March/April 2002
Feature Articles
Holistic Health Q & A
by Karen R. Raymund
Of PMS, premenopausal weight-gain,
and osteoporosis.
What is... Psychotherapy?
by Charles Larsen
Of various schools of psychotherapy
and what to expect and look for.
EnergyUpDate
by David Findlay
Articles on the theme "Good & Bad Habits"
Teaching Good Habits
by Barbara Bedingfield
A Waldorf teacher's viewpoint on how
adults should teach children the importance of good habits.
Mother Of All Bad Habits
by Aman Motwane
The habit of chasing illusions rather
than seeing the world as it is and dealing wih reality.
It's All Habit
by Patrick Plaskett
Using the mechanism of habits to get
the results in life that we want.
Improving Your Game
by Rev. Pat Cross
The effect habits have on our lives.
Using good habits to accentuate the positive.
The Fewer the Better
by Lisa Raphael
Letting go of habits and, instead,
living fully conscious of our thoughts, feelings and actions.
Changing From The Inside
by Rev. Linda Lou Kearns
Having the courage to be completely
honest, getting "out of the box."
Peace of Mind
by David Hunt
"A Course in Miracels" approach
to habits.
The Essence of a Habit
by Daniel DeFrank
How to replace negative habits with
life enhancing ones using the power of our thoughts.
Habits, Physical and Mental
by Betty Perry
Of behavior patterns and patterns of
thought. How they affect our lives.
Teaching Good Habits
by Barbara Bedingfield
Habits, good and bad, are developed early in life. By understanding a child's development according to Nature's timetable, we can develop good habits in children that will help to make them responsible, socially pleasant, and productive human beings. This must be done in a way that is appropriate for the age of the child.
From birth to age seven, is the first stage of development in which a child's powers of imitation are stronger than at any other time of life; thus we can use this force to teach children in a way that is unobtrusive and natural. Children at this stage are like one great sense organ, taking in everything around them in a way that is not conscious. They take in not only what we do, but also what we say this is how they learn their mother tongue and what we think or feel. This places a burden on adults to take themselves in hand and to be human beings who are worthy of imitation. If we are hoarding negative thoughts, if we are wallowing in emotional seas, if we are scattered in our actions, rather than purposeful and fully present, we are negatively affecting the habit lives and the health of our children.
Visit any Waldorf kindergarten and you will see this unobtrusive and quiet way of teaching out of the principle of imitation. You will see children putting away all the toys after play time, folding all the silk and cotton cloths and putting them in a basket; you will see them sitting at a well-set table during snack, passing the bowls to one another, asking politely for seconds, then removing their bowls and washing them up when snack is over. You will see them changing from outside to inside shoes as they arrive in the mornings. You will see the dolls carefully tucked into their beds and covered up, never left sprawled naked on the floor, for what does this teach a child about care and reverence? You will hear children singing songs in high sweet voices and reciting verses and poems in full after hearing them only once or twice. Such is the power of this imitative force!
The remarkable thing is that the kindergarten teacher's voice is rarely heard and, if it is, it is soft, but sure and very brief in its indications. She may say, "We sit like kings and queens at the table," when the children are rambunctious. And when a child asks for seconds, a simple saying for him or her "Please, may I have more bread?" rather than the typical "Say thank you, say thank you now, say thank you." The teacher does not necessarily insist that the child repeat the words, but, miraculously, because children are perfect imitators, they do repeat the words and soon they are repeating them out of habit.
To transition from one activity to another, the teacher sings in a soft, high voice that leads the children in knowing what to do.
Many parents despair over the piles of toys in their children's rooms and wonder how they can help their children learn to keep their rooms in good order. When we allow children to accumulate piles of plastic toys that are broken and thrown all together into a vast toy box, we are teaching them, first of all, that the toys have no value. They are here today, gone tomorrow. Nothing is sacred enough to be repaired. We are fostering accumulation and consumption. Secondly, it is very difficult to teach children to clean their rooms when there are so many things scattered everywhere. The children (and we) are overwhelmed. What is the value of a hundred stuffed animals? Parents must take charge and not let toys accumulate to the point of pointlessness. One has to appeal to family and friends to help. Let them know that you are not buying into the for-profit corporate scheme of commercial toys. Give them catalogs that specialize in simpler, more creative toys for children. (Lists of these catalogs are available from School of the Suncoast.) Have birthday parties that encourage homemade gifts of drawn pictures or modeled figures. Or make a list of simple, inexpensive gifts that won't add to the accumulation such as polished stones, bubbles, drawing paper, play cloths, etc.
