AmblesideOnline's Patio Chats:
3. Personhood: This is Foundational
Your child is a person. A Charlotte Mason education is based on this principle -- that your child is a person. Are you wondering how something so obvious can be the basis for anything?
Think about your own concept of children, and the ideas we hear about raising children. We mold them like clay, we prune and coax them like tender flowers in a greenhouse, we fill their minds with the kinds of things we hope will make them good people.
But how much can you, as a parent, really do to guarantee the outcome of the adult your child will grow into? Your child is neither a lump of clay to be molded, nor a plant in a greenhouse, nor an empty mind to fill with whatever you want. Your child is a full fledged person with a mind and personality all his own. Just like a seed that already has everything in it to grow to planthood and all we can do is water it, a child already has all of his personhood. He was born with it, and you as the parent are limited in how much you can mold that child, and what methods you can use to prune and coax -- because your child is an individual made in God's image, worthy of the same respect and dignity that anyone else is.
This week, take a long look at your child. Try to see the world through his eyes. Don't imagine him as the responsible, accomplished adult you dream he'll be someday; love him and enjoy him for who he is today.
"First of all, we take children seriously. After all, they're persons just like we are . . ." [from Charlotte Mason's Vol. 3 pg 63]
[Today's patio chat comes from Principle 1]
