Secular Charlotte Mason

Chapter 1: About Habits

1. Forming habits intentionally and thoughtfully is an important part of education.

Originally posted by Misti:

I have to say that in reading the firstchapter, the part that jumps up at me most is this idea that habit canovercome even natural inclinations. 

Habit is TENnatures!’ If I could but make others see with my eyes how much thissaying should mean to the educator! How habit, in the hands of themother, is as his wheel to the potter, his knife to the carver—theinstrument by means of which she turns out the design she has alreadyconceived in her brain. Observe, the material is there to begin with;his wheel will not enable the potter to produce a porcelain cup out ofcoarse clay; but the instrument is as necessary as the material or thedesign. It is unpleasant to speak of one’s self, but if the reader willallow me, I should like to run over the steps by which I have beenbrought to look upon habit as the means whereby the parent may makealmost anything he chooses of his child. That which has become thedominant idea of one person’s life, if it be launched suddenly atanother, conveys no very great depth or weight of meaning to the secondperson—he wants to get at it by degrees, to see the steps by which theother has travelled. Therefore, I shall venture to show how I arrivedat my present position, which is, from one of the three possible pointsof view—The formation of habits is education, and Education is theformation of habits” (Vol. 1, p. 97).

On one hand, Iam not convinced that a parent can form her child quite as fully as MsMason says, but I do know that laying down good habits with Jack hasmade life immensely easier than it was with his brothers. 

Iwas a chaos agent as a youngster and had little discipline myself andsaw discipline as an "imposition" on my older boys.  Until, that is, Isaw how much the bad habits that had taken root got in their way. 

Idecided to try hard to pass along some better habits to Jack from thevery beginning, though I'll admit that without Miss Mason and Rod, Iwould have had no idea how to go about it.

Even so, Jackis not by any means "clay on the wheel of the potter".  He has his ownopinions and no reluctance to express them. 

My current thinking on habits is that they make life a LOT easier, but they;re no panacea. 

What do you think?

I think the "clay on the wheel of thepotter" concept is one of those that does not translate well to ourmodern world. During Victorian times children were much more controlledby the adults in their lives than our modern kids are. In our currenttimes, most of us have taught our kids to have more say in their dailylives and so our kids have strong opinions and are not afraid toexpress them. This expression would have been fairly rare duringVictorian times.

On the other hand, as I look atjust my own self and my own life I do agree with Ms. Mason that habitscan be stronger than nature. There are definitely things I do on adaily basis that are more habit than nature and I see the same thing inmy kids. Misti, I  agree with you that good habits do make life easierbut that it is not a cure-all. Still it makes enough of a differencethat I am willing to put some real effort into habit training.

"Iwas a chaos agent as a youngster and had little discipline myself andsaw discipline as an "imposition" on my older boys."  This is myhusband's philosophy lol. I'm trying to convert him but he is the Kingof Chaos.

Originally posted by Chai Mama:

I think "Habit is Ten Natures" is mostlytrue when you think about training a child to react to everydaysituations in desirable ways.  They might still *think* about having abad reaction but they learn not to follow through on it with habittraining.  At least this is my sincere hope. 

Whenthinking about natural abilities: Can you mold a child to haveincredible musical ability?  No.  Can you teach them to pound out atune on the piano? Yes.   Some habits are going to be easier to teachthan others...

Drakon and I were just discussing this last night, in regards to improving his time management issues. In college I learned to use my psych background and I had a system for myself and my students (I tutored) that seemed to work for all of us. Basically, you reward yourself when you do what you are suppose to do by a specific time. You use the reward to encourage/motivate yourself to do the behavior daily.  Once it is a habit you only randomly reward yourself until finally you aren't needing a reward at all. During the discussion Drakon reflected that this really works for only once habit at a time at which point I told him Ms. Mason agrees that one habit at a time is best. Wonder what Ms. Mason would say about this way of doing it?

I think Ms. Mason was against punishments and rewards from what I've read.  I don't have any quotes handy though.  I've tried rewards with my boys and I think starting it too young or done improperly can create a monster.  I was using rewards and eventually heard my then 5 year old son say, "what are you going to give me for being good in the store."  It was then difficult to explain and get across to him that we do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing.

