Tag Archives: parenting

The Brain

… the brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work.

Charlotte says we often make schedules which give the child’s brain a variety of work, but …

the secret of the weariness children often show in the home schoolroom is, that no such judicious change of lessons is contrived.

Again, I like to view school work in terms of receiving and producing. We need both for an education and alternating the two activities is the key to making the school day move at a pleasant pace rather than a grueling one. Once a child masters reading, reading becomes a “receiving” activity along with listening to a presentation or observing a demonstration — something to place between “producing” activities such as math or writing. Really, these are the only three subjects that truly exist, like the primary colors on the color wheel. From these three skills (reading, writing, and math) students learn all the other “subjects”.  By writing, I include other “producing” activities such as diagrams, oral presentations, poster, and the like. In other words, the child is synthesizing or analyzing information and producing some new and personal way of expressing it.

The teacher should move away from “subjects” and instead use the various subjects as a vehicle for the working of these three skills: reading, writing and math. As soon as the student starts to lag, refresh the brain with a change — she doesn’t have to stop her school work, she just needs to stop producing and move into a receiving mode for a while. Alternating like this helps to keep learning pleasurable and not a hateful task.

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Work, Rest, and Play

Charlotte Mason says it is just as important to give the brain periods of rest as well as good, hard work for it to do. She tells of how blood rushes to the organ(s) being used. While exercising or playing, the blood flows to the extremities. After eating, the blood flows to the digestive system. While the brain is actively at work, the blood flows there.

So, we do not want to feed a child dinner and then send her out for a long walk. It isn’t a good idea to go swimming right after eating. The blood that is needed for digestion leaves its work and floods to the extremities, leaving the meal half digested. If this happens on a daily basis (such as the practice of public schools to feed the children lunch and then send them out to their longest recess), we are setting them up for chronic stomach problems. Moreover, we shouldn’t feed them a large meal, send them out to play for an hour, and bring them in to do math. The brain will have very little blood to work with.

It follows that the hours for lessons should be carefully chosen, after periods of mental rest–sleep or play, for instance–and when there is no excessive activity in any other part of the system. Thus, the morning, after breakfast (the digestion of which lighter meal is not a severe tax), is much the best time for lessons and every sort of mental work; if the whole afternoon cannot be spared for out-of-door recreation, that is the time for mechanical tasks such as needle-work, drawing, practicing; the children’s wits are bright enough in the evening, but the drawback to evening work is, that the brain, once excited, is inclined to carry on its labors beyond bedtime, and dreams, wakefulness, and uneasy sleep attend the poor child who has been at work until the last minute. If the elder children must work in the evening, they should have at least one or two pleasant social hours before they go to bed;

 

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Conditions of Healthy Brain Activity

Nowhere does Charlotte Mason show her love and respect for children more than in her careful and studious instructions on how to create conditions for healthy brain activity. She begins with exercise, comparing brain inactivity with physical inactivity.

…the brain which should have been invigorated by daily exercise has become flabby and feeble as a healthy arm would be after being carried for years in a sling.

She blames eccentricity on someone not having enough to do — pointing out that the large active brain is not content with entire idleness. Instead, it finds paths for itself and then pounds down them, healthy or not. Generally, we understand the ways to physical health, whether we follow them is another matter. The body needs fuel, and the food which is the fuel should be a variety of healthy, wholesome meals. We know the body needs exercise. All of us, but children especially, need to run, shout, jump, play and exert ourselves in fun, physical activities.

So it is with the brain. It works on the same fuel and needs its own mental exercise to grow strong. The outcome of all this is:

Do not let the children pass a day without distinct efforts, intellectual, moral, volitional; let them brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and to bear; and let them do right at the sacrifice of ease and pleasure; and this for many higher reasons, but, in the first and lowest place, that the mere physical organ of mind will grow vigorous with work.

Some of us believe we are born “smart” or “dumb”. Certainly, we are given limits to our potential. However, the “dumb” label can most certainly be obliterated with enough mental work and effort.

One of the most common errors parents make is to think their children’s brain exercise happens at school.

Not so.

With the difficulties teachers face, they often must and do resort to efficient ways of teaching which will most certainly lessen the work your student’s brain will do. Lectures, where the student passively receives information, groups, where the student shares the work, and assignments which can easily be graded by teachers all cut the work done by your student’s brain.

Another error parents make is to believe that to increase mental effort means to increase school work. Again, this is a grave mistake. Students’ time is already over-packed with school-related activities. I firmly believe homework is not the best help for  learning or to encourage the growth of students‘ brains.

By this time, you’re wondering what the solution is.

