Nature is shifty

By this time of year, in October, I am in full swing itching for cooler days.  The funny part is that, while living here in Texas, as I always have, I find myself outside while children play with buzzing bees and mosquitoes and some sweat beading off your brow, needles in hand.  The sweat makes for easy hold on the woolly silk yarn but it just does not yet feel "right".  None of it.

I recall, two autumns ago (can we call it that in our three season state?  autumn?), when I first began deliberately homeschooling.  I was hot to trot to do a small unit on Fall Nature Study.  I am so out of touch with what goes on outside at times (I am mostly an indoor gal) that I thought we would roam the neighborhood, more like...just our street, and find new fall colors from fallen leaves..in October.  Not.  There was maybe a handful of lightly yellowing turned leaves to be had or they were brown and dried up or just plain green.  For me, it turned out to be more of a "don't hype up a lesson until you see if nature provides" kind of thing rather than a great lesson on why the leaves change color in fall.  I guess I should pay attention to where or what part of the country the author hails before implementing my nature study choices.  The viewpoint of the author...matters.  This is one of those little things that mama/teachers learn along the way.  Its a good thing really.  Actually, its these little reality checks in my school that keep me from getting too hyper about how well I am doing and all the other plagues of being a teacher/mama.  Am I doing enough?  Am I doing the right thing for the age group I have right now?  Blah, blah, blah.  The beauty, the lesson, is really in the questions.  Not necessarily my questions but, my "students" questions of course.

So I have found, with any lesson I do now, that while I keep the oldest one especially, the middle one somewhat and the littlest one "kinda" going along and following what I am teaching, I love, even happily anticipate, the questions.  I have had to teach the two oldest that they can only ask a question pertaining to the reading, lesson, etc., while I am doing it, save it for later otherwise because there are so many and that has been a lesson in itself!  I am talking about our group study work.  Bible, Science/Nature Study and History.  (Not to imply that my oldest is ready for me not to be near or at elbow for study...he needs me for sure when it comes to handwriting, spelling, reading lessons, math lessons)

Let's talk Science.  I recently purchased a download on SCM called 106 Days of Creation Studies.  I was struggling with implementing one of the five or so books on science experiments/projects that we own, into our weekly plan and it frustrated me.  I really love science although I did not progress very far in school with it.  The highest level I met was basic Chemistry I think?  I was an Art student.  I would love to have been more like Leonardo da Vinci with his multi talents in art and science but, my dear reader, that is why he was the great Leonardo.  We have read this fabulous bio on him here.  Anyway, I segway.  So back to yesterdays science/Bible lesson.  From the book, 106 Days...on creation day one, there is a unit on shadows.  We were to draw around our feet, on the pavement and then outline each others shadows.  We did it.  We came in, we ate lunch and other things and planned to return a few hours later to re-record our shadows from the point of our same feet in the same spot we had marked.  I quickly realized that mama chose a bad spot.  The house had blocked all bits of sunshine from the cloudy day.  Oops... what now?  They get out their bikes and begin to ride and play while I start thinking...do we just skip this lesson or move it to tomorrow?  No, I don't want to skip it, it is good.  The Bible verse associated with it here:

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. ~James 1:17

So I get out my knitting, begin to work and think.  I realized that I don't have to do the three times in a day shadow marking, as the lesson suggests, to make the point.  I can get a new tracing in a good spot, play out here for an hour and then retrace and voila, lesson activity will work!  Well, low and behold, an hour later, sweat beading down, children hungry and hot, we go to check and the same mass of clouds happily perched right over the sun.  We talked about how the clouds put the whole village (that is what we call our suburban neighborhood) in a big shadow.  I read the Bible verse.  I asked what did it mean?  Blank stares.  Not a bad thing, the blank stares.  I have had to learn this one though.  So, today, I will not be lecturing, I will perhaps re-read the verse after we again, go outside, in the sun, and playfully, twice over an hour, mark our shadows and show them so they can indeed, ask the questions.  The beauty is in the questions.  There are not any answers given in this study.  It is provoking.  I have my ideas of the authors intent.  I will try not to lead unless I have to but, I anticipate the shadows and the Word will show them the way.

Nature is shifty.  Families with gardens know this all too well.  I hope to have some kind of vegetable garden one day not just as example of wonderful lessons learned from a garden like patience, consistent care needed like weeding and watering and fighting off pests but also for the bounty and beauty we could grow in our own backyard.  We plan to start just simply cultivating the soil.  We will begin with a compost pile but I want it contained and that, for now, is the hang up.  Until then, it seems every deliberate "nature study" we embark upon may just give us those little lessons anyway...patience, unpredictability and successes and failures.  Like life, yes?