So far the point system for Christmas present money is going fine, except they are almost losing interest in it.  Ham talks about what he wants to make/do for family for Christmas, so maybe he it thinking of making stuff instead of buying... Also, it's probably a good thing that he's not asking for points to do something he normally does already...they are pretty helpful at this age.

I would like to think of a way to use rewards effectively but  I don't think we'll find guidance from Ms. Mason.

This is what really jumps out at me from the first chapter:

"In the first place, whether you choose or no to take any trouble about the formation of habits, it is habit, all the same, which will govern ninety-nine one-hundreths of the child's life...we are all mere creatures of habit."

"Character affected by Acquired Modification of Brain Tissue.––What follows? Why, that the actual conformation of the child's brain depends upon the habits which the parents permit or encourage; and that the habits of the child produce the character of the man, because certain mental habitudes once set up, their nature is to go on for ever unless they should be displaced by other habits. Here is an end to the easy philosophy of, 'It doesn't matter,' 'Oh, he'll grow out of it,' 'He'll know better by-and-by,' 'He's so young, what can we expect?' and so on. 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. "

Reading this tells me that I really have no choice but to understand the way habits are formed if I want to do right by my children.  There are many things we do naturally that our children follow, both good and bad.  This makes me think of my bad habits and how important it is to change them.

The following comes from her original writing and not LDTR (at least I didn't see it).

"Outside Influence.––And here comes in the consideration of outside influence. Nine times out of ten we begin to do a thing because we see some one else do it; we go on doing it, and––there is the habit! If it is so easy for ourselves to take up a new habit, it is tenfold as easy for the children; and this is the real difficulty in the matter of the education of habit. It is necessary that the mother be always on the alert to nip in the bud the bad habit her children may be in the act of picking up from servants or from other children."

Our children pick up the good too, so we shouldn't be too overwhelmed with this endeavor.  I just see how very important it is to be thinking about this...and dare I say, more important than academic matters? I know I've thought "he'll grow out of it" before.

What do you think?

I haven't quite put all of my thoughts together on this one but in general, I am finding CM's views a bit too black and white for the modern world and there is no way she could have understood just how much our children are influenced by the outside world these days (due mostly to media influences and our concept of teen culture). I do agree with her about how strong and important habits are, esp. since modern brain research backs her up when it comes to the path building within our brains,  but I feel she is missing our modern concept of freewill as well as our modern concern about our children's emotional states and self-concept. No where, that I have found, has she mentioned how the child may feel about having their nature supressed by all this habit forming nor what their emotional state is as adults. It's all about behvior and obedience only, according to CM & LDTR.

Personally, I do believe there are some things that kids will naturally outgrow but I also think we modern parents rely on that concept far too often as an excuse for poor behavior. I'm often telling my kids that I understand their behavior is normal for their stage of development but that doesn't mean it is my job, as a parent, to condone the bad parts of it.

I'm trying to figure out how/why my kids are picking up most of my bad habits but precious few of my good habits. That really has me stumped, and according to the quotes in LDTR they should be picking up both types from my hubby and myself.

I have more to say but need to get my thoughts together better before posting more.

Cori,

I can't really tell if Ms. Mason believed in rewards but it was quite clear that she did not believe in punishment; at least not by parents. I do wonder how the governesses of that time were handling discipline.I suspect the governesses may have been doing some punishing and rewarding leaving mothers the luxury of being that very calm presence Ms. Mason saw as the mother's goal.  I think some of Ms. Mason's perspective on mothers is strongly colored by the fact that many of the families of that time had support staff, thereby giving mothers more time to focus on the children's manners, moral development and so forth. She has some very high expectations for mothers that I just can't see as being realistic in today's working moms world.

In regards to rewards, I do use them with my kids but I find they work only in the short run, rarely long term. I use rewards to sort of get their attention and get them onboard with the idea but then I fade the rewards out while emphasizing how proud they should be of themselves for what they had accomplished so far and verbally encouraging them to keep it going. Rewards with young kids can be tricky because they are super literal which is why they start to think they should only do something if they are rewarded. It can also be challenging to figure out what truly motivates them and reward systems work only if the reward is perceived as rewarding by the child. My middle child was impossible to reward since SHE perceived very little as being rewarding. It's much easier now that she is a near teen. Teens are all motivated by money lol. When she was younger (even just a year ago) an allowance meant nothing to her, now she desperately wants one so she can buy anime stuff we won't buy her.