Ahh, where should I start? The brain activity available to you and your children is all around you. Puzzles, word finds, riddles, jokes, discussions about the ethics of something, explanations (given by your child), the re-telling of stories heard, movies watched, interactions between friends or siblings, the re-enactment of anything, the careful observation of something, memorizing something, games, drawing, nature study, questions, questions, questions, and listening, listening, listening. The key is your child needs to form something, create something, argue something, reason something, do something.

Think in terms of receiving (consuming) and producing. We need to do both. A child in our consumerist culture will certainly find multiple ways to receive or consume in our society. They are trained into it by television, commercials, school, radio, and video games. Even reading, which is a better way to receive, is still receiving. So, anytime you can find ways to get your child to produce something, you’re giving him the exercise so desperately needed for his brain. Be it a thoughtful response to an open-ended question or a playful skit given for the family, finding ways for your child to produce is the key.

Build me a bridge with your legos that can hold all these quarters. Run to the end of the path, see all the details you can, and report back to me what you see. Teach your sister how to practice for setting a volleyball. Let’s make a … birdhouse, birdfeeder, hat, cake, story, play, etc. Let’s organize a … dance, birthday party, picnic, shopping list, chore list, the laundry room, etc. Let’s write a story, paint a picture, draw my feet, create a collage, write a thank-you, play a song, fix a car, plant a garden, build a chicken coop. Let’s … Let’s … Let’s …

Surely, there is something a child should naturally “take to”, helping to build an interest which may stay with him all his life. Certainly, she will learn the habit of “being interested”, which is a key to happiness.

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Despising the Children

Despise: to have a low opinion of, to undervalue

However much we may delight in children, we grown-ups have far too low of an opinion of children.

If the mother did not undervalue her child, would she leave him to the society of an ignorant nursemaid during the early years when his whole nature is, like the photographer’s sensitive plate, receiving momently indelible impressions?

Today, we have daycares — some better than others. But still, we must know when the child will gain the majority of his learning (during the first five years), it may take place with a person who is “doing a job” and the time is divided among many competing needs. All those moments that could be used for the learning of language, loving touches, pleasurable kisses and caresses, the smell of mama, the careful consumption of food with loving interactions, the nuzzling, the laughing, the games, the peek-a-boo, the cooing, the blowing in faces, and the smiling replaces, at best, a general routine where the growing person is just one among many.

It is not what happens at daycares that is so terrible. It is what it replaces. 

Mothers don’t have to be at the constant beck and call of their little ones — but, if we are not to despise them, we should give them the best of us. If we are tired and harried and exhausted and that is the only part of their mothers that they see, shame on us.

One of many ways in which parents show a low opinion of their children is in the matter of their faults. A child reveals an ugly trait — he is greedy, she is vindictive, he tells a lie …

and the mother puts off the evil day of reckoning, hoping that he will know better by-an-by.

What happy days for herself and her children would the mother secure if she would keep watch at the place of the letting out of waters!

The child should never do wrong without being aware of it. He is never too young to be corrected or prevented. Deal with a child on the first offense and on every one afterwards. If a habit of wrong-doing is formed by overlooking or ignoring, the cure is slow to come and perhaps may not come at all.

Sometimes parents ignore one child’s misbehavior to focus on another child’s misbehavior. For instance, in telling. We can see the manipulative desire to get a sibling into trouble with a tattle-tale. Tattling can be dealt with. Speak to the motive. Are you moved to get your sibling into trouble or because of general concern for his or someones else’s welfare?

But then, and this is where parents make a grave mistake, they ignore the original offender. The child tattled on must be dealt with as well. Never should their offense be overlooked because of the way it arrived.

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A Prince(ss) Raised by Peasants

 

 

A child in the midst — Charlotte Mason reiterates the child’s estate by alluding to Jesus’ words to his disciples.

 

“And He took a child and set Him in the midst of them: and when He had taken him in His arms, He said unto them, ‘Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me: and whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me.’”—Mark 9:36, 37.

 

What is a child in our culture today? C.M. repeated a few ideas from her own culture and time– a tablet to be written upon, a twig to be bent, wax to be molded. We have our own ideas of children’s purposes– products of a system, useful tools for society, good citizens, good employees, consumers, etc.

 

But it takes a great poet to put into words the child’s estate: Wordsworth‘s estimate is …

 

Stained glass windows in the Mausoleum of the ...

