Principle #15: The Habit of Attention:
“A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarizing, and the like.
Acting upon these and some other points in the behaviour of mind, we find that the educability of children is enormously greater than has hitherto been supposed, and is but little dependent on such circumstances as heredity and environment.
Nor is the accuracy of this statement limited to clever children or to children of the educated classes: thousands of children in Elementary Schools respond freely to this method, which is based on the behaviour of mind.” (Vol 6, p. xxx)
I took my three daughters to the Smokey Mountains one Spring for the Wildflower Pilgrimage to see the Spring ephemerals. We saw more than 40 varieties of flowers-- many of which I never knew existed!
As we were walking along the mountain trails, we passed so many people looking at their feet. As an older couple approached, I asked "Did you see any wildflowers from where you came from?"
"No. We didn’t."
"Let me show you what I’ve found!" I exclaimed and then pointed them to the one wildflower we’d spotted hidden along the path.
They looked to where I was pointing and were so thankful I showed them. Then, you guys, as we walked further the wildflowers became thicker and thicker along the edges of the trail. They COVERED patches of the hillside along the path. Wildflowers were EVERYWHERE! We were in a wildflower wonderland! That sweet older couple missed it.
So many people never see them.
As one naturalist we met along the trail said, "You have to learn to see them, but once you see, you can't 'unsee' them."
This is what attention does for us, it helps us to be more in tune with the world around us, more alert, more connected. Paying attention becomes our way of being. Our modus operandi. Once we learn how to “see” it becomes a habit, then we can’t “unsee.”
Learning to “see” is a habit to cultivate and a skill that can be learned. The habit of attention is an essential ingredient for learning. Attention is turning the whole force of the mind to the subject in hand; the fixed gaze of the mind. (Laying Down the Rails, Attention) As we saw with the wildflowers, one who does not pay attention cannot learn from the beauty that is around him. The habit of attention is therefore a foundational skill that can be both learned and taught. And it’s the job of mothers to teach it and the role of the teacher to cultivate it and not let our scholars remain blind.
If you’ve ever tried to teach a child to do something like read you can understand how impossible the task becomes if the child won’t pay attention to what he needs to learn when it’s time to learn it. If a child is excited about a new toy or grandparents coming to visit it can become almost impossible to teach him to focus on the task at hand and make his mind to attend.
But this is the beauty of teaching the habit of attention. First, we realize that it is a skill that can be cultivated in such a way that the child learns to have command of his own thoughts and can make himself draw his attention to the work at hand. This control helps the child realize his powers over himself and helps him to begin the journey towards self-governance.
Next, we understand that we cannot depend on the child’s efforts alone to control his thoughts. (This will be covered more when we look at the child’s will.) We must help him along by keeping our lessons short for the very young child and move him from task to task so that his full attention can come to bear on each task. He gets weary if we linger on one skill for too long. We can tell we’ve lost him when he becomes restless and fidgety. His energy was used up on one thing only and now, he needs a snack, a break, and a romp outside.
How to Secure Attention
The good news for us is that part of our role as mother-teachers is to help our children develop the habit of attention. We can do this through planning out the daily schedule, keeping the lessons short, changing the types of lessons, and being a student of our children.
Daily Schedule - Also called the timetable, this schedule helps you decide what will be done, in what order, and for how long. Deciding these details ahead of time help you communicate the expectations for the day with your child and help you hold to the work you’ve set out for the day. The schedule helps everyone know what we will study, when we will study it, and how long we will continue with this particular lesson.
Short Lessons - For children under eight, lessons should be shorter than 20 minutes each. Shorter if you are reading aloud or cultivating a new skill that takes a lot of mental work like phonics or math. (Here’s a helpful article about short lessons.) If there is more of a lesson to do in a given day, come back to it after a break. Older children begin to lengthen their ability for longer lessons, but the same principle applies. Keep the lessons short in order to cultivate good attention.
Vary Lesson - Changing from one type of lesson to the other can also help keep our children engaged in the work at hand. “A change is as good as a rest,” is a faithful saying. When we vary the lessons, the child’s mind doesn’t get exhausted by one line of thinking or one type of straining. The change pulls him through the morning so that he feels the time has flown by with ease.
