problems that must take effort to solve.  Rather than just explaining gravity, for example, it is best to drop a pebble in the water and let them ponder awhile why it sinks. We do children a disservice by giving them information too quickly.
  

• Remembering is Charlotte’s name for full concentration and engagement of children’s minds.  Before beginning with today’s reading, recall what happened at the end of yesterday’s.  We know today that learning takes place when we connect new facts and ideas with what we already know.  We need to help our children make those connections rather than teaching them information in isolation. Connect the new information to the old.  Also, teach them to use their powers of observation and concentration by studying nature as well as by picture study.
  

• Perfect execution is the habit of expecting and receiving excellence in our student’s work.  Take care to assign work that you know is not beyond the reach of the young student.  Never allow a child the habit of mediocrity in his school work.  That doesn’t mean that she must write perfectly the first time she learns how, but the skill should be practiced day by day until it is executed to the best of the child’s ability, which will provide satisfaction knowing to the child knowing that her hard work was able to help her reach her goal.  Ms. Mason also encourages parents to make children complete projects that they begin before beginning another.  (A habit that many of us could benefit from, as well!)

• Obedience is “the whole duty of a child.” From infancy, parents should teach their children that obedience is not a choice, but an obligation, every time. Children should obey with a willing spirit because it is the right thing to do, rather than being “bullied” into submission. Charlotte adds that older children should see that making oneself do something that one would rather not do, because it is the right thing to do, is a noble act.

• Truthfulness is an absolute standard for children, according to Ms. Mason.  This not only includes never willfully telling a falsehood, but also being accurate in relating facts, without generalization or exaggeration for the purpose of generating a humorous response.  Repeating a story or rumor without ascertaining it to be true is also unacceptable behavior.

• Good Attitude is the last habit mentioned that we must develop in our children.  Children are to be taught to be respectful of others and their belongings and to have a cheerful disposition.  Charlotte suggested in young children that bad moods be handled most profitably by distraction.  Giving an unhappy child a pleasant task to do will help him focus on something else than his momentary unpleasantness.  It is our job to teach him  to see the bright side of things as well. Although I believe we have a natural bent one way or the other, one can learn to get into the habit of seeing the glass half full rather than half empty.

Charlotte Mason believed that all matters relating to children and their upbringing were important, but replacing poor habits in our children with good ones through patient, painstaking and loving training and correction is one of the primary roles we must be about in our homes.

God’s blessings upon your parenting and homeschooling efforts!

Using Habits in Personal Training

The importance of good habits is an often repeated refrain with Charlotte Mason, who believed whole-heartedly that parents were  to instill good habits in their children from early childhood.

“The habits of the child produce the character of the man . . .every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend.”

First of all, Ms. Mason thought children were to be raised with the idea that they are not their own.  In other words, children, just as their

parents, hold their lives in a sacred trust from the Creator.  They were created for God’s purposes, and it is their job to develop  healthy bodies and minds in order to be ready to fulfill that special purpose for which they were created.  In other words, children are to be taught from the beginning that they are living under a greater Authority than themselves. What a contrast to the child-centered culture in which we live!

One of the many byproducts of good habits is that they make behavior automatic.  If you regularly perform a certain task, such as getting up and immediately making your bed, over and over again, it becomes automatic.  If you get up and do it ten times, you probably still are thinking about it every morning. But if you do it one hundred times, or a thousand times, you do it ‘on automatic pilot’  without thinking about it at all.  It is a simple task that takes absolutely no thought and not much more effort.  However, if it is not a habit, one has to decide every day to do it. Thoughts like this creep in: Do I feel like doing it?  Do I have time to do it?  If I don’t do it, maybe my mom will do it for me.  Or, my personal favorite, I will come back later and do it, I promise.  

Carrying one’s own dishes to the kitchen counter, putting away ones’ own clothes, shoes, toys, etc., brushing one’s teeth after eating, feeding a pet, and making a bed can all be accomplished by the youngest of children with loving, consistent training beginning well before they are ’school-aged.’

