Habit Training

Trains run smoothly on train tracks. Good habits are the tracks for the train of life- laid down carefully, with forethought, planning, and care, trains run smoothly and efficiently. Laid down carelessly, delays and accidents occur.

Here's the frightening thing- habit is inevitable. Your children (and you) are developing and reinforcing habits on a daily basis, whether you give it any thought or not. When you do not bother to take the care to ease your childrens' lives "by laying down habits of right thinking and right acting, habits of wrong thinking and wrong acting fix themselves of their own accord, " you are still helping them lay down habits.  The non-act of not taking action, of avoiding the effort of deciding to build good habits and enforcing them through diligent, loving, consistent, training simply leaves your children at the mercy of the default button when it comes to building habits- because they will still build them. Only they will be more likely to build bad habits that make their lives run more roughly and unevenly.

"We avoid decision and indecision brings its own delays, "and days are lost lamenting o'er lost days." "

The interesting- and to me rather depressing thing- is that even the most casual parents never truly neglects all habit training. We do train children to eat with their utensils instead of their hands so that the habit is so ingrained they pick up the fork or spoon automatically, without thought. We train them to certain habits of hygiene or grooming much the same way. They do not have to think about every single bite of food in order to chew with their lips closed. They do not have to remind themselves to use soap (if they are not 12 year old boys). What a burden and drudgery daily life would be if "every act of the bath, toilet, table, every lifting of the fork and use of spoon were a matter of consideration and required an effort of decision!"

When you consider how much more smoothly daily life runs when smooth rails of good habits have been laid down, it's easy to see that while the job of the parent is multi-faceted, habit training is certainly a vital, but neglected part of parenting.  It is every parent's business is to lay down lines of habit upon which our children's behaviour might run more easily, so that their lives run more smoothly in the way they should go.  They can thus expend more energy and attention on the harder tasks of life, unhindered by the obstacles and delays of bad habits that otherwise derail our lives.

Realizing that there are good habits in both the physical and the spiritual realms of life, we can list some of those good habits.  Here are some that come randomly to my mind (you may think of others):

regular church attendance, truth telling, putting things away instead of the 'unlawful habit of scattering,' washing hands before a meal and after petting an animal, opening a door for a woman, offering a chair to the elderly (or boys offering a chair to ladies), regular bathing, polite speech, civility, the proper use of those magic words (please, thank-you, and you're welcome), good posture, praying before meals, daily Bible reading, closing doors behind one, not interrupting, proper apologies, self-control, and so on, and on.

However, it's really not that necessary to list those habits which we should aim at forming, because.- and this is important to recognize in ourselves- everyone "knows more about these than anyone practises."

We admire the result of years of good habits when we see those results, but we shrink from the discipline which is able to produce them, and there is no other way of forming any good habit except through that discipline.

The most effective discipline is that of self discipline- a government of the soul which the person exercises upon himself, but most people need help from the outside to reach that state of self-governance from the inside. Especially when we are young (for best results), a " certain strenuousness in the formation of good habits" from the outside in is necessary because "every such habit is the result of conflict-" or hard work, a fight against what is easiest and for what is best.

That is because the bad habits are easy to develop and the good ones harder, and the easy life is, well, easy. The bad habit of the easy life always seems pleasant and persuasive but it is to be resisted with pain and effort. However, we should work on those bad habits also with hope and certainty of success, because God created and designed us so that we could form such disciplined habits of muscle and mind as we deliberately propose to ourselves.

Paraphrased and sometimes directly quoted from "Towards the Philosophy of Education," by Charlotte Mason

Questions to consider-  you do not have to tell me the answers, but they might be helpful for discussion in a group or family:
What, if any, bad habits derail you? How?
How would good habits make your daily life run more smoothly?
What good habits would you like to develop in yourself or your children?
What hinders you?
What sort of discipline would you need to apply to develop those habits? What would you need to change in your life to make deliberate habit training easier?  Is there something you could change in your house and daily activities that would help improve a good habit and derail a bad one?  This can be something as simple as a laundry basket or waste bin in the right place.

We ought, of course, to tell the truth because it is the right thing to do, but I also believe that truth telling as a good habit can also make doing the right thing easier. Why would that be?

What, if anything, does the Bible have to say about habits? Which verses or biblical stories could encourage you in the development of good habits in yourself or your children?

What other stories can you think of that might help spur you or your children in the development of good habits?

You might like this post on building the habit of Bible reading even during the hard times of life.