Gina, excellent thoughts on rewards. I'll keep that in mind as my kids get older.

I like what you point out about many mothers of that time having governesses.  I do feel CM paints a picture of a perfect Mother.  That perfect Mother probably handed off her tantrum throwing child to the governess, then came back into the picture when the child calmed down.  Same goes for all unpleasant duties, diapers, laundry, etc., someone else did that for them.  The Mom's probably got the *best* of their children and also enjoyed plenty of time for mother culture.

Gina, I like how you are pointing out modern considerations because it's very easy for me to forget that as I get drawn in by what I am reading...

I'll have to think some more on self-esteem.  What I've read is that she suggests a very gentle, almost non-verbal approach to training with words chosen carefully, so it's hard to imagine that damaging their self-esteem. I've heard the term "tomato staking" and it reminds me of what CM suggests.  The drawback is that it means the Mom must be nearby to train them to do what needs to be done.  Modern parents might even call it "smothering" a child.  I was intrigued to hear someone say that they thought "The Runaway Bunny" was far too controlling, as in just let the child be...  CM seems to suggest time and again that Mothers stay near their children, even to go out-of-doors for nature time, for example.  Perhaps that had to be emphasized because too many of them were giving their children to the governess.

One thing that jumped out at me as I read this chapter is that the concept of "like clay on a potter's wheel" and "habit is 10 times nature" smacks a bit too much of the tabula rosa concept. While we do have great impact on our children, and even our friends' children, I do not see any of these children as being a blank slate or a hunk of clay to be molded to our will (although I do see many many parents trying to do just this with little success). It amazes me just how much "over coming your child's nature" is emphasized as a goal of habit training.Ms. Mason even goes so far as to say, "there is nothing which a mother cannot bring her child up to".  Personally, I have no desire to "overcome" my children's natures. Instead I prefer to "enhance" their natures through environment and habit training. I find it quite interesting that Ms. Mason emphasizes that children are people with personalities of their own yet, at the same time, we are suppose to be overcoming their natures. To me this seem contradictory but I'm guessing that Ms. Mason and I are interpreting words like nature and personality differently. I think the same may be true for our definitions of character. To me it just seems like it takes a whole lot more than just good habits to develop character. Are there any quotes that clearly show how Ms. Mason defined these words?

I do find the law of habit to be a rather sound concept; albeit one that can also be taken to the extreme. Ms. Mason said, "What we have practice in doing we can do with ease, while we bungle over that which we have little practice. This is true for the most part, but I don't think all the practice in the world will force someone to learn a skill that is completely incompatible with their personalities and abilities (ie. their natures).

While I disagree with many of Ms. Mason's reasons for the importance of habit training I think the following reason is good enough for me, "In conclusion, let me say that the education of habit in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions-a running fire of Do and Don't; but letting them go their own way and grow".

If I tried to be a purist to the Charlotte Mason method, I'd go crazy.  I am not the headmistress type which I imagine to be carefully controlled, organized and authoritative.  However, I do want my children to have good habits and better habits for myself.

I too like what is said in #6:  "The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days."

CM does contradict herself in many areas and I think she means for the reader to consider all these things and use them as a compass in child training but not necessarily tell the children all these things or let on to the purpose of our training.  I could compare it to the reasons we brush our teeth.  We wouldn't dream of telling a young child *exactly* why they need to brush their teeth and how fillings are done, although I have said to my 6 yo that his teeth will rot LOL.  But when they are young, we guide them over to the sink and show them how to brush their teeth by helping them.  We can even make it fun. 

Hopefully we can train them in many of these habits like we train them to brush their teeth.  This brings me to a point I have been trying to articulate all weekend...  I know some parenting/unschooling philosphies would say that if a child doesn't want to brush his teeth then he doesn't have to because it is *his* teeth.  It is his choice.

I think whether or not a person accepts or rejects CM ideas will depend on their ideas of parental authority.  I believe my children have to brush their teeth and it's my job to teach them.  I feel this way about most of the habits presented in LDTR.