Charlotte Mason's 18th and 19th principles state "18: The way of reason: We teach children, too, not to 'lean (too confidently) to their own understanding'; because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration (a) of mathematical truth, (b) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case, reason is, practically, an infallible guide, but in the latter, it is not always a safe one; for, whether that idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs. 19. Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them. These principles should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need."

Can all of Charlotte Mason's principles be the most  life-changing? Must I pick one? Then I pick this one. Learning how to strengthen our own will and then teaching our children how to strengthen their own wills can give us all a wonderful tool to have a happy life. And I think that's a pretty important thing. 

Charlotte Mason's 14th and 15th principles talk about why narration is important and how often we should repeat reading in lessons. (hint: it's never) In this episode, I talk about how narration really makes things stick in our minds and how true it is that our children can pay attention the first time if we don't teach them otherwise.

Charlotte Mason's 13th principle begins to explain what the curriculum should be for children. She starts with three points: The children should have much knowledge, a variety of knowledge, and the information should be presented through rich, literary language. 

Charlotte Mason’s 12th principle is, “Education is the Science of Relations”; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of–’Those first-born affinities that fit our new existence to existing things.”

It took me a long time to understand this concept, but I finally got it and I am super excited to talk about this.

Charlotte Mason's principles 8 through 11 all talk about Education being a Life for our children. In this episode, we explain what this means and give some examples of how it looks to have a true living education.

Last episode, we learned about how we might misuse our authority over our children. In this episode, we get to start talking about the respectful and effective tools we can use to teach our children. Charlotte Mason broke it down into three tools of education: the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. I talked about the atmosphere of education in a previous episode that you can listen to here: 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7k3HGr5kSOFVf14NNDW8wE?si=b9876ce58ee54b7e

So we will skip that for now and move onto habits. Why are they important and how do we intentionally form them?

Charlotte Mason's fourth principle adds onto the third. Yes, we have been given authority over our children, but we are not to misuse this authority. We are to act in kindness and respect the personhood of our children.  

Obedience can be an uncomfortable word for some people. I know it used to be a hard one for me. I wasn't sure if I should expect obedience from my children because I was unsure of my role as a mother. Charlotte Mason stated how we all need to be obedient, not just children, and that obedience leads to safety and a life of following Christ. In this episode, we discuss how the principles of obedience and authority make for a happy parent/child relationship.

Charlotte Mason's second principle is: Children are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and evil. God has given our children the gift of choice and sometimes, they choose the right and sometimes, they don't. As parents, we can guide our children toward goodness by correcting or encouraging them depending on what they need at the time.