My Little Robins

Loving and Learning in the Nest

Maybe We’ve Taken This “Teach My Kids Not To Need Me” Thing Too Far

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Earlier this evening, I helped my daughter (almost 7) clean her room. As I hung up a getting-too-small dress in her closet, an adage that I've heard dozens of times popped into my head: Don't do anything for your kids that they can do for themselves. I was uncomfortable the first time I read those words, and have been uncomfortable with them every time an older mother, as well-adjusted as her children are, tells me this. Since when do we not help each other?

In our community, there is a teen suicide every few weeks. The sadness and "if onlys" reverberate through the town until the next sad event occurs. Nearly 50% of people who participated in Cigna's loneliness index in 2018 felt lonely always or sometimes. The former surgeon general of the United States said that isolation is the most prevalent threat to health in our nation. 

This makes me wonder: are we taking this "Teach my kids not to need me" thing too far?


Our culture is slightly obsessed with the idea of independence. When I taught full time and had an infant at home, people told me how good it was for her to learn independence from me. When she got older and we decided not to put her on that big yellow bus, but to homeschool instead, the obvious concerns about her ability to be independent were written all over the furrowed brows of strangers.

But, I need people, and my children need me. This is not wrong or weak. This is human nature.

A few weeks ago, I went to the grocery store and saw a mom that I know from my MOPS group. Her child had broken a glass container, and she ran to grab paper towels and was wiping up the mess when I saw her. I went to help. She was fully capable of cleaning it up on her own, but I wanted her to know that I had been in that sticky situation too. At the same MOPS group, just a week earlier, a mom of grown children (Laurie Wildenberg) spoke to the crowd of  tired young moms, and said, "I don't want my adult children to not need me. I want them to call me when they need help.  I want them to come home for dinner and to still have a relationship with them." 

Related: Your Secret Weapon for Forming Positive Habits

Physically Independent

Is it possible to teach our children to not need us physically, but to still learn to rely on others? Yes. We were created for community. We first see our need for others, for helpers, in Genesis. "It is not good for man to be alone."

I can teach my children how to do the laundry and tie their shoes, and allow them to do these things on their own. But what if the simple act of offering to help in physical ways like these is valuable for our relationship or our child's mental health? Why do we sacrifice relationship and mental health for that little golden statue called "independence"? 


Growing Up

As my little girl hurdles closer to her seventh birthday, her responsibilities at home will increase. But when she accidentally spills the eggs that she's mixing in the bowl, I'll help her clean it up. When she can't find the pencil she needs to do her work, I'll help her find it. I want her to know that she can come to me and ask me for help as her life problems shift from missing pencils to navigating relationships or making major mistakes. In the distant future, I want her to call me up and tell me about the tough situation she's facing, not to run away and try to face something difficult entirely alone. 


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Your Secret Weapon for Forming Good Habits

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Chaos is often the leading lady in our home, as many mothers with very young children can most definitely relate to. But with chaos comes rattled nerves, tears (mostly mine), and a home atmosphere that is better prepared for battle than for learning. For the last year or so, I've been recognizing the importance of routine. This simple little thing, that children tend to crave, might be the key to habit training in our homes. 


The Chaos of the Past Year

When I sit down to tell you about the past year, my eyes can't hold back the tears. There was nothing tragic, and many could share their stories of far worse experiences. But almost everything that it contained was a struggle. There was the extremely explosive toddler, whom we realized had a Sensory Processing Disorder. The resulting therapy and work that we did with him drained us (me) to empty. There was the selling of our house, the buying of a new house, and the renovation that kicked us out of our home for five weeks (and is still going, ahem). And what I didn't prepare for was all the tears from little ones who were sad to have left their home, and didn't understand what was happening to their new one. 

Through all of these circumstances, a common theme kept arising: we needed a routine.


My sensory guy desperately needed a routine so his little body could relax a bit and not feel the need to fight an overwhelming world. 

With the chaos of moving and renovating and moving again, I craved a routine of happy mornings with my children. 

Through blurry tears shed after losing the only home they'd ever known, my children needed a routine to show them that not so much had changed. 

And yet, I couldn't give it to them. Our days were unpredictable and chaotic and far from easy. But, in all that time, God was changing my heart. I was learning and preparing for the day when the gift of the mundane would walk back into our lives. I was planning out our routines. 

Related: The Complete Charlotte Mason Preschool Guide

The Secret Weapon For Forming Good Habits

Our habits require some kind of cue to set them in motion. The habit cue is why we accidentally turn off the lights when someone is firmly planted in the room- it's a habit to flip that switch when we walk out of that door! When our cues are completely shaken, then our habits crumble. I imagine that this is part of the reason why the last year was so challenging: we were without our routines, so all of those habits that we had worked so hard on had disintegrated into that thin Colorado air. 

