Charlotte Mason Was a Wise Woman
It’s been about three years since the day at the park when I realized my daughters were lacking a vital, a crucial, an indispensible piece of knowledge. I don’t know how we’d missed it—these kids knew Tennyson before they could read and discussed the periodic table of the elements over dinner. (Okay, so we had a placemat with the periodic table on it. Still. We did discuss it. As in: "No, dear, we don’t smush peas on helium.") They’re bright kids, well-educated kids, but there was a giant hole in their education and it was the kind of hole that left an opening for serious pain. Literally.
See, we were at the park, as I said, and a bunch of kids were playing ball not far away. Suddenly a cry rang out: "DUCK!" Every person in the vicinity ducked out of the way of the large ball hurtling toward our group. Except my kids. All three of them (there were only three at the time) LOOKED UP AT THE SKY. I kid you not. "Where?" cried Jane. "Is it a mallard?"
Is it a mallard. The kid knew her times tables at age seven but had no clue that when someone hollers "duck," you get your head out of the way. When I stopped guffawing, I decided I’d better rectify that little oversight right quick. Back at home, I put the kids through a bit of boot camp. I figured while I was at it, I might as well throw in some other quick-response commands. I lined up the three little girls, ages eight, five, and two, and drilled them in Duck, Hit the Deck, and On Your Feet Maggot. It was a smashing game and we played it every day for a week. They made mighty giggly little soldiers but they got the point and I felt reasonably comfortable out taking them back out to dangerous places such as the park.
At some point I added another command, and for something that started out as a whim, it has turned out to bring immense peace and pleasure to my home. It had occurred to me that one of my biggest pet peeves was calling one of the kids and having her yell back, "Wha-at?" instead of coming to SEE what because if I’d wanted a conversation of shouts, I’d have hollered what I wanted in the first place.
I remembered what Charlotte Mason has to say about habit-training, how a mother should pick one habit at a time to cultivate in her children. Start with a bad habit that vexes you, Miss Mason says (somewhere; I no longer remember which book—probably all of them), and devote a period of several weeks to replacing it with a good habit. This is the best parenting advice I’ve ever encountered. Such a simple principle: instead of punishing for the inappropriate behavior, you take the time to develop the behavior you want to see.
Of course my children didn’t know what kind of response I wanted when I called out their names: I’d never bothered to explain it. Did I just expect them to instinctively know that the "whaaaaa-ut" hollerback drives mothers up the wall? When I examined the situation, I understood that I’d never given much thought myself to what kind of response I’d prefer. I just got annoyed by the one I didn’t prefer.
So after the Duck drills, I started working on the "what to do when I call your name" routine. And oh my goodness has it been a pleasure to see it in action these past three years. By now it’s completely automatic. I call a name and the child in question cries out, "Coming!" Simultaneously she leaps to her feet and runs to wherever I am, landing before me with a "Yes, Mom?"
It’s marvelous. Maybe the script isn’t your cup of tea but I truly love it: the quick response, the way I can take it for granted that all I have to do is say a name and the needed child will appear before me—with no irritation, no resentment. It’s all automatic; we hardly notice it anymore; it’s simply what one does. It is, in fact, a habit.
Habits (good and bad) are catching. Wonderboy has picked up the routine too, without our doing anything to teach it. In fact, he’ll see your "coming!" and raise you one—half the time I holler out for Rose or Beanie, the boy will chime in his own "Commmmm-ee!" in chorus with theirs. Sometimes he just stands at the bottom of the stairs barking out his sisters’ names and supplying their responses for them. Or maybe he just thinks their names are Rosecoming and so forth.
I know the drill-sergeant routine is a little hackneyed, but it’s been a most successful means of following Charlotte Mason’s habit-training advice. Very Mary Poppins-esque, really: the silliness of the drills (nothing says fun like calling your children maggot) is the spoonful of sugar, far more palatable than the pill I used to be, scolding them for not coming when I called. Kids pick up an awful lot by osmosis, but not everything. Just ask my little birdwatchers. No, dear, it isn’t a mallard. It’s a soccer ball and it’s about to give you a concussion. Now DUCK!
Jennifer says:
That’s so funny! Great advice as well. Yelling across the house is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. What a fun solution.
On July 17, 2006 at 4:45 am
Maria says:
we have the come and see part down, but not calling ‘coming’ so often I am yelling time and again until the are there. Steillworking on that.
On July 17, 2006 at 6:30 am
Theresa says:
Hilarious! And very true. You’ve inspired me to pick a bad habit (so many to choose from!LOL!)and replace it with a good one.
Thanks!
On July 17, 2006 at 6:58 am
veracity says:
Melissa,
Perhaps you sould put a warning on these funny posts. This way those of us who are reading in the same room as our napping children won’t wake them up with laughter 🙂
On July 17, 2006 at 9:47 am
Jennifer says:
Great advice, Melissa! I’m inspired to choose a habit to change from annoyingly bad to disarmingly good and start training today! (Also worried and wondering about Duck! may have to test that one soon) LOL!
On July 17, 2006 at 3:48 pm
The LLama Butchers says:
DUCK!
Ohhh, is it a Mallard? Someday, there will be a tee-vee show about the Bonny Glenn, and you’ll be dining out on how you used to read the blog before it became big and famous….
On July 17, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Julie says:
Rofl! Great writing as usual… and a cool story too.
CM says it takes six weeks to establish a habit but it only takes one lapse to undo it completely. 🙁 That explains why I am so slow to keep those habits I begin in earnest! LOL
Still, like you, I love that she encourages mothers to see a time of training as necessary to proper “education” and habit development. She is a compassionate yet centered woman, that Ms. Mason.
Julie
On July 18, 2006 at 9:31 am
Meredith says:
This is so funny and ironic as this “habit” of coming when called is SOO what we need to work on here 😉 Thanks for the reminder!!
On July 18, 2006 at 9:42 am
Mary Beth Patnaude says:
Lissa:
Maybe you would be willing to do another post at some point on the steps you took to form this good habit. I find the habit of yelling from another room quite difficult to deal with, especially since having an infant and a toddler make it difficult to always go to the child, bend down, and look them in the eye.
On July 18, 2006 at 10:30 am
DavidofOz says:
This calling for one of the children and just getting a grunt or similar answer annoyed us too. We started the habit that they must answer “Yes Dad (or Mum)” and then come to see us. If we call and they answer “What?” or something similar we stay quiet. Soon we hear “Oh. Yes Dad” and they come to see us. Persevere – it’s worth it!
On July 22, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Erin says:
Dh and I were in stitches over this blog. Sooo funny. Yesterday we were walking across the bridge and I looked up and saw a seagull and thought of your girls looking for the duck and I was off laughing again.
On July 30, 2006 at 5:43 am
crystal says:
Oh My! is it wrong that I actually cried I was laughing so hard? I laugh because I’ve been there! who am I joking,, I’m STILL there!
On October 27, 2006 at 3:45 pm