Habit training gone wackadoo

Charlotte Mason says that habit training is...

“What you would have the man become, that you must train the child to be” (Vol. 2, p. 15)

For some time now, I have a regular routine of "morning chores"..they all know what I am talking about.  Little habits of neatness that make my day start right.  Little things that make our personal space more, happy?  Is that the word?  I do these things without thinking.  I do these things for visual harmony and also for my husband's relaxation or to induce it anyway even if we have three little indians running wild in through the house when he gets home, atleast it looks less chaotic.  More importantly, there is a time to play/make messes and a time to clean up and start over or change gears.  Anyway, the list is this:

Morning Chores

• Make beds
• Dress/hang up jammies or fold up for the next night
• Feed/water cats
• Breakfast
• Back upstairs to brush teeth/hair

And while upstairs, I get dressed and they play a game like Old Maid or Tangoes or Legos or a Richard Scarry or B. Potter video, sometimes just quiet free play and reading...there are variations on those things depending on the mood.  Sometimes I wonder if farm families really care about all this with all the land and animal chores waiting outside..hummmmm.

This is the wacky part.  For over a month, mostly consistently, the boys have been completing all before they come down for breakfast!!  Great.  Saves time and no hassle for me to lead them through it, right?  Well, this is the really wacky part.  They even make my bed sometimes!  See example below!  Remember, the boys are almost 8 and almost 5 but not yet.  Feeling good about my routine, right?  Now it gets, wackadoo.

Recently, they have confessed (is it really a confession or just they wanted me to know I think) that they get up in the wee hours of the night, get dressed, make their bed and cover themselves with a blanket and go back to sleep.  This way, the boys contend, there is less to do in the morning.  What??  Hold on now.  I do recall, in his bachelor days, their father did something similar and has told them about it.  Did they remember that sage advice?  I am not sure.

I told them that we have plenty of time in the morning since I homeschool so we are not rushing off to school.  We are here to cultivate habits and we can get these things done and they don't need to do that in the middle of the night.  They just look at me.  I have not asked recently if they have done it.  I usually get up before them and occasionally look in on them and so far, have not seen them atop the bed with a blanket and dressed so it does not happen all the time I think.

I don't think they are stressed with my habit training.  They don't get angry or resentful about it but just seem to know, it has to be done so they were being...practical.  I keep it nice, friendly but steady but maybe I am just a wee bit too habitual for my own good!  Now the details of things like putting the lid back on the toothpaste, flushing the toilet every, single time, pick up a toy in your room when finished with it (you know, the kind of toy with a 100 pieces scattered hither and yon)...things like this, well, the training goes on and on. 

I am trying to feel happy about this one gone a little overboard for now and not worry over it. It is really cute, really.

I cannot leave her out on the subject of habit training.  She is not the least bit interested in the potty which is okay with me.  The time will come when she will want to with gusto just like the boys.  She does have a habit of bringing me all supplies to change her though.  I can live with that for now.  She also unloads her dresser drawer to get dressed in the morning..thats a start.  It's fun and funny.

Is there anything you have taught your children that has stuck really, really well?  Please share!  Got ideas on the toilet flushing thing?



Being consistent

My sister calls it a Mexican standoff. From the first time, to now, that is what we call it around here. Here it goes....

All morning chores are complete..phew!..that is good....beds made by the children, children dressed themselves mostly, jammies hung up on wall hooks, teeth brushed, hair combed, smiles on...all chores carefully, yet as gently as possible, monitored and corrected on most days....and we are ready to go. Except for the crumpled, damp hand towel on the bathroom counter and the bathroom lights are on...Mom has asked two times to the seven year old, to please hang towel and shut off light. The two littles run amuck and watch and listen and as the young man leaves the bathroom to join in the frolic without doing either, I quickly say, "whooaaaa-ho there boy! What did you forget? There are two things in that bathroom that are undone and we cannot leave until they are done. How about this? You stay in that bathroom until you recall what I said or you see what the two things are?" Fortunately, we were only going downstairs and not rushing out to an appointment so...I had time, to teach. I have to take these times to make up for the times when it is all too easy for me to just do it myself. So, he stayed and I cozied up on my bed with the two littles to finish a woolen hand knit for the boy in the bathroom. A nice, unexpected moment or two to knit. This is good. I love these teaching moments. The boy asks me, 'do I need to make my bed?' I say, "is your bed in the bathroom?" He is stumped some more. Truly wondering what in the world he is doing in there. I knit contentedly and the littles play with toys and watch and want yarn to play with...it is all good.