 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

 

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

 

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

 

And cometh from afar;

 

Not in entire forgetfulness,

 

And not in utter nakedness,

 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

 

From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

 

 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

 

Thy soul’s immensity;

 

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep

 

Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind,

 

That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,

 

Haunted for ever by the eternal deep,

 

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind–

 

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

 

On whom those truths do rest,

 

Which we are toiling all our lives to find

 

Thou, over whom thy immortality

 

Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave,

 

A presence which is not to be put by;

 

Thou little child, yet glorious in the might

 

Of heaven-born freedom, on thy being’s height

 

Trailing clouds of glory, best philosopher, an eye among the blind … see how Wordsworth changes the present view of children as a product into someone to learn from? And Christ in his simplicity and efficiency best sums up the child’s estate by reminding us that childhood is the gate through which we must enter the kingdom of heaven. “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” “Except ye become as little children ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” “And He called a little child, and set him in the midst.”

 

By meditating on the words and actions of Christ relating to children, the child’s estate would elevate to its proper place in our minds and hearts– not a being ignored or annoying, but a prince or princess entrusted to the foster care of peasants.

 

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System vs. Method

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If a human being were a machine, education could do no more for him than to set him in action in prescribed ways, and the work of the educator would be simply to adopt a good working system or set of systems.

But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power.

Here, Charlotte Mason brings to the forefront again that our view of our children is what matters. If we see them as only requiring the right system to bring about necessary ends, we undervalue them and view them as beings that are mass-produced.

Schools often undergo expensive adoptions of new curriculum in the hopes that by following it will bring about mass results.

A teacher’s first requirement is a deep love for the kids she will teach. The second requirement is a strong sense of duty to them. The third requirement is the freedom to adopt whatever methods she deems fit for the variety and levels of souls before her. If new curriculum is used, let her use it according to her own wisdom and knowledge of the spirits she guides and the curriculum she is familiar with and loves.

We are dealing with a human soul. If we wish to reach it, we must love and use all our wisdom, prayer, and tools to work with the spirit-being before us.

The mother or father has, of course, a great advantage in the teaching of his or her child because of the many ways in which they interact that can improve the child’s education. All parents should use this advantage.

But any teacher should distrust curriculum that promises mass-produced results and remember she deals with human beings — people who are best taught through story and ideas.

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The Family is the Unit of the World

A generation ago, a great teacher amongst us never wearied of reiterating that in the Divine plan “the family is the unit of the nation“: not the individual, but the family. There is a great deal of teaching in the phrase, but this lies on the surface; the whole is greater than the part, the whole contains the part, owns the part, orders the part;

I agree with Charlotte Mason but would change her words to fit our times. The family is not only the unit of the nation, it is the unit of the world.

The Family is the Unit of the World

Pages could be written about this statement. First, one must look at history. Charlotte Mason wrote before communism and Naziism had bloomed and produced its drastic effects. Both attempts at social change (communism and Naziism) depended upon removal of children from homes and placed in schools where they could be educated into the new ideas. The family was the enemy of the state, an unnecessary mediator, an old-fashioned idea impeding the way to utopia or power.

Today, when I take my teenage daughter to the doctor, the doctor can attempt to interact with her without my interference. My daughter could get birth control, vaccinations, and an abortion without my consent. When I receive a welcome letter from a principal at a school, it says things like … “thank you for sharing your children with us. We promise to take good care of them.” At another high school, the motto is “We Are One, We Are a Family.” Many school officials envision their institution as the social center for a community.Teachers spend their time challenging the many accepted tenets of children’s families, encouraging students to “think for themselves”, “be an individual”, and “free your minds.” Schools have usurped parental roles in all basics. Parents are separated from children. Siblings are divided from siblings. This is the path we deem “normal”.

At a class I was teaching, one elementary student admonished another:

I wish your (little) sisters would quit coming to talk to you while we’re standing in line. They distract the other kids and then we get into trouble. Our line gets messed up.

I defended the poor student. I said,

How wonderful that her little sisters want to be near her! She must come from a close family that encourages sibling harmony. Imitation is the best form of flattery and here her little sisters come, wanting to stand next to the line where her big sister is. They want to show everyone that they belong to one of the cool kids, one of the big kids. This is a good thing. This is something to encourage, to foster, to repeat!

I couldn’t help adding,

That’s one of the main reasons I homeschool — so my daughters don’t have to stand in line all the time and shoo their little sisters away into their own grade!

One of the other teacher’s assistants in the room straightened immediately and retorted,

Standing in line is a part of life! How will they know how to get their licenses or jobs?

I couldn’t help firing back (the sarcasm was a little heavy):

Really? You really think that children wouldn’t know how to stand in line unless they learn it here? When they get their licenses, they won’t know how to grab that little number and sit until they’re called? At least there, they can read a good book while they wait!

