February Habit-Obedience

A new month brings a new habit to focus on. This month I would like to work on the habit of obedience. I feel like the boys do a good job of obeying me, but there are a few things we need to work on.

I feel like with Bo the habit of attention and obedience is all wrapped up into one. Many times I ask him to do something and he's off to comply. A few minutes later I find him distracted by something else. He still has intentions of obeying, but it's slow in coming. He seems to need more direct eye contact and a hand on the shoulder to facilitate a quick obedience. This is something that I hope to get better with day by day. I am going to have to train myself to only give a command that I expect to be carried out immediatlely. Charlotte Mason speaks about that here:

In conclusion, let me say that the education of habit is successful in so far as it

enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual

commands and directions-a running fire of Do and Don't; but letting them

go thier own way and grow, having first secured that they will

go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose

Vol.1 Pg 134

This quote reminds me of the verse in Ephesians 6:2:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

I have noticed that Bo and Boo have been waiting until the 2nd time I ask them to do something before they comply. This is completely my fault! I have been allowing a command to be given twice before I expected obedience. We will be working on this throughout the month.

So this month we are working on obedience the first time mommy or daddy speaks. Mommy and Daddy are working on only making commands that we intend to see carried out.