As I completed the hand knit, which I intend to post soon, I hear the boy say...'the towel?'...I give him a "yes" look...he is glad and hangs it up...now what else. 'The light Mom?'..yes sir. Ahhhh....hope that one will stick.

These teaching moments in life skills can last a lifetime and transfer to academics..I believe they really can! Be consistent and take the time.

No time for school, I am too busy learning!

Got off the phone with a good girlfriend and had yet another chat about a very familiar and always quite unresolved oxymoron. School and what it is and what it is not and what is learning and what it is not. Here are some examples loosely quoted but oft heard and at times, spoken by me.



"Let's bag school and go play outside."



"We have not done any school this week, I have to get back next week..we are so behind."



"With the recent E.R. visit (illness, funeral, current event, etc.....you get the idea and can fill in the blank) we have not done any school."



"No, we cannot go to the zoo, we are not studying animals this week!" What?? (Does it have to be a unit study to learn it, remember it??)



I have uttered or heard all of these and more as you dear reader could likely add to my list. Maybe it is because many of us attended institutionalized school and we are unlearning what learning is ourselves. Maybe it is a confidence problem on my part. Maybe it is strict demands of accomplishment and qualifying and measuring learning progress that can get in the way. Get in the way of just doing it...just learning, asking, seeking and growing. I know that with a book or curriculum and a plan to take the summer off, it is important to get through the book in a timely manner...I get that part, but I still question the value of it. Maybe we just forget to live in the moment. Stop what you think you should do and just do. I am hard on myself and I set my goals high for my children and myself. It does not matter what others think or what they are doing. What matters is what is happening right here.



Our biggest commitment seems to be, in my opinion, to remember to be open to questions at any given time. At any given time....stop what you are doing and make a thoughtful answer. Because your child asked it, he is likely never to forget what you reply...or much to your amazement, remember it for a very long time. To sit and read that book (or chapter) even though you should go get another load of laundry started and, it "is not literature time yet!!"...you say. To say "yes!" enthusiastically when your tot drags the learning tower across the the kitchen floor making all kinds of racket to help you ( I use that phrase loosely...) with a meal. These, my friends are the real, remembered, often inconvenient, perfectly age appropriate things they need to learn now, want to learn and will retain. Not necessarily or, even one bit, the planned, prod the kid along reluctantly lessons we painstakingly plan.



We must trust in each child's natural desire to learn. Perhaps this trust must first be developed in ourselves. We must value the talking through a tragedy like a death with our children and value what the experience is teaching. Death is not planned but a valuable learning experience to embrace that may not be quantitatively measured but rather an immeasurable opportunity divinely given to teach to our very own children. I don't mean to be too melodramatic as if we as parents are the biggest influence ever on our children but we are a large one, a huge one and, what we say and do in a serious circumstance does color our children's ideas and opinions especially while they are young and sometimes, forever. Sometimes their questions can be pointed and unwanted because we first must face things we ourselves either don't want to face due to the pain or we are simply disinterested. It is not easy but, this is real learning on the job as my girlfriend said this morning.



I personally always have a plan and, I have a weekly planning journal for "school" in fact, but have learned with some humility, flexibility, grace from God and, just simply I cannot accomplish all that I have planned because I over planned, to roll with the flow more and more and more. I am developing my sense of awareness of whom each of my children are growing into ....the person they are and are wanting to grow and fulfill...if that makes sense. I am learning to listen I think.

I know one thing for certain about my own learning/education, when I want to learn something, I do it. No one has to tease me, reward me or punish me to learn it. I learn it for its own merit...because I want it and I want the journey along the way. The good and the messy parts of the journey. They are mine. The result is that suddenly, without effort, I can go deeper into a subject and have more knowledge than someone else who then thinks me more of an expert. An expert because I learned it and not for the money or the fame that come to some who are "experts" in something. I can read things with vocabulary that I understand and can translate. Isn't this the goal for our children? We want them to be on fire to learn about something? Isn't this the motivation that we want to encourage?



A wise woman once told me...."it does not matter how hard something is (to attain), what matters is how badly you want it" and I would add, what matters is how much struggle is too much to do it?...so true.

I hope that the skit from SNL, Deep Thoughts is not playing in your head after reading this...ha!! I meant to be serious anyway.

Masterly Inactivity

He now likes to "save her" and....I like it too.