Related: Toddler Schedule for a Charlotte Mason Home

Habits need routines.

If you have been struggling to help your children, and yourself, develop good habits, but there isn't consistency in your day, then you probably feel like you're shoveling during a snowstorm. Habits are entirely repetitive, and if we don't repeat those habit cues for good habits, then they will probably quickly morph into bad habits. 

When we follow routines in our day, the cues happen naturally. If everyone goes upstairs to clean their rooms after breakfast every day, there won't be so much of a fight. If the kids are used to playing independently outside for an hour while I work or rest, there won't be so much bickering. Establishing routines into our days when our kids are in their early years yields a high return of investment. 

Related: Family Habits Meeting

Establishing Routines

All the while that I wanted to establish routines, but couldn't, I spent time planning them out. The first thing that I knew we needed in order to have healthy routines and habits was more time at home together. We needed fewer activities because good habits are seldom formed in the rush to get shoes on and get into the car. 

After clearing our schedule a bit (and learning how to say "no" to some things, I thought about what our mornings should look like. What if everyone was really at peace, and if our home was filled with the sweet aroma of Jesus? I wrote a paragraph to describe it. This didn't factor in sensory meltdowns or teething toddlers, but I wanted to have a baseline of what I thought would be ideal. 

With my paragraph in hand, I thought about all of the habits that might need to happen in order to have a morning like this. If we were to all sit together at the table for breakfast and morning time,  we would need to work on our table manners. If the little boys were expected to play quietly during lessons, then we would need to work on the habit of being kind to each other. 

Finally, I wrote out a routine that would help support the habits I knew we needed help with. Instead of letting the kids graze throughout the morning and eat when they woke, we'd wait and eat breakfast together so I could get everyone to the table simultaneously for our morning time. Before beginning lessons, I'd play with my little boys and model how to be kind to each other. 

If you are struggling with habits in this season, try reevaluating your routines. Sit down and take the time to decide what might not be working. This simple little change could make a big difference in your habit training efforts. 

Habit Training Resources

Make sure to subscribe to My Little Robin's email list to get access to the subscriber library, It is full of great resources, including habit and routine planning worksheets. 

If you are figuring out what habit training looks like during the early years, be sure to check out Habits for the Early Years: A Mother's Journal.

 

Making Family Habits Meetings A Habit

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If you want to make habit training a habit, then family meetings are really helpful. But, these family meetings should focus on habits, and not just the typical “state of the family” meetings that many people hold. According to  The Center for Parenting Education, a non-profit organization, holding regular family meetings supports family bonding, helps children develop higher self-esteem, and helps children understand how to solve problems, among many other benefits. A family habits meeting carries these benefits as well as allows parents and children to develop plans for forming positive habits, or breaking those pesky bad habits.

The idea to hold meetings like this came from James Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (affiliate link.)  He recommended these weekly meetings to get the whole family involved in establishing new habits for each family member. I’ve spent some time brainstorming what this should look like in a Charlotte Mason home. Often, when people talk about habits, they mean the concrete things that we do each day. How can we apply these same principles to habits that are often more abstract, like paying attention and obeying?

Related: Keeping a Habit Training Journal

 

Family Habits Meetings

While establishing your family habits meetings, think about a night when you already do something fun. Maybe you have a weekend game or movie night. Add your meeting right before that event. When we put an event that might come with a little bit of resistance with something that everyone looks forward to, it makes it easier to do. And, if you are already in the habit of doing a special family night, adding a meeting close to the same time will help make it a more natural habit.

Weekly family habits meetings can help you make habit training a habit. #charlottemason

 

Planning

Come to your meeting prepared. Think about the habits that you’ve worked on the week before, and if the approach needs some altering, or if you’re ready to tackle a new habit. Per the nature of a family meeting, children should have some say in this, but in my experience, when they try to think of habits that they want to work on, the habits aren’t all that beneficial to the family. As sweet as it would be for Miss H to get in the habit of song-writing, this is something we can tackle in our free time and not when we’re looking for ways to improve our family’s daily grind! I suggest having in mind the habit you would like your children to work on, and then involving them in the process of making a plan for each habit. Ask them what you can do to make the habit come easily to them. (Because if it’s difficult, it will probably fall to the wayside in a matter of days!)

