Jun 01 2009
Charlotte Mason Habit Quotes
Following on from my earlier post about habit training with young children and babies, here are the actual quotes from Charlotte Mason that I referred to. You can read all her work free online at Ambleside Online, or purchase them from Amazon (or other retailers).
On the importance of teaching good habits: “It rests with parents and teachers to lay down lines of habit on which the life of the child may run henceforth with little joltings or miscarriage, and may advance in the right direction with the minimum of effort.” (Vol. 1 p107)
On the hard work necessary by the mother: “Now, the mother will be tempted to relax her efforts - to overlook a little dawdling because the dear child has been trying so hard. This is absolutely fatal. The fact is, that the dawdling habit has made an appreciable record in the very substance of the child’s brain. During the weeks of cure new growth has been obliterating the old track, and the track of a new habit is being formed. To permit any reversion to the bad old habit is to let go all this gain. To form a good habit is the work of a few weeks; to guard it is a work of incessant, but by no means anxious care.” (Vol. 1 p121)
On the benefits of good habit formation: “In conclusion, let me say that the education of habit is successful 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, having first secured that they will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose.” (Vol. 1 p134)
