The Power of Habit

“The habits of the child produce the character of the man.”
-​Charlotte Mason.

Sick and tired of fighting with your kids? It doesn't work, does it?

There really is a better way... Habit-Training.

What is habit-training?
Habit-training is the intentional process of creating a habit.  A habit is anything a person does on a regular basis without having to think about it.

Read on to find out how to harness habit training to stop fighting and start working together..

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​My daughter has the bad habit of dropping everything on the floor.  You can imagine what her side of the room looks like at bedtime.  Not a pleasant way to end the day, right?

At first I tried to get my Drop-Everything-on-the-Floor Daughter to create the habit of Use a Thing, Put It Back.  It sounds simple enough, but I could not hover over her and every item in the house.  It was simply not possible to remind her of the habit consistently.

After much frustration, I took a step back and changed my approach: I put a little chart on her door, numbered 1 to 30 and wrote “Books Away” on it.  I told her that if she had all the books put away when we came up to tuck her in for bed, she could have a star on the chart. After she got all 30 stars, we would take her to the dollar store and she could pick out anything she wanted!

When we checked her room each evening, we ignored everything but the books.  I gave her grace with the rest of the mess (within reason).  

We focused on the one habit.  This let me encourage her, and not stress out.  

Very quickly she learned that she never had to pick up any books if she didn’t drop them on the floor!  The habit became important to her, and she put the effort into it!  

She earned her prize, and the next month we started a new chart. Same deal, but now she has to have the books and her craft supplies put away to get her star.  

I have to tell you, I was totally kicking myself.  All the nagging in the world had done nothing to help her tidy up her part of the room.  I wasted months battling with her!

By giving her a clear goal, and focusing on one habit, we were able to make a huge change.  And I was able to be encouraging and kind.  To give her grace over the other stuff!  And slowly but surely we are making progress!

That’s the power of Habit-Training.

How to get started:

1. Choose ONE habit per child (or for yourself)!
2. Get the kid on board.  Habit-training goes much smoother this way! For example, if you want your child to leave their shoes on the porch, you can ask them questions.  “Hmm.  We have chickens wandering around our yard.  They are messy.  We might step in it when we’re outside, yuck!  What do you think we can do to keep that outside?”
3. When the opportunity to work on the habit arises, try to remind them about it with a question.  Keeping with the shoes-on-the-porch example, if they come running inside with their shoes on you might say:  “Oops!  What habit are we working on right now?”  You can look at their feet if they need a little hint.  “Get out of my house with those nasty shoes!” is not what you’re going for.
4. When you catch them remembering the new habit, try to say something encouraging.  “Hey!  Our floors are so much cleaner!  You are doing so great!”
5. At first you will need to monitor the habit very closely.  Eventually they will be doing great, but sooner or later, they will slip up.  Resist the temptation to overlook it!  You are creating a habit!  If you overlook the slip up, they will too, and then you will have a different habit on your hands!
6. Give the habit time to set in before choosing the next habit to work on.
7. And remember, sometimes you will have to re-evaluate your habit-training. 
   

This is how habit-training works for me.  Everyone's different...
If you'd like to read up on the original habit-training queen, you can read Charlotte Mason's thoughts on habit formation here (for free). It's a very old book, but an interesting read!

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Copyright 2016 by Anna Travis.  All rights reserved.
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