Without this training,  we would be constantly struggling with our children and there would be no time left to get anything done, let alone schoolwork, with us fussing and/or following our children around all the time enforcing the completion of these relentless tasks. A harmonious household was Charlotte Mason’s goal for families, and this can not be the case without constant, reliable training of good habits.

Charlotte Mason’s Suggested Physical Habits

• Self-Restraint:  using one’s time wisely and  productively rather than being lazy or self-indulgent

• Self-Control: Staying focused and on task, rather than being upset by minor annoyances.  Cultivating a tolerant, pleasant, patient attitude rather than being quick to whine or complain when conditions aren’t exactly as we would like them.

• Self-Discipline:  Teaching children to be consistently clean, neat and orderly, no matter where they are—at home, at a friend’s or at Grandma’s.

• Alertness: Teaching children to actively seek ways to serve others.  Opening doors, carrying something for mother or a younger sibling, completing a task that needs to be done rather than waiting for someone else to do it, or helping Dad with something without being asked are all benefits of teaching your child to be alert.

• Fortitude:  Given the right inspiration, most children’s natural heroic tendencies become activated and can produce an astounding amount of perseverance and tenacity.  Reading about the physical heroism of the Spartans or the knight’s Code of Chivalry can help promote this idea in your young ones.

• Service:  This is another habit that is promoted by delightful examples of selfless service in excellent children’s literature such as The Box-Car Children. Boxcar. series for younger elementary or Amos Fortune, Free Man (Newbery Library, Puffin), for older elementary children.

• Courage: Again, by reading fine literature as well as emulating examples around them, children learn courage, as opposed to recklessness.

• Caution:  Another word for discernment, Ms. Mason describes caution as preserving our health and ability to serve God and others by acting thoughtfully rather than hastily and possibly harming ourselves or perhaps our siblings or friends.
  

• Purity: The last of the physical habits, the need for purity is best summed up by  1 Corinthians 6:19: Do you not know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, Whom you have received from God?  Ms. Mason believed that if children are raised with this concept when they are young, they will have a reverence for their body that will be supported by their actions.

As parents, we are wise when we realize the value of instilling these habits into our children beginning at an early age.  Our daily, often hour by hour training using inspiring examples from our literature and stories as well as gentle, loving correction will produce children who are ready and able to manage their own bodies and accept the responsibilities laid upon them by their parents as they continue to grow and mature.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.  Galatians 6:9

Let us encourage one another in our high calling,

Next:  Forming Intellectual Habits

“Our motto is,–’Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.’ When we say that education is an atmosphere we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child environment’ specially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere both as regards persons and things and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the ‘child’s’ level.”

We don’t often talk directly about Charlotte Mason in our curriculum, but most of Epi Kardia curriculum, as well as our homeschooling philosophies as expressed on our blog, are inspired by her teachings.  Volume 6 of her works is my favorite, as it was written about forty years after her first volume. (In other words, after her teaching practices were, well, finely tuned by experience.)

“We all know the natural conditions under which a child should live; how he shares household ways with his mother, romps with his father, is teased by his brothers and petted by his sisters; is taught by his tumbles; learns self-denial by the baby’s needs, the delightfulness of furniture by playing at battle and siege with sofa and table; learns veneration for the old by the visits of his great-grandmother; how to live with his equals by the chums he gathers round him; learns intimacy with animals from his dog and cat; delight in the fields where the buttercups grow and greater delight in the blackberry hedges.”

Rather than sitting all day in an artificially contrived environment, Charlotte believed that children should experience life directly.  They should interact with nature; they should have relationships with their parents, siblings, and neighbors next door, the grocery store clerks and the pharmacist.  They should be exposed to some of the realities of life, helping make a meal for the friend who just had surgery or take care of the yard work for an elderly neighbor.

It is no wonder that the homeschooling movement has whole-heartedly adopted Ms. Mason’s philosophies!  It certainly sounds like homeschooling to me!

Thankful for this precious time with my kids,

Next:  Education is a Discipline