Weekly reflection on Charlotte Mason Vol 1 Home Education, pages 11-20

What did you learn from your reading?

p. 17 "Despise: to have a low opinion of, to undervalue" - thus the dictionary; and, as a matter of fact, however much we may delight in them, we grown-up people have far too low an opinion of children."
I am ashamed to admit that I learn more and more every day how I have too low opinion of children as a function of my cultural training that I'd like to admit. That is not to say I think ill of children. On the contrary, I love children, mine most of all. However, I think that through pop culture, pop psychology, and mass marketing I have come to have too low opinion of their capabilities, desires, and innate moral character. I am beginning to distinguish  between approaching my child through who I"know" him to be through my daily experience of him and who I "think" him to be as determined by my expectations of a 4-year-old boy. When I default into interacting with the "idealized" 4-year old, it usually doesn't have good results. That is a tip off that I am not being mindful or present and my son can sense that automatically, usually acting out in some way to get me to notice him, to jog me back to being present. It is his way of saying, "Wake up mom and notice ME." That is "ME" as who he really is.

p. 20 "The mischief lies in that same foolish undervaluing of the children, in the notion that the child can have no spiritual life until it please his elders to kindle the flame."
    That a child could have an independent spiritual life from the start, one that originates and develops without the influence or consent of adults is profound to consider yet once considered, seems rather obvious. I recall having what I would now call mystical experiences as a small child. At that age I just accepted them as  "the norm" - everyday part of life - and had neither language with which to express them nor adults in whom to confide. Our real duties, as adults and parents, is to guide children in their spirituality, give them language with which to express their experiences, and candidly offer our own experiences to them. We guide them in our own faith traditions as lovingly and respectfully as we can, helping guard their experiences of divine love as best we can to fuel their growing faith.