The Formation of Habit
Charlotte Mason teaches parents about many different
things. One of the most valuable teachings she had was the power of habit.
Do you find yourself always telling or asking
your children the same things over and over again? I know I do. If I had
a nickel for every time I told them to put the milk away, I'd be rich.
Charlotte Mason taught us that when you find yourself always telling them
to do the same thing, you have not trained them in the habits you wish
they would perform. She wrote, "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." Without a doubt
her favorite analogy with regard to habits is that they are similar to
tracks for a train. The same way that it is easier for the train to stay
on the tracks than to leave them, so it is for the child to follow lines
of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines. Because habits
are so powerful, she tried to emphasize to parents that it is our responsibility
to lay down these tracks.
There is no need to be overwhelmed. The formation
of habit is not too much work. Charlotte Mason considered habit a delight
in itself, and the training in habits becomes a habit for the mother. The
choice is ours, as Charlotte put it, "The mother who takes pains to endow
her children with good habits secrures for herself smooth and easy days;
while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life
of endless friction with the children."
There is no end to the problems (or, better yet,
lack of them) that arise from habit. I think we all want to raise polite,
orderly, punctual, obedient children who aren't causing our home shcools
to be in a constant state of friction. Charlotte claims that even virtues
such as patience, meekness, courage, generosity, and truthfulness are a
amatter of habit and can be trained as such.
Perhaps dawdling has replaced the habit of attention
in your home. Let's cover how to secure your childrens attention to their
school work. Charlotte Mason once asked a very important question, "You
want the child to remember? Then secure his whole attention." Her definition
of attention is not a partial attempt to concentrate. Rather she said that
"the whole mental force is applied to the subject in hand. This act, of
bringing the whole mind to bear, may be trained into a habit at the will
of the parent or teacher, who attracts and holds the child's attention
by means of a sufficient motive."
The point here is that habit plays a large role
in learning to pay attention. Sometimes people don't pay attention because
they've developed the habit of wasting time. Children certainly are wasting
time when they dawdle around during school. The real pity is this kind
of habit does not always go away when we reach adulthood. If I haven't
yet motivated you enough, think about this -- when your children dawdle
they are wasting your valuable time too. Wouldn't you rahter they buckled
down and got their work done so you could spend time pursuing your own
interests?
Charlotte teaches us that adults should not waste
time and neither should children. She would hav eus teach them that it
is their duty to use their time well. We need to set a good example for
them by using our time in purposeful ways. It is ultimately the children's
choice to do their work without dawdling, and good habits will help you
achieve this. Teach you children that there is "Satisfaction to do the
day's work in the day, and be free to enjoy the day's leisure."
The power of attention is a very useful resource
for any person to devleop. As a parent, you want your children to listen
to and retain the information you communicate to them. Charlotte points
out that educated professionals, such as lawyers for example, have to be
able to listen (pay attention) and react. "Contrast this with the wandering
eye and random replies of the uneducated;--and you see that to differentiate
people according to their power of attention is to employ a legitimate
test."
The good habit of paying attention can be established
by using short lessons. Short lessons consist of 15 to 20 minutes in length
during elementary school. They increase to 30 minutes per subject in junior
high and to 45 minutes in high school. Remember, the Charlotte Mason students
were in school six days a week--you, as a home schooler, probably are not.
You can and should adjust the daily minutes to suit yourself and your family.
By the way, the idea of short lessons is often approached with skepticism.
My quesiton to you is, do you have anything to lose by trying it? I cannot
even count the parents who tried this and now swear by it.
In the Charlotte Mason method we always vary the
lessons to keep them fresh, in other words, to avoid boredom. It is invigorating
to go from math to poetry, from penbmanship to history. Choose the school
subjects so that they alternate between painstaking (e.g., they already
know the material but just have to practice it) and subjects that take
thought. With each day's schedule we would want to vary the order somewhat
to avoid any drudgery of a strict routine.
The Charlotte Mason method also includes the posting
of a schedule. This would include what to do and how long each lesson will
last. She writes, "This idea of definite work to be finished in a given
time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order,
but in diligence; he learns that one time is not as good as another; that
there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this
knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child's attention to his
work.
One of the other strategies is to "never let the
child dawdle over(his school work) or sit dreaming with his book before
him. When a child grows stupid over a lesson, it is time to put it away.
Let him do another lesson as unlike the last as possible, and then go back
with freshened wits to his unfinished task ... the lesson must be done,
of course, but must be made bright and pleasant to the child."
There are many other ways to motivate a stubborn
dawdler. Sometimes parents have to be creative. For example, try conducting
math time (if math happens to be the problem) about 30 minutes prior to
when the neighborhood boys ordinarily come over to play basketball with
your child. If he gets it done and done correctly then he is able to go
out and play with them. Another idea for these serious cases is to set
out the chess game right there next to the child who now has a reason to
make himself finish his work. In time he'll learn that there is always
a reward to finishing a job in a timely manner even if that reward is being
ablt to get it off your mind. As Charlotte Mason says, "the person who
is honest about his work has time to play, and is not secretly vexed by
the remembrance of things left undone or ill done."
Eventually your child will mature and as he does
he has to make himself pay attention. Mason said, "He should be taught
to feel a certain triumph in compelling himself to fix his thought."
Your job, in the interim, is to make sure that your child never does a
leeson into which he does not put his heart. This will build the habit
of finishing, which brings me to my all-time favorite teaching of Charlotte
Mason which is, "What is worth beginning is worth finishing, and what is
worth doing is worth doing well."
