My Little Robins

Loving and Learning in the Nest

If You Want Your Kids To Listen, Stop Repeating Yourself

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“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”

“I might as well be talking to a brick wall!”

“In one ear and out the other.”

Clearly, kids who don’t listen is a thing. We have tons of cultural idioms about not listening, and they’re often used to describe children. Some of this probably comes from a combination of immaturity and the fact that they are still developing habits like attention. But in my own family, I notice it’s something I do that actually teaches my children not to listen.

I repeat myself.

For awhile, I found myself saying the same things over and over again, all day long. Clean your room, clean your room, clean your room. Brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth. Even non-commands, like, “Do you want to play outside? Hello? Do you want to play outside?”

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If this repetition drove me crazy, it had to drive my daughter crazy, too.  Repeating myself was a bad habit I had developed, and it led to helping Miss H develop bad habits, too.

Why This Is A Bad Habit

Saying things over and over again teaches our children that they don’t need to listen the first time. Why would our children bother to pay attention to us the first time if they’re going to hear it over and over again? Not listening ultimately leads to not obeying the first time, which is a habit of the utmost importance during the early years.

If we view children as persons, then nagging them is not something we should do. In Home Education, Charlotte Mason said,

She (Mother) never lets the matter be a source of friction between herself and the child, taking the line of his friendly ally to help him against that bad memory of his.” page 123

A friendly ally doesn’t nag, she gently guides. So how do we gently guide our children towards listening to us the first time?

What You Can Do Instead of Repeating Yourself

  • Make eye contact with your child when you’re talking to him or her. Don’t break that contact until it’s clear your child hears and understands you.
  • Ask your child to repeat what you say (an early form of narration!)
  • Don’t respond right away if your child says, “What?” Kids sometimes say this automatically when they really did hear you. Is it possible that they heard you and just don’t understand? If that’s the case, repeating yourself won’t help!
  • Don’t confuse listening with obeying. Children need to listen in order to obey, but they aren’t the same. Be sure to be clear about this with your child. If you want them to listen, help them learn how to listen. If you want them to obey you, teach them obedience.
  • If your child truly did not hear you, they might need help with the habit of attention.

After working on this for about a year, we have made huge progress. I’ve learned to pause after Miss H says, “What?” to give her some time to process what I’ve said. In cases of obedience, I look at her until she begins to follow my directions to be sure that she heard me and is planning to obey. It amazes me that such a simple change can make such a big difference in my children’s ability, and willingness, to listen.

 

 

 

 

I Won’t Make Christmas Magical For My Kids

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Christmas comes with the added pressure to create special, magical memories with our children. We have all sorts of schemes in place to convince children that magic exists. There are apps and elves and letter services to help children believe so they can carry the wonder of a magical Christmas with them for the rest of their lives. But my children will have none of these magical memories; I won’t make Christmas magical for my kids.

Hear me out- I’m no scrooge.

I love celebrating Christmas, both the celebration of Jesus’s birth, and the more secular idea of “Christmas spirit.” But there is so much pressure on moms today to make a Pinterest-perfect holiday. These magical memories should be the highlight of childhood, we’re told. Not only should we buy all the gifts, clean the whole house, and make the meal before getting everyone ready for Christmas Eve service, but we should get home to bake cookies for Santa, and to fake the appearance of reindeer hooves on the roof. Just the thought of it all makes me tired.

I won’t make Christmas magical because I’m too tired. 

To me, this picture of Miss H’s second Christmas is magical.

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Going through all that effort to pull the wool over my kids’ eyes seems so sneaky. When I read fairy tales with my children, we talk about what is real and what isn’t. They know that animals don’t fly and that people don’t get into houses through chimneys. I value the relationship I’m building with my little ones, and creating magical Christmas memories ends in me being caught in a lie. One day, they’d realize that Dad ate Santa’s cookies and the phone calls to the North Pole were part of an elaborate, universal trick. I would be complicit.

My children are amazed by the wonders around them every single day. They see plenty of magic in the world. We’ve spent hours looking through a magnifying glass at the sharp, crystal edges of a snowflake. They once spent the good part of a morning picking cattails and hitting them against rocks to reveal the cottony wisps inside. They squeal with delight when they see a rainbow stretched from east to west. These things are magical in the eyes of a child. I don’t want to divert their attention to untrue things and say, “No actually, this is magic.”

