A Thinking Love

"Mothers owe a 'thinking love' to their children...how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed?"- 19th Century British Educator Charlotte Mason

How do we love our children? With thoughtfulness. We love them by choosing to be thinking parents, intentional parents. What is an intentional parent? According to Sonya Shafer, it is a parent who trains her children thoughtfully and purposefully. This parent does not just follow the crowd or culture, but intentionally considers and plans for the best for her children.

Following are some considerations of a thinking mother:

How shall this child's heart be employed? The child needs something to love.

Perhaps this would be better understood as someone to love. Is your child's heart being filled with love? Are you talking to your child about the love of God “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7) Are you continually drawing the heart of your child toward his Maker? Children also need your love to be poured into their hearts. Are you giving her your focused attention and affection? Is he feeling those caresses, hugs and kisses and seeing your eyes looking at his as he shares his childhood stories? Are you filling your child's love tank? How is your child's heart employed? I hope with love overflowing!

How shall this child's head be employed? The child needs something to think about.

Philippians 4:8 admonishes us to think about things that are true, noble, lovely, pure, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Well, this verse applies to your children also:) How can you help them think about such things? You feed your children nourishing meals every day, avoiding junk food as much as possible. Children need healthy nourishment for their minds also. Where can you find such wholesome food for their minds? One of the best ways is through the ideas found in books. And the best book is the one God wrote. Reading the scriptures and bible stories to our children gives them awesome ideas to think about! Adding to this classic books (whether read aloud by mother or read silently by child herself) will aid in wholesomely employing a child's head with excellent thoughts. Children are also drawn to thinking about lovely and praiseworthy things through the music we play around them and the beauty they experience, especially the beauty of God's creation! Lastly, the child's head must be employed with his academic studies, such as math and geography. How are you employing your child's head? What sort of thoughts are you planting in his garden? What books is she reading? (Not sure which books are worthy? Check out my recommended "books about books" below). What music does she hear? Is he also employing his head with healthy mental exercises that grow the brain (rather than sitting in front of a TV screen all day)?

How shall these hands be employed? The child needs something to do.

Sounds simple right? I am referring to worthwhile activities though (of which watching TV is not one of these!) Meaningful ways for a child's hands to be employed can be through disciplined work (we all have to learn to complete those chores!), creative work such as art and handicrafts and the imaginative "work" of playing with open-ended toys. (Hearthsong, Rosie Hippo, Nova, and The Magic Cabin are good places to find such toys). Playing outside is also a healthy thing to do. What are your child's hands touching today? The broom, the paintbrush and the wooden blocks or the remote control? What is your child doing today?

May we be thinking mothers, who thoughtfully consider how to employ the hearts, heads and hands of our children. Plan ahead what books you will feed their minds with, what music you will play in your house, and what toys and creative tools you will set before them. Purposefully include talks of God and your attentive ears and touch in your child's days. Do not neglect time outdoors bathing in God's beautiful creation or the needed discipline of mental and physical work.

Give your child's heart love, her head wholesome thoughts and his hands meaningful occupations and watch the wings sprout...


A few of Charlotte Mason's quotes to ponder:

"The culmination of all education....is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection."

"A parent's chief duty is to form in his child right habits of thinking and behaving. Next duty is to nourish the child daily with loving, right and noble ideas."

"The learning by heart of Bible passages should begin while the children are quite young, six or seven. It is a delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting, and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner of seed may spring up, grow, and bear fruit."

"People are naturally divided into those who read and think, and those who do not read and think; and the business of schools is to see that all their scholars shall belong to the former class."

"Mind appeals to mind and thought begets thought and that is how we become educated. For this reason, we owe it to every child to put him in communication with great minds that he may get at great thoughts; with the minds, that is, of those who have left us great works; and the only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books."

"It is no small part of education to have seen much beauty, to recognize it when we see it, and to keep ourselves humble in its presence."

"It is the part of the parents to bring the minds of their children under the influence of the highest, purest poetic thought we have...We must read our poets...till our minds are full of the best thoughts and the loveliest expressions that the world has yet uttered."

"Let his arithmetic lesson be to the child a daily exercise in clear thinking and rapid, careful execution, and his mental growth will be as obvious as the sprouting of seedlings in the spring."

"Knowing that the brain is the physical seat of habit and that conduct and character, alike, are the outcome of the habits we allow; knowing, too, that an inspiring idea imitates a new habit of thought, and hence a new habit of life; we perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalizing ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalizing ideas."

"He practices various handicrafts that he may know the feel of wood, clay, leather and the joy of handling tools..."




***Ideas adapted from Karen Andreola's A Charlotte Mason Companion