Habit Training and me

Habit of (somewhat) cleanliness and orderliness. Removing shoes (and bike helmet) at the door by W3. Now to show him the boot rack. ;-)

“Each of us has in his possession an exceedingly good servant
or a very bad master, known as Habit” (Vol. 4, Book 1, p. 208).

I just downloaded and began reading today, Charlotte Mason's free e-book, Smooth and Easy Days. I really appreciate reading it and knew it would be one of those encouragement books (in addition to daily Bible study) which is what a mother of very young children like me needs daily. Encouragement. Click here for more about Sonya Shafer's interpretations of Charlotte Mason on Smooth and Easy Days.

The book begins by mentioning how we teach our children a routine or schedule all the time. In the morning we brush our teeth, get dressed, make the bed, pick up our room and maybe, brush our hair. It is a routine I guide my little ones in daily, even the one year old with her six tooth brushing, and plan to add to in time. It is training in good health habits that in time I will not have to supervise as much and I have passed on the value of self care and dental care. It is important but Charlotte Mason takes it further. She talks of cultivating habits that are much larger in nature. Instead of tooth brushing, cultivate cleanliness. Instead of bed making, cultivate neatness. Instead of only daily living skills, deliberately (passively and actively) cultivate their character.

“Educate the child in right habits and the man’s life will run
in them, without the constant wear and tear of the moral effort
of decision. Once, twice, three times in a day, he will still, no
doubt, have to choose between the highest and the less high,
the best and the less good course. But all the minor moralities
of life may be made habitual to him. He has been brought up
to be courteous, prompt, punctual, neat, considerate; and he
practises these virtues without conscious effort” (Vol. 2, p. 124) from Charlotte Mason's books on education.

We know these things but for me, evaluating my progress is much more difficult. I am constantly striving to introduce more and cultivate (I love that word!) more but rarely see my children's progress or I am oblivious to it. Or maybe I just keep my eyes ahead and tend not to evaluate too much too soon. How often do you evaluate when your children are in the company of others? The checking up on their skills should be done in front of others and at home in privacy as well. Our standards should not only be improved by the behavior of others but we must develop our own standard as well and that requires self checking now and then to see where we are..where we are going and what to leave alone as age appropriate and what to work on today. Until, today and reading this book, I did not think enough about what I have accomplished without the positive prodding of my encouraging husband or a few good home school mom friends. How often are we more eager to criticize ourselves (and our children) than others are?

The book talks about making habits in the brain and compares forming habits to the habit you have of driving to the grocery store but not knowing how you got there...good example. Habits in you child can be created the same way. At some point they are habits..the child acts on auto-pilot.

“Every time we do a thing helps to form the habit of doing it; and to do a thing a hundred times without missing a chance, makes the rest easy” (Vol. 4, Book 1,
pp. 208, 209).
It stands to reason, then, that if you allow your child’s neurons
to take a wrong turn, you will not be reinforcing the correct route (in the brain).
To put it in habit-training language, the longer a habit is performed
without lapses, the stronger it becomes. So try to correct any
“wrong turns” immediately.

G6's habit of boots at the door. Cleanliness, orderliness? It counts.

“What we must guard against in the training of children is the
danger of their getting into the habit of being prodded to every
duty and every effort” (Vol. 3, p. 39).

Oh dear. Ha! Wasn't I training?

“Fred must train himself, and you must feed him with motives.
Run over with him what we have been saying about attention.
Let him know how the land lies; that you cannot help him, but
that if he wants to make a man of himself he must make himself
attend and remember. Tell him it will be a stand-up fight, for this
habit is contrary to nature. He will like that; it is boy nature to
show fight, and the bigger and blacker you make the other side,
the more will he like to pitch in” (Vol. 5, p. 96).

(re entry to this post today, February 2, 2010)

Attention is something we need to work on for good lifelong habits.

I am currently using the analogy of the 'fight' with G6. In his mind, he must use his swords and knives to fight his brain from wanting to forget and not remember some daily living skills that he needs to master. It is working with stops and starts. Until he finds a willing adult to let him relapse. I cannot stress enough how you must take time, energy and risk upsetting other adults in the young ones life to tell them about the things you are doing with habit training. One adult who is not clued in can set back the process. Fiddlesticks! Mom has to retrain ( and take the pains, time and energy to train) when that happens and mom is not a superhero..no, not really. She needs support and encouragement and more importantly, improvement from her child.

The habit training can begin as early as this. But first, a good nap improves all things. ;-)