But beyond weariness and a desire to be honest, I worry about the ideas of God that my children get from Santa. 

He sees you when you’re sleeping,

he knows when you’re awake,

he knows if you’ve been bad or good,

so be good for goodness sake.”

This is the opposite of grace. This is working hard for rewards and trying to dodge punishments.  And it’s hard for children to separate this “be good for goodness sake” idea, from obeying God out of our love for him.

Charlotte Mason very wisely said that we should be careful about the ideas of God that we present to our children-

Parents who recognize that their great work is to be done by the instrumentality of the ideas they are able to introduce into the minds of their children, will take anxious thought as to those ideas of God which are most fitting for children, and as to how those ideas may best be conveyed.” Parents and Children), page 51

 

I worry that if they get that idea of someone watching and waiting for them to “mess up,” it will be hard to erase. It took me until my late 20’s to get right ideas of God, and I want to help my children avoid that. If that means not leaving gifts from Santa under the tree on Christmas morning, I’m okay with that.

This Christmas, we will hang stockings and watch Polar Express. I’ll watch my daughter’s eyes light up on Christmas Eve as she holds a candle and sings Silent Night as loud as she can. My son is going to be so excited to rip through the wrapping paper and see what’s inside! I can almost hear the squeals of delight as we take a nighttime ride to look at Christmas lights. Our Christmas will contain plenty of magic. But I won’t make a magical Christmas for my children.

(To learn more about what Charlotte Mason said about ideas, see my mini eBook in the shop!)

I won't make #Christmas #magical for my children, because it already is.

Love and Logic Parenting in the Charlotte Mason Home

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The Charlotte Mason philosophy is full of riches for any parent. But, it is an educational philosophy, not a parenting philosophy. There are some areas that Charlotte Mason does not address, like how to handle all of those toddler temper tantrums! Finding a parenting philosophy that aligns perfectly with Charlotte Mason’s beliefs is probably close to impossible. When I taught in a Charlotte Mason school, I learned about Love and Logic parenting. This is a parenting philosophy that uses natural consequences, no lecturing, and gives children the power to make decisions.

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting From Birth to Six Years is the book to read during your child’s early years. This has helped us tame toddler temper tantrums, and establish boundaries for our children- and for us as parents.  Parenting With Love And Logic focuses on older children, but there is value in reading it even when your children are young.

love and logic parenting

Main Ideas of Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood

Choices

Young children don’t feel like they have any control, so they’ll fight for it any way that they can. Letting them choose between two options that you’re okay with is a good way to let them have some control. You might say, “Do you want oatmeal or cereal for breakfast?” “Do you want to play outside or read a book?” The authors say that you should make sure to give options that don’t inconvenience anyone!

In the Charlotte Mason Early Learning Facebook group, someone asked a wonderful question: Doesn’t giving children choices between two different things exhaust them?

That the effort of decision is the most exhausting effort of life, has been well said from the pulpit; and if that remain true about ourselves, even when the decision is about trifling matters of going or coming, buying or not buying, it surely is not just to leave the children all the labour of an effort of will whenever they have to choose between the right and the wrong.” Home Education, page 100

But- I believe that Charlotte Mason was talking more about right an wrong here. A child shouldn’t constantly be faced with the decision between something that’s right and wrong, as this could lead to sin. Charlotte Mason also said: 

Consequences

If you do need your child to do something, but they don’t obey, they should experience consequences. The authors recommend sending a crying child to their room and staying behind the door until they calm down. Another example was temporarily taking away toys when a child doesn’t clean up after themselves. This lines up well with Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, who said children should experience natural or relative consequences (both positive and negative!)

Enforceable Statements

While you can’t control other people’s behavior, you can control your own behavior. Enforceable statements replace direct commands like, “Stop crying!” with “When you’re quiet, feel free to come out of your room.” Some of these statements can sound like threats, so I’ve had to experiment with what works for us:

  • When my toddler hits me, I walk away and say, “Mommy doesn’t want to be hit by you.”
  • Or, when I’ve asked Miss H to clean her room and she doesn’t, I say, “I can clean it for you, if you want.” She knows that means I will gather everything into a basket and put it in my closet for a day or two.

