This fall, we will be working on forming good habits in our homeschool. I am training my children to be functioning adults one day. I want them to be pleasant adults who are responsible and reliable. We use a variety of different methods for homeschooling but my favorite is Charlotte Mason Style. She really spoke a lot about forming good habits in children from a young age. A Charlotte Mason Companion is one of my favorite books about her teachings.
Each person has certain habits that they have formed over their lives. Brushing your teeth each morning and night, combing your hair, making a bed. These are all examples of activities we learned to do as children and have continued to do in adulthood.
The more I study about habits, the more I want to instill in my children certain habits that are good and good for them. There can be bad habits like biting your nails (guilty!), not cleaning up after yourself, yelling at others. I grew up in a “yelling home”. We yelled for everything. If the phone rang and it was for someone on the other side of the house, we yelled for them. I carried that habit into my marriage. The first year of marriage my husband was constantly asking me why I was yelling when it was just the two of us. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.
That is why having better habits from a young age is important. If we can train our children to not yell and clean up after themselves, they will have less “trouble” as they become adults. Work on filling children with the good things you want them to have when they leave the nest one day. Whether you teach them good or bad habits, they will carry them with them in their marriages and relationships.
Some of the good habits we will be working on are:
- Morning Routine – get up, get dressed, brush teeth, eat breakfast, clean up from breakfast.
- No Yelling – if you need someone, get up and go find them. Speak in an even and quiet tone.
- Zone Clean Up – each person will be assigned a zone to keep clean each day.
- Dinner Time – wait for everyone to sit at table, say prayers, speak quietly and kindly, ask to be excused when done, clean up from dinner.
- Reading and Bible Time – each day there will be 30 minutes of quiet reading and Bible time for yourself.
- Consistent Discipline – this one is for me as their mother.
- Obedience – obey right away with a good attitude.
These are only a few of the habits I have in mind for this coming school year. Having good habits become a part of our daily lives makes us better people. People who love others and are considerate. I plan to work on one habit at a time. Once that habit is mastered, we can move on to another one. Some may take longer than others. But, the key is to continue working on them so they become part of who you are.
Check out some resources for teaching your kids how to build good habits!