Often when we approach habits, we say, “I’m going to do this every day!” but we don’t give much thought to how we will do that. Or, we pick huge habits, like going to the gym everyday, and then get frustrated when we miss Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Break the habits up into small, manageable bits. If your goal is to have your children obey you, start small. Maybe they could get into the habit of saying, ‘Yes, mom,” after you ask them to do something. Or maybe your habit could be that they obey you promptly when you ask them to make their bed each morning (although, eventually you will want them to get into that habit all on their own!”

Make a Habit Statement

Recently, I’ve been helping my kids work on clearing the table completely after meals, and as we get up from the table, I start cleaning the kitchen immediately rather than being pulled into someone’s game (which is so precious, it just makes for a messy kitchen!) Some days, we did well with this habit, and other days I completely forgot. After paying attention, I realized that my cue for cleaning the kitchen is to get up from the table. On days that I was in a hurry and didn’t sit down for a meal, but ate quickly over the island while my kids sat at the table, the kitchen remained a mess and the bowls, cups, and napkins stayed on the table. So, in order to work on the habit of cleaning the kitchen and table after each meal, I needed to work on the habit of sitting down at each meal.

To do this, I needed to make a habit statement, not just a wishy-washy proclamation of, “Oh, I really need to sit down for meals!” Here are my two habit statements:

When I put the kids meals on the table, I will sit down to eat with them.

When I stand up from finishing my meal, I will go clean the kitchen in entirety.

Planning out habits like this helps us address the cue, the action before the habit that reminds us of what we’re going to do next. During your family habits meetings, discuss the cues that will help with each habit, and any environmental changes that might need to happen to help with the habit.

Family Habit Meeting Planner

While it’s definitely easier to develop concrete habits, by planning and approaching little parts of each habit at a time, it’s possible. Bring your whole family into the process to build deeper bonds and to get everyone excited about the habit training journey. I’ve created a family habits meeting planner that I wanted to share with you. It gives you space to write your habit training statement and process. Post it somewhere visible so you remember what to work on that week!

 

Making Tracks in the Snow, or, Habit Training

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If you’ve been hanging around with My Little Robins for awhile, you may have heard me make this analogy before. And, if you were a fourth grader in my class several years ago, you heard this analogy, too, that I made up to help you understand synaptic pruning and other concepts of habit training. I think this analogy is helpful, and I wanted to flesh out the similarities between habit training and walking in the snow. 

Today is a snow day for local schools, and we are celebrating it in our own way, with blanket forts and tea parties. Yesterday the air became frigid, dropping well below zero overnight, and layers of light, dry snow covered the ground. Our Wednesday plans were cancelled, and instead of staying inside, we braved the cold weather to play in the snow.

I loaded all of the children into my car, complete with a sled, all of their snow gear, and a bundler for the baby. The park with a slightly sloping “sledding hill” is within walking distance, but little legs get extra tired walking in the snow. When we pulled into the parking lot, I searched for signs of others. There were no tire marks in the parking lot, no little footprints near the hill. A part of me was disappointed that we were the only ones enjoying this crystal blanket. What were all of the other children doing? Do other people think it’s too cold to be outside right now? I was sad that we were literally the only ones enjoying this beautiful, although cold, day.

But there’s one thing that I always love about being the first one out in fresh snow.

The untouched beauty of the white snow blanket.

Knowing that no one else has set foot here today. 

I love it when we are the first feet to press down the powder.

Making our mark. 

Join Leah in the Thinking Love habits training course February 2019!

I watched as my toddler got out, a little unsure of his mother’s sanity for bringing him outside on such a day. He stayed by the car for a moment, then picked up his yellow boot high, holding it timidly above the fresh snow. He placed it down, hard, repeating the dramatic process several times. With over six inches of snow, each new step was hard-fought. The snow covered the top of his boots and I could see him thinking and planning each subsequent step carefully. He walked forward a bit, and then, gaining more confidence, walked in a circle, making a whimsical little loop of tiny boot prints.

He saw me smiling at him, and then he turned around retracing his steps, this time more quickly, more confidently. He had already pressed the tracks into the ground, and this time it was much easier. Had he turned back to retrace his steps again, he would have sailed by at his fast toddler pace.

Charlotte Mason Habit Training

And in my son’s exploration of the snow lies a secret of habit training. At first, we start off awkward and flailing. It is difficult to form a new habit, and it feels unnatural. We are, after all, fighting our nature. But, as we repeat the new habit again and again, it gets a little bit easier each time. We are no longer flailing, we begin sailing.

“For a habit is a delight in itself; poor human nature is conscious of the ease that it is to repeat the doing of anything without effort; and, therefore, the formation of a habit, the gradually lessening sense of effort in a given act, is pleasurable.” Home Education page 121 (affiliate link).

