In her volume, School Education, Charlotte Mason describes this flow—this “delicate art”—that rests beyond prescription when it comes to our approach at discipline and correction of children.
I say correction to denote those areas in which we must re-address (perhaps taking many runs at a stubborn habit), because a child, for whatever reason, did not initially pick up and adopt the good habit from very young.
I’ve had a child who integrated most good habits of being by age three and a half. And…. I have children who are not halfway there still in the double digits. Hence, I write from the trenches, and it is probably better that way. On getting past the mother-self-doubt of this experience, there should be another article.
The reason this correction of habits is such a fine art is that the approach must differ by the child, by the occasion, by the habit, and so on. It is such a combination of Knowledge, Spirit, Discernment, and delivery for the caregiver, that only a mindset can be conferred— not an exact practical list of actions. That established, here are some ideas to consider when the need to correct a born-person arises:
1- Condemnation in all its forms generally does not work.
2- The presentation of “quickening ideas” to a call for “chivalric obedience” often does work. Or, rather, does its work, in leading the child, by degrees, to the joy of self-control.
3- The parent may very well have the right to come with a rebuke, but consider the pig who could not digest a bucket full of pearls no matter how valuable. You may as well make your direct corrections digestible for that particular child.
4- Consider the corrective need as an opportunity to install the furniture of the child’s internal home. Look for opportunities to instill and install rather than merely defending against their moments of poor choice.
5- Don’t despise the “day of small things” for the child. Let the child come by degrees. Content yourself with incremental and steady progress, even if it is late in coming. There’s no point in dwelling on the lateness now. It will slow things down.
6- Don’t despise the “day of small things” for yourself. If you have children, you will almost certainly be working below your intellectual capacity (and above your physical and emotional capacity) for a long season of your life. Make peace with this reality.
7- Secondary caregivers often have magical powers in the delicate art of inspiring habit change. It is a well-known phenomenon that children often rise to their best outside the realm of their familiar home. “Is it me?”, we mothers wonder. It is. And it isn’t. That child longs to be good. To have a better image as a better person. But they know, that WE know of all their internal snakes. And they think it’s more efficient to try out that new, better version of themselves on someone who hasn’t met all their snakes. They want a clean slate. We all do, and that’s why the gospel works so well for us. So someone like a teacher can wield great powers of conversion potential for the child if she is good at the fine art of inspiring chivalric obedience.
8- Boys and girls are different. On the quest to present quickening ideas, it is helpful for the parent or teacher to understand that girls are likely to want to work toward replacing or becoming the matriarch. Boys want to help the matriarch do what she could not do without him. Vice Versa with fathers/males. Boys want to become or replace the patriarch, and girls want to enhance the patriarch, making him better by doing what he cannot do well himself. (I draw attention to this behavioral tendency in order to help the teacher/parent present inspiring ideas and tasks, not to promote the raising of subservient slave-girls or boys).
9- This talent, this ability to perform such a delicate art, already resides within the parent. This problem, (of using ineffective tools to try to procure habit change in children), is a “ruby slippers” problem. The method already stands available in the parent’s arsenal of tools. In the absence of accountability and the presence of familiarity, most don’t of us just don’t use these tools at home. We use a phrase in our house, “ if you were going to get a million dollars to….” Do whatever the task is…. Could you do it? The answer is always yes. Truthfully, it’s yes. In this case, it would be, “ if you were going to get a million dollars to inspire this child to set the dinner table in a way that should bring them a sense of accomplishment, self-efficacy, and growth, could you do it?” (The key words are should and could). Yes, you could. The child in question should respond favorably, but in case they don’t, you could continue relating to the child in this manner, and trust that the fruit will bear out over time. In any case, you will have done your duty.
So, when it comes to bringing out the very best, most inspiring, most effective methods to cultivate good habits in our children, whether late or early, even though we are so familiar with them and their snakes, and even though we sit in the season of “small things”….say it with me…. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
Footnotes:
1- School Education, Charlotte Mason, p. 23
2- For the Children’s Sake, S. Macaulay
3- Small Things Not to be Despised
Charles Haddon SpurgeonSeptember 16, 1883
Scripture: Zechariah 4:10