I thought to myself,

I’m sure when my daughters are grown, they will mill around in the grocery store, completely at a loss as to how to pay for their food because they are so deficient in the school experience of standing in lines. What would we do without you? How do my children survive?

I almost started to wring my hands in pretended worry, but I realized that would be stepping too far. I dislike myself when I sneer. I changed the subject and brought it back to the shunned little sisters.

Anyway, I think it is lovely that O____’s sisters want to be near her. I think you should welcome them and be kind to them — even if it means standing slightly out of line.

But do you see my point? In Germany, it is still illegal to homeschool. Germany educates children according to state ideals and goals. In America, we’re less overt, but we’re doing the same thing — using schools to inculcate nationalistic ideals. The family is split apart. They isolate the individual under the guise of its glorification. And then, they conquer the individual.

The family is the unit of a nation. As parents, it is our responsibility to 1) feed our children 2) clothe them 3) provide protection 4) model a good character and deliver a moral upbringing 5)  deliver an education (we have many ways to do this, but it is still our responsibility to make sure it is the best we can afford).

If we give these responsibilities over to our nation, it will form the nation’s goals and ideals in our children. The government will feed our children food that benefits it (government subsidized food and an addiction to it). The government will encourage our children to dress according to its values — consumerism. It will protect itself — teaching children to vote in a direction that will make them reliant upon the government and depend upon it for all their needs. The education will make the children fit for government ends.

The river can only rise as high as its source. If the source is the government, then its ideals are the highest our children will attain when educated in a government institution. If our children must be part of it, then parents must take precautions to counteract the many insidious ways the institution tries to separate families and form automatons. We should give them the best of the greatest minds (through the reading of great books) and a good deal of logic so they aren’t subject to wolves in sheep’s clothing. From grade levels to sex ed to special ed to bells and standing in line, a government institution will create food for itself. A government has its uses. Just don’t let your kids become one of them.

This video depicts so vividly what happens in schools. Notice the boy ridiculed for reading poetry. In school, he’s not allowed to read during class, because the teacher believes his material is more important. As long as teachers replace reading with lectures and worksheets, they bolster the conspiracy theory that the institution intends to keep children stupid and compliant. While I don’t agree with children burning their desks and throwing their teachers into the inferno, the violence reflects a truth we already see — that latent, seething revolution waiting to ignite. Shootings, fights, violence, bullying, suicides, drug use — if these symptoms occur among a group of adults, we’d blame poverty and oppression. But since it happens to children, we blame parents, TV, video games, sugar… anything but the institution where they spend their days. Truth is, the worst of public school life closely resembles prison life, from the violence to the sex going on in the bathrooms to the deep hatred of the establishment.

The Wall

There is a second part to Charlotte Mason’s section that I have waited to include because it seems to contradict what I just wrote.

and this being so, the children are the property of the nation, to be brought up for the nation as is best for the nation, and not according to the whim of individual parents… we should remember that the children are a national trust whose bringing up is the concern of all.

Charlotte Mason wrote when nationalism was reaching a fever pitch. She, too, was a product of her time and place. She had not yet seen World War I or II or a communist state and their methods of dividing families to inseminate state ideas. In other words, I believe she was ignorant or blind to nationalism’s dark side.

What I believe we can take from her words, though, is our children are not for our own caprices. Eventually, they will become husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, employees and employers. We should raise our children to be …

I find myself searching for phrases like “gifts to the world”, “blessings to others”, “assets”, and I must throw them all away. If children are persons, then we must treat them so from the beginning. We cannot raise them to be gifts. They are persons. They carry the divine light.They are made in the image of God, a little lower than the angels. We must not objectify them. We should avoid terms describing how to use them.

We must remember children belong to God — that Supreme Being who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. We should tread softly when speaking of children at all. They are not us. They are not ours. They deserve respect, ideas, and a thinking love.

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A Thinking Love

The children are, in truth, to be regarded less as personal property than as public trusts put into the hands of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of society.

This quote rankles me. In a world where so many entities clamor for a piece of our child’s soul — factories, companies, clubs, sports, schools, churches, advertisers — I do not wish to regard our children as belonging to anyone but themselves. Paul and I hide them from all of these hooks and grabs and picks that want to use our daughters for their own ends.

But Charlotte does not say that children are a public trust. They are not. She says parents should regard them as such. We are often shoddy with our own work and perfectionist when working for someone else. I’ll be punctual for a work meeting and slack on attending church on time. I’ll keep my work desk clean and allow my home to become messy. We are more professional when working for someone else, bottom-line. If we consider our parenting as a professional endeavor and the raising of our children as a product that will be evaluated, we may take our jobs seriously and do for our children better than if we considered them our own. Sad, but true.