The process that our brain undergoes during habit training is called synaptic pruning. We strengthen the synaptic connections between neurons when we practice a new habit, and we weaken the connections between our former way of doing things. Like the snowy path, repeating the steps only makes the pathways stronger and clearer. Those trudging, stumbling motions become fluent, our new nature.

When you start to build a new habit, either for yourself or for your children, remember that it only gets easier. Remember that the unnatural, fighting piece of it is only temporary, until your brain, and your body, can catch on.

 

 

Keeping a Habit Training Journal

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I closed my journal, an exasperated sigh escaping my lips. I had read an entry from September 2016- more than a  year and a half ago.  Scratched in a sparkly pen were the words, “Grow in gentleness. Be more patient. Live more intentionally with my children.” I could have written those words yesterday. But instead, a year and a half had passed, and despite prayer and seeking the Lord in these areas, I felt very little change. Sometimes I’m still as gentle as a desert cactus and about as patient as a two-year-old. This time had flown by without intentional change.

I wonder what would have happened if I had kept writing in that journal, kept marking my progress on a regular basis. Would I have remembered to work on these things more intentionally, instead of just sending little lightning bolt prayers to God when I hovered on the brink of impatient desperation? Or maybe I would have been less discouraged by being able to see that change had been made, however slow and minor it was.

While we are working on our own habits, keeping track of our progress, our ups and downs, can be so helpful. This is no different when we are helping our children with their habits. In these early years of our children’s lives, habit training is one of the most important things we can do for our little ones. We can guide them towards developing strong habits so that they have the tools they need to thrive in school and life.

But habit training is easier said than done. Reading about it is one thing. Actually setting up positive habits and following through with new routines is a never-ending job that requires tact, watchfulness, and persistence.

To help us remain accountable, Charlotte Mason suggested that mothers keep a journal tracking your child’s physical, mental, and moral growth.

Every mother, especially, should keep a diary in which to note the successive phases of her child’s physical, mental, and moral growth, with particular attention to the moral; so that parents may be enabled to make a timely forecast of their children’s character, to foster in them every germ of good, and by prompt precautions to suppress, or at least restrain, what is bad.” Parents and Children, page 105

*I used affiliate links in this post, meaning I will earn a small commission at no cost to you should you choose to buy something.

To be intentional with #habits, keep a habit training #journal. #charlottemason

Keeping a Habit Training Journal

Here are some suggestions for starting a journal of your own.

Blank Notebook

In a pretty notebook, designate one page to each habit you want to work on with your child. Every few months or so, write a few lines about how your child is progressing. Setting it up that way will allow you to see your child’s development in specific areas. If you have multiple children, make room for a page per habit for each of your children. (I linked to some journals I like in my Amazon Store– affiliate link.)

Line a Day Journal

I’ve been keeping a One Line a Day Journal for almost 5 years now, which means I’ll need to get a new one next January! For each date, there is space for five years of notes. When I flip through my book, I can see exactly what my children said, did, or learned on a specific date. I love looking back through it and seeing how my children have changed. Also, this is a beautiful way to document the sweet, adorable things that your child says throughout the years 🙂

Habits eBook Journal

This printable journal helps moms get into the habit of habit training. It highlights the habits that are especially important when our little ones are young, and includes Charlotte Mason’s quotes and other practical tips for implementing habit training.

The journal has been recently updated to include even more ways to work on each habit. I’ve added book lists and age-appropriate chore ideas to help you achieve those smooth and easy days that Charlotte Mason told us about! There is no exact formula for habit training, and sometimes we have to try a few different things to see what resonates with our children.

But more than clever approaches, we need consistency. I created journal prompts to help you dig deeply into why bad habits occur, and how to redirect them into positive habits. There are also observation prompts so that you can track your child’s progress for several weeks, and see where your child needs additional progress.

You can download a free preview here and purchase the eBook here for $8.

 

Other resources:

Laying Down the Rails for Children– This is a resource from Simply Charlotte Mason that I’ve never seen, but have heard good things about.

Smooth and Easy Days– If the aforementioned resource seems too expensive, this free eBook from Simply Charlotte Mason is another option. It compiles Charlotte Mason’s quotes about habit training.

The Stages of Habit Formation- My Little Robins

The Habit of Prompt Obedience-My Little Robins

The Habit of Truthfulness- My Little Robins

The Habit of Attention- My Little Robins

Habit Training in the Early Years- Simply Charlotte Mason

Habit Training- Charlotte Mason Help

 

A #charlottemason habit training resource for the #earlyyears
Click to download a free preview of Habits for the Early Years: A Mother’s Journal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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