"Although there are benefits to organized sports, they are not the same as playing in the sense we're talking about. Children need time to make up episodes, carry on pretend adventures, live heroic lives, lay sieges and defend forts, even if the fort is only an old armchair. Adults must not interfere or tell the children what to play. They need to accept the fact that this is something they don't understand, and, even more, their very presence carries the cold breath of reality that makes the pretend illusion dissipate and fade away. Think what it must be like for a commanding general leading his soldiers when some intruder into his play-world tells him to tie his shoes!


There's an idea going around that children need to be taught how to play--and that we need to teach them to pretend how to be little fishies and lambs and butterflies [Froebel's novel idea called 'kindergarten!'] Children undoubtedly enjoy these games that are made up for them, but they carry a risk. A child who gets used to crutches may never learn to walk on his own.
Children who spend a lot of time playing with grown-ups won't learn to create their own games and make believe, so they miss the education that comes from being allowed to go their own way and live 'as if his whole job as continual imitation.' "
Charlotte Mason

Expectant encouragement

I am reading and watching 'Laying Down the Rails' by Sonya Shafer for Simply Charlotte Mason. Sonya is an interpreter for the modern day parent of CM's vision of education.

Instead of nagging, use expectant encouragement. As we know, our children know our facial expressions better than we do. In my home school, we have plenty of dark days when I feel down about the nagging I feel I have to do. Sonya emphasized that the attitude of the mother (or father) is critical. I think that over time, if the child senses that I expect them to succeed, to make right, to remember to do what they should do...then, they will. This is better said than done. In a day filled with occupying a trying to walk 1 yo, a busy 3 yo and then to facilitate things for a 6 yo, always, you just want your commands obeyed now. But how do we get that? Great pains my dear. I am not talking about corrections in behavior, I am talking, just daily living skills to get on to the things we need and want to do...or that mom needs and wants to do with the children.

So instead of nagging, today I will endeavor to use the attitude of expectant encouragement. For example, 'G6, its time to get dressed.' My attitude, tone of voice and facial expressions are critical...they should all say 'you can do this and do it now'. The punishment or correction is when I leave the room and move on to my room to dress myself after sufficient time helping his younger brother do the same thing. A natural consequence that is negative but will enforce the idea of only once is to move on to my morning chore of dressing, making my bed, etc.

This sounds so simple, so superfluous. But it is not. It is a critical lesson and exercise in many things. Obedience, attention, duty and, daily living practical skill. I will endeavor to use my facial expressions rather than my voice and in time, he will understand and natural consequences will have to fall as they may. This is a challenge I have taken before but my hope springs eternal. I have confidence!

Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles

This is a summary of her 20 Principles in Modern English:

1. Children are born persons - they are not blank slates or embyonic oysters who have the potential of becoming persons. They already are persons.

2. Although children are born with a sin nature, they are neither all bad, nor all good. Children from all walks of life and backgrounds may make choices for good or evil.

3. The concepts of authority and obedience are true for all people whether they accept it or not. Submission to authority is necessary for any society or group or family to run smoothly.

4. Authority is not a license to abuse children, or to play upon their emotions or other desires, and adults are not free to limit a child's education or use fear, love, power of suggestion, or their own influence over a child to make a child learn.

5. The only means a teacher may use to educate children are the child's natural environment, the training of good habits and exposure to living ideas and concepts. This is what CM's motto "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life" means.

6. "Education is an atmosphere" doesn't mean that we should create an artificial environment for children, but that we use the opportunities in the environment he already lives in to educate him. Children learn from real things in the real world.

7. "Education is a discipline" means that we train a child to have good habits and self-control.

8. "Education is a life" means that education should apply to body, soul and spirit. The mind needs ideas of all kinds, so the child's curriculum should be varied and generous with many subjects included.

9. The child's mind is not a blank slate, or a bucket to be filled. It is a living thing and needs knowledge to grow. As the stomach was designed to digest food, the mind is designed to digest knowledge and needs no special training or exercises to make it ready to learn.

10. Herbart's philosophy that the mind is like an empty stage waiting for bits of information to be inserted puts too much responsibility on the teacher to prepare detailed lessons that the children, for all the teacher's effort, don't learn from anyway.

11. Instead, we believe that childrens' minds are capable of digesting real knowledge, so we provide a rich, generous curriculum that exposes children to many interesting, living ideas and concepts.

12. "Education is the science of relations" means that children have minds capable of making their own connections with knowledge and experiences, so we make sure the child learns about nature, science and art, knows how to make things, reads many living books and that they are physically fit.