Never expect that a child under seven can go into a room and clean it on their own. They need our help. Develop a rhythm of cleaning. If, before going to bed at night, part of the rhythm of the day is to put the toys to bed, to tell them goodnight, to place each one in their special spot on the shelf, the routine becomes one that a child looks forward to. The good part is that the adult can simply begin to do this in front of the child and, if you are doing it with attentive pleasure, the young child will quickly begin to imitate and join in. You will see that you do not have to coax, to threaten or to instruct with moral platitudes. The child will develop the good habit of putting the toys away each night.
This example can be transferred to any of the daily activities at home whether it is going to bed at a regular time, brushing teeth, gardening, clearing the table, developing table manners, closing doors, wiping feet or getting dressed. Less talk and more doing on the part of the adult is required. Refrain from a constant stream of instruction and admonition. It bears heavily on a child's nervous system. Refrain from offering myriads of choices. Children need to feel that the adults are in charge and setting the limits. The adults, with their egos, must determine the day's routines and set the good example for the child.
What about the period from seven to fourteen, the next developmental stage? Now the imitative powers have lessened and the children are looking for an authority figure. They will still, of course, imitate the behaviors they see around them, which means that we adults must be conscious of developing our own good habits. But now they are in need of the spoken word. The word today has lost much of its power of the past. Speech is careless; words are tossed off; parents end their requests with a question, "Clean up your room, OK?" If parents could change one habit that could make a great difference in helping children to form good habits, it would be to break the habit of ending statements with "OK?" Adults, parents and teachers alike, must develop effective speech. Begin with an inner conviction that what you wish to have done is, in fact, important and must be done. Imagine how determined you are when it comes to combing those pesky lice out of hair! You are not deterred from the task at hand. You know for sure that this must be done. This is how we must inwardly feel about whatever habit we are wishing to develop in a child.
In our age of democratic ideals, many adults assume that a democratic household is appropriate for children who should be given license to voice their opinions about everything from food, to clothing, to bedtime, to manners and, in short, to all manner of things. This belief, while well meaning, is misguided and detrimental to the child, particularly in the area of forming good habits. Children need authority figures who make the daily decisions with clarity and conviction.
If the forming of good habits such as hanging up clothes or putting dirty clothes in the hamper, tidying rooms, asking to be excused from the table, having a daily chore to do, etc. have not yet been in practice, it is best to begin with one thing that you hope to develop. Then you must, with all diligence, see that that one thing is done religiously everyday for a month. As adults, we must train ourselves to remind the child each day without fail and without judgment, and we must say it patiently over and over again until it has been taken into the habit life.
In my school I am able to work with the same class of children from first grade through grade eight. My class, now in third grade, has developed the habit of pushing in their chairs when they leave the classroom. Oh, once in a while there is a lapse, but the class as a whole does this without thought. They do it because I have insisted on it since first grade. Each morning I greet every child with a handshake and the children have developed the habit of looking at me directly and saying, "Good morning, Mrs. Bedingfield." They also take off their shoes before entering the classroom and set them side by side in an orderly fashion. They are reminded to keep their desks in order. They must remember to hang up their jackets and place their lunch boxes on the shelf. When we paint with watercolors each week they have specific jobs for setting up the paints and then cleaning up. At the end of the day, the children have special clean-up jobs in the classroom. This forming of good habits takes time and patience. No matter how many times it has been said before, it must be said again and again, until the children do it without thought.
This is demanding on teachers and parents. It means that we must be fully conscious to make sure that these little habits don't slip. This takes energy. We have to be fully conscious of our own bad habits that need to be changed: leaving doors and drawers opened, forgetting appointments, not putting things away, allowing our desks and files to be in disorder, speaking ineffectively, slouching, or gesticulating wildly.
Children need the sure guidance of adults who are modeling good habits and teaching good habits in age-appropriate ways. It goes without saying that this teaching, whether by teacher or by parent, is imbued with reverence for the child and a love that is not sentimental and arbitrary, but steadfast and based on a deep and growing understanding and total acceptance of the child.
Barbara Bedingfield is a founder of School of the Suncoast, a developing Waldorf school in Clearwater FL that is part of the worldwide Waldorf School Movement first begun in 1919. (727) 532-0696
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