Know Thy Child - Child development plays an important part in the success of our daily lessons and in securing attention. It’s our job to take our child’s age, abilities, and skill level into consideration when laying out the work for the day. Sometimes other things are at play when a child won’t pay attention or can’t seem to remember the sound for the letter “h”. Attention can’t be compelled to any meaningful effect, we must coach, encourage and use our tools of atmosphere, discipline, and life to help our children cultivate this skill for themselves.
*Note: In a world where “everyone’s” child is “advanced,” I will point out that all children five and younger, though they CAN be taught to read and write, it is not because they MUST learn to read and write at that age. I’ve had two children learn to read before 5 and that was because each CHILD was pushing to learn. What is better for our children is that they learn obedience to parents and attention to things in the real world first. Children get tired of words more quickly than they get tired of watching the ants marching or the caterpillar eating. Let the glories of nature teach them how to pay attention because the labors of the classroom can wait and will be more fruitful, if the time out-of-doors has been cultivated and enjoyed. (If you need help here, grab my free nature study guide and learn how to get outside and use those nature journals to learn how to pay attention to God’s world!.
When Securing Attention Needs Discipline
We all know that the habit of attention is its own reward - then you get to ENJOY the lesson, right?! But what if you don’t get far enough along for the child to enjoy the lesson because you can’t get to the lesson because the child isn’t paying attention? Let’s look at some ideas from Mason and then I’ll share some things we’ve used to support our children.
Natural consequences - If you don’t pay attention then you won’t hear the end of the story, get to participate in the clay modeling work after the story, or now it’s time for Math, you missed it. Now, this one doesn’t always work if it allows a child to continue bad behavior but can allow you to skip a lesson in the moment and place a disruptive child in a quiet place where he won’t disturb his siblings. You might say, “Come sit next to me while everyone else is finishing their lesson.” The challenge with training the habit of attention in a large family is that there are many opportunities to lose our attention because we have so many moving parts. But, if we have a plan for what to do when distractions arise, then our day won’t be derailed.
Praise - Mason affirms the use of praise- not in a manipulative way, but in a genuine way. This means that when our children give us their attention, we point it out, thank them and celebrate their achievements. I think it’s easy for homeschool moms to just get our heads down and try to get through the day! We need to rejoice with our kids when they show command of themselves! This is progress!
Reward of Free Time - When a lesson is scheduled to take 10 minutes for perfect handwriting and our child does it perfectly in 5 minutes, why not reward him with “a romp in the garden” for the final 5 minutes. Be sure to set a timer so that you remember to call him back in, but this freedom in the midst of the school morning is one of the joys of homeschooling. Use it as a tool to help your student do his work with attention.
Keep Short Accounts - Like any habit, we must know when we failed to keep the habit in order to recognize how to make the correction. A “short account” simply means that we won’t allow problems to build up over time. We address disobedience or lack of attention quickly and kindly so that dawdlers can move forward through the lesson at a reasonable clip and wiggle-worms can be given opportunities to use their bodies to learn. As the mother-teacher, I need to point out the mistake and teach the correction so my child can pay attention with ease. Ignoring poor attention will create more problems down the line. Keeping short accounts means that we continue to move our child toward good habits and don’t allow bad habits to form, within reason, of course.
Strickendes Mädchen by Albert Ankor
Teaching children how to control themselves and particularly draw their thoughts towards the good, true, and beautiful seems a bit daunting. But remember, our children are hungry to learn. Their minds are searching for nourishing ideas. The books we choose, the art we look at, and the music we listen to matters because it brings this needed nourishment. We want to draw our children’s attention to things that are worthy of their time, affection, and attention.
As mother-teachers we can use the habits of our homeschool as tools to train our children how to pay attention. We can set up our spaces and organize our daily routines so that our children come prepared by knowing what’s expected of them and how to work through their lessons with a joyous posture. These tools are not rules to make us slaves - rather they are principles that offer boundaries so that we can work through our lessons freely together.
When we understand the goal of the education we are seeking to give- which is the formation of character, then how we get there becomes clear. The habit of attention, if we help our children cultivate it, will allow our children to be able to govern themselves, their thoughts, and their actions.
I’ll leave you with Ms. Mason’s own words as to why the habit of attention is one of the first habits we start to help our children cultivate. She says, “First, we put the habit of attention, because the highest intellectual gifts depend for their value upon the measure in which their owner has cultivated the habit of attention. To explain why this habit is of such supreme importance we must consider the operation of one or two of the laws of thought. But just recall, in