13. In devising a curriculum, we provide a vast amount of ideas to ensure that the mind has enough brain food, knowledge about a variety of things to prevent boredom, and subjects are taught with high-quality literary language since that is what a child's attention responds to best.

14. Since one doesn't really "own" knowledge until he can express it, children are required to narrate, or tell back (or write down), what they have read or heard.

15. Children must narrate after one reading or hearing. Children naturally have good focus of attention, but allowing a second reading makes them lazy and weakens their ability to pay attention the first time. Teachers summarizing and asking comprehension questions are other ways of giving children a second chance and making the need to focus the first time less urgent. By getting it the first time, less time is wasted on repeated readings, and more time is available during school hours for more knowledge. A child educated this way learns more than children using other methods, and this is true for all children regardless of their IQ or background.

16. Children have two guides to help them in their moral and intellectual growth - "the way of the will," and "the way of reason."

17. Children must learn the difference between "I want" and "I will." They must learn to distract their thoughts when tempted to do what they may want but know is not right, and think of something else, or do something else, interesting enough to occupy their mind. After a short diversion, their mind will be refreshed and able to will with renewed strength.

18. Children must learn not to lean too heavily on their own reasoning. Reasoning is good for logically demonstrating mathematical truth, but unreliable when judging ideas because our reasoning will justify all kinds of erroneous ideas if we really want to believe them.

19. Knowing that reason is not to be trusted as the final authority in forming opinions, children must learn that their greatest responsibility is choosing which ideas to accept or reject. Good habits of behavior and lots of knowledge will provide the discipline and experience to help them do this.

20. We teach children that all truths are God's truths, and that secular subjects are just as divine as religious ones. Children don't go back and forth between two worlds when they focus on God and then their school subjects; there is unity among both because both are of God and, whatever children study or do, God is always with them.
~ 2004 Leslie Noelani Laurio

I wish I had time to make notes here about my thoughts on each of these. I enjoy 'chewing' on them. I hope you will too.

-tm

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. ;-)

Changing the Schedule

So I have realized that 'content' areas of learning are going to take a back seat to obedience training, gentle obedience training, for now and as part of purposeful teaching going forward..until they are adults! 'Obedience is the whole duty of man; obedience to conscience, to law, to Divine direction.' -Charlotte Mason, Home Education, 1935. All of learning and all of life seems to revolve around getting oneself under control and under God's control ultimately. This is no east task once '...

oh dear, was just interrupted by W2 with the announcement, 'mommy, I have poop on my hands'...cleaned up that one and washed thoroughly...germs, germs lesson again and again and again.... ;-)

Back to the matter at hand. Once 'they get the thin end of the wedge in, let them discover that they can do otherwise than obey, and a woeful struggle begins, which commonly ends in the children doing that which is right in their own eyes.' -Charlotte Mason, Home Education, 1935. I have witnessed this in others and in my own children time and again due to parental physical and/or mental fatigue.

The idea is to do right in God's eyes, not in mine necessarily. I understand this but in the day, in practice, it is tough to 'be consistent' as any experienced parent, passerby in the grocery store will admonish you. Also, if you are too overreaching in demanding/expecting perfect obedience then you will have rebellion for sure. 'the poor children are simply bullied into submission to the will, that is, the willfulness, of another;not at all, 'for it is right'; only because it is convenient.' -CM, Home Education, 1935.

Now, I want and need God to guide me in this journey. I have learned that the art of mothering resides in timing. Perfect timing to the child's learning potential...in the moment. This means I am to drop anything else, I mean anything else, I was moving forward with doing. Including a lesson on content areas of education...including breakfast at times.

So, today we are doing a lesson on self control instead of content..that will be later in the day for G5 when W2 and T1 are napping. A masking tape line on the floor and the self control to walk it without falling off. I will then add a glass bell to balance while walking once the initial task is mastered. (ideas from Mommy, Teach Me!)

CM also states the obvious but when a mama is worn down, this one is tough to remember...I should read it daily. 'The mother often loses her hold over her children because they detect in the tone of her voice (they know me sooooooo well) that she does not expect them to obey her behests; she does not think enough of her position; has not sufficient confidence in her own authority.' A quiet confidence.

I can do this quite indirectly with some help like the above mentioned book and other ideas. Feel free to share them if you are reading this!

'the thing that matters most is that the child should be daily confirming a habit of obedience by the unbroken repetition of acts of obedience. -CM, Home Education, 1935.