Meeting Basic Needs

Meeting basic needs in the early years is mandatory for building a strong relationship with your child. As your child gets older, it’s important to strengthen the relationship through play, and paying attention to your child’s interests. Charlotte Mason wrote a lot about properly caring for children in Home Education, and stressed the importance of a positive relationship between parent and child.

 

Where it Doesn’t Align

There are a couple of things that don’t line up well. The Charlotte Mason philosophy works on improving habits, and if a negative behavior continues willfully, consequences are allowed (if natural) or applied (if relative). Love and Logic jumps right into consequences. I think that’s good sometimes (for example, scooping up a child who’s having a temper tantrum and putting them in their room), but in some cases, a child needs instruction and practice.

Some of the consequences mentioned in the book seem like shaming. There was an example of parents making the children pay for a babysitter (because they were causing lots of trouble and couldn’t go to an event) with their toys. The parents kept saying, “No, that’s not enough,” and had fun as their daughters brought them more and more toys. This seems somewhat disrespectful to a child’s personhood. 

What Works for Us

We’ve been using choices for awhile now, and it makes a huge difference in our day. I give options like, “Do you want me to put your brother in the car first, or you in the car first?” I also use enforceable statements in some cases. When I have trouble getting Miss H to eat her meal, I say things like, “Dinner is over in 10 minutes.” That feels less like bribery and more natural to me. The use of consequences (if I feel like we’ve worked on a habit or it is otherwise needed) is helpful too. I’ve noticed that it helps me feel less angry if I can just give a consequence rather than trying to lecture or punish when emotions are high.

Recently, we’ve started using this with E, who has some very strong temper tantrums! We put him in his crib when the tantrum starts, and tell him that he can come out when he’s quiet. It was amazing how quickly he picked up on this, and the 30 minute tantrums stopped almost immediately.

Do you have a parenting philosophy that you love? Tell me about it in the comments!

One Little Change To Develop a Growth Mindset

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“I’m not good at this- why should I try?”

“This is too hard for me.”

“I’m not a math person.”

These are phrases that can break a mama’s heart! Hearing our children say these negative things about their abilities is disheartening. They are the sign of a fixed mindset- the idea that we are born with certain capacities and we can’t change that. The opposite of a fixed mindset, a growth mindset, is when a child (or grown-up!) understands that they can change and grow by putting effort into something. Instead of giving up before a task even starts, people with a growth mindset know that they can do hard things. A growth mindset is reflected in the motto for a Charlotte Mason education: I am, I can, I ought, I will.

Fixed Mindset

When people have a fixed mindset, they avoid challenges and taking risks because they don’t want to fail. They assume that they aren’t good at something, so they shouldn’t even try.  It can also go the opposite way: if they are told they’re really good at something, then they have a natural gift and hard work isn’t needed. On the radio awhile ago, I heard a story about a school for “gifted” children. However, they were never told they were gifted. This was based off of research and the school’s own experience: when children are told that they’re smart, good at math, etc., they quit working hard. The children in this school were motivated to work hard and reach their fullest potential.

The radio show also explained an experiment on growth mindset. Two groups of children were asked to choose some tasks to complete. The children who were told they were good at the tasks chose easier ones to complete. The children who didn’t receive that praise chose more difficult tasks to complete. Fixed mindset involves the negative and positive views we have of ourselves.

Growth Mindset

Children with a growth mindset are those who are not afraid to try new things. They understand that making a mistake is part of the learning process, and instead of giving up, they keep working at it. A growth mindset is so important as we educate our children! We want them to work through problems and know that they can solve them without feeling frustrated or down on themselves.

 

So How Do We Develop a Growth Mindset?

Watch what you say. 

What we say to our children is a huge factor in growth mindset. Our words often sink in deep, even if we don’t think twice about them.

Avoid blanket statements

 These statements make a generalization about your child’s abilities.

  • You’re smart!
  • You’re so good at reading!
  • You aren’t a good ______

Lately I’ve noticed myself saying some of these about habits that we need to work on. This is something I need to stop doing ASAP! Miss H was asked to find something this morning, and she returned empty handed. I said, “You aren’t a very good finder!” I’m destined to find everything for my daughter until she’s 18 unless I quit limiting her in this way!