I remember when I had Elsa, I actually wrote out a job description (in the form of a mission statement), and decided to “clock-in” hours. Too often, we stay-at-home mothers are tempted to do less by our children because so much of our society does the same thing. We have the sole direction of the children’s early, most impressible years, yet parents are encouraged to give these years over to strangers for the making of our children. Children inhale their environment and it becomes a part of them. The first five years of a child’s life may be the most important learning curve in their lives. Those years lay the foundation for all else.

Regarding our children as a gift to be given to the world may help our minds to battle against societal pressure to undervalue them. It will place children in their rightful place. They deserve a thinking love. We owe our children a careful training, a thoughtful upbringing, a loving, firm path.

Today’s model for child upbringing is a terrible cycle: ignore them until they demand attention in a negative way, be dismayed that they would act in such a way, feel guilty for ignoring them and placate their negativity with some sort of quasi-reward, and as soon as they are happy, ignore them once again.

The mother is qualified and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child; … and what is demanded of her is — a thinking love. … God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided — how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education. Pestalozzi

We owe our children and the world a thinking love. They need our attention, our focus, and all of our experience to guide them. We do not realize that every happy hour, every peaceful meal, every restful nap, is actually the very education our world needs so badly. We underestimate the gifts we bestow in a well-managed, loving home. We undervalue the brain growth that occurs from hugs, kisses, interaction at meals, good food, cleanliness, order, daily and weekly routines. We hinder our children from obtaining an education when we ignore them and leave them to themselves too much. They require a thinking love.

A Continual Helper

We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

Yesterday, Paul mowed the lawn. Elsa watched him with interest.

“Dad is kind of chyuckinish about mowing the lawn,” she noted. (Translation: chyuckinish is Greta-ese for “messed up” or “weird”.)

“Why do you say that?” I asked. He wheeled around the yard with Dagne on his lap.

“You should see the pattern! He does a section over there. He misses pieces along the way. Then, he’s over here doing a section.”

“You mean there’s no logical pattern? Wow, that is so unlike Dad.” I said, sarcastically.

Paul’s playful, random way of doing things attracted me. He was refreshing, light and spontaneous. But it was also a source of major communication breakdowns between us. I always list everything in step-by-step order. He might listen to step 2 and 8.

Maybe.

Frustrated, I felt like I was wasting my breath.

Then came Greta. I remember watching her run around the church with one arm swinging in a wide wind-mill. Curious, I wondered why she swung just one arm and not the other. I asked her.

“Cause it makes me go faster,” she retorted.

Her look said, Duh, Mom, don’t you know anything?

Dealing with Greta has helped me to understand Paul. Somehow a mother’s heart is more understanding than a wife’s. We expect more. I sought to understand Greta and, through her, Paul was redeemed. I gained a deep love and admiration for both their random, creative ways of thinking.

Homeschooling Greta has had many miscommunications like this. I explain step-by-step. Her mind does not see steps. She bursts into life and assesses it with an uncanny gut-feeling about things. Her choices and thinking spring from an intuition and joy in life that is completely foreign to me. My mind sorts knowledge into patterns. Paul’s and Greta’s minds go like Paul’s lawnmowing job — willy-nilly. If I mowed the lawn, I probably wouldn’t miss a spot …

but I think I’d have less fun.

When I taught Greta math, we both shed tears of frustration. With Elsa, I explained once. Elsa, who started sorting as soon as those little fingers could pick up an object, grasped what I said with alacrity and never forgot it. It was filed in the correct spot and she could retrieve it anytime she wished. Then … Greta.

I prayed for wisdom. I prayed for Greta. I prayed for myself. I prayed with Greta. Turning to the Father who made us seemed only natural. We were at our wits end and needed help. So we asked for it.

I discussed this with Paul on a walk yesterday.

“I’ve figured out how to teach math to Greta. I skip the explaining. It just weighs her down. Instead, I explain the steps as she does the problem. Then she’s dealing with a step at a time. She doesn’t get bogged down.”

We watched an American Goldfinch balance on the twig of a bush.

I added,

“Teaching is really a spiritual exercise. Love brings the wisdom. It is through love that we find the answers.”

I’m so thankful for the Divine Spirit that has access to our spirits. I am grateful to be able to teach while integrating the spiritual and intellectual life. We are not a bundle of compartments. We are not machines or products. We are spiritual beings.