Let the Little Children Come: Nurturing Relationships
Patterns for Life Chapter 11 audiobook
The primary role of parents in the early years, according to Charlotte Mason, is as inspirers. We are servant leaders who teach character and train habit by example. We disciple our children by modeling what discipleship looks like. We teach them to love others by loving them; by looking them in the eye when they speak to us, by patiently accepting interruptions when they happen, by laying aside our own agenda when they have a need to be met. We teach them to love reading by reading ourselves, and by reading to them every day. We sing the songs we love, listen to the music that moves us, look at beautiful artwork and show them what we like about it. We walk through the woods and point out the berries, listen to the birds, note the differences in the clouds from season to season. We teach them to love learning by continuing our own education.
We teach them attention by the power of our own gaze.
Patterns for Life, Chapter 11
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Often when new parents are interested in homeschooling they are eager to start right away. The incredible potential inherent in each child is most obvious to his or her parents, and it is understandable to want to build on the growth that we already see!
But often we confuse academic aptitude for academic readiness, and we overdo things in our excitement.
What we propose in this chapter, and what Charlotte Mason also advocated, is that our primary focus in the early years should be relationship, and there is no end to the number of relationships we can use this time to cultivate. Most importantly we want to focus on our relationship with Christ and our children.
The key to this development of relationship is attention — we have to learn to put our attention on one thing at a time, and to choose to attend first to those things that are actually worthy of our attention. This includes Mother Culture. We don’t need hours of uninterrupted time — we just need attention and possibly some creativity.
As we build the habit of Mother Culture (or Parent Culture — because this can certainly include dads too!) we can think about our relationships with things such as:
music
books
poetry
scripture
nature
numbers
The list could go on and on. There are no limits and certainly no right or wrong answers. By focusing on relationship we lay a secure and solid foundation on which to build later academic relationships.
Some questions to ponder:
Why is relationship so important?
What if we have older children and were not intentional about building relationship in the early years? Is it too late?
How does the habit of Mother/Parent Culture help to deepen our relationships with our children?
How have you found ways to build the habit of cultivating your own relationships?