Use the word “yet”

This one little word tacked onto the end of a sentence can make a big change in a child’s perspective! A couple of years ago, It took Miss H a long time to figure out her Strider bike. She even wanted to get rid of it because it just didn’t seem like her thing. Every time she looked up at me with sad eyes and said, “I’m not good at riding my bike,” I replied, “Maybe not yet, but we’ll keep working on it.” After some practice, she figured that bike out and made it fly! She graduated on to a two-wheeler with training wheels, and even though figuring out the pedaling part was tricky at first, her attitude was so much different! She wanted to practice as much as she could because she knew she’d get better. As her mother, witnessing that change in her was priceless!

When we teach our children the idea that not knowing how to do something now does not mean never knowing, our words change-

“I’m not strong enough” becomes “You aren’t strong enough yet.”

“I don’t understand how to do this,” becomes “You don’t understand how to do this yet.”

Avoid fixed mindset cliches

A fixed mindset shows up in our culture in the form of cliches. Let’s stop using them.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Once a loser, always a loser.”

“Old habits die hard.”

Watch your reactions

When Miss H spills a glass of milk, it is so easy to want to jump on her case about it. But this gives her the message that making mistakes is bad. To develop a growth mindset, we have to teach our children that we learn through mistakes, and we have to allow them opportunities to fail. Now, I give a sympathetic smile, hand her a towel, and she cleans up the milk. She’s solving the problem instead of beating herself up over it.

Limitations

It’s equally important that we teach our children that they do have limits. No, they won’t be able to fly. No, maybe they won’t always be the very best at something. Singing might not be something they are naturally gifted in, and no amount of hard work will make them sound angelic. That’s okay. Growth mindset, and a Charlotte Mason education, is about helping our children reach their fullest potential. We want to help fill the vase, not make the vase.

Did you grow up with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?

 

Praying About the Decision to Homeschool Every Single Year

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Sometimes people ask us about our future homeschool plans, and it’s hard to answer. I know what I want to do. I know what I think is best for at least one of my children at this point. But we’ve committed to praying about the decision to homeschool- every single year. 

Praying About the Decision to Homeschool

This idea first struck me a few years ago. A mother of three, who was homeschooling one child while sending the other school age children to a private school, explained to me why they had made this choice. She told me, “Each year we commit to praying over our children’s education and the decisions we make for them.” . Instead of just saying, ‘They’re all going to do this,’ we spend time in prayer considering each child’s personality and needs. Then we make the decision based on what God is calling us to do.”

That thought resonated so deeply with me. I only had one tiny human at that point, but I previously had assumed we’d make those educational decisions once. When your child turns 5, you make the choice and stick with it, unless something isn’t clicking.

But that decision making process didn’t make much sense. God doesn’t want us to seek his guidance once, and then call it good. We should continually seek God’s guidance.

“Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” Psalm 24:4-5

A Gentle Reminder

You would think that the amazing inspirational idea that this parent planted in my mind would have grown into fruition in a few years. But no. As we approached the enrollment cut-offs of the local preschools last winter, I started to panic. Not because I was worried about homeschooling preschool. This deadline made me panic about the future. Will my super-social child feel lonely if she doesn’t go to school? Will I be able to handle homeschooling with two little ones around? I turned this simple decision about homeschooling preschool into this huge internal battle about homeschooling from now until college. 

In the midst of this internal struggle, we changed churches. In our new church home, God sent me a gentle reminder.

One Sunday, we chatted with the pastor and his wife, and we learned that they homeschool their children. And then we also learned that their youngest goes to a public school.

Our pastor told us, “We realized a few years back that we need to spend time praying over our children’s education each year. Sometimes we jump on the road that God tells us to take, we put our head down, and we keep going. But then we completely miss that God was trying to tell us to take the exit way back there.”

His wife added, “Our children are completely different! One decision wouldn’t work for them all.”

Of course! Why had I forgotten this beautiful idea? Instead, I viewed the decision that we had to make for the upcoming year as a set-in-stone decision that lasts forever.

But I’m Not A Quitter

I hope to homeschool my children, and that’s my plan. But there’s also an amazing Charlotte Mason school that I would love for my children to attend. Maybe God will lead us there at some point.

I can’t tell you what God’s plan will be for my child’s education 5 years down the road. But I can tell you that I’m not going to miss it. I’m not going to sacrifice God’s will for my life just so I can prove to myself that I’m not a quitter. Our current circumstances could change. Something could happen to my health or our finances, and homeschooling would not be a possibility anymore.

And that’s okay- because God’s plan is always better than my own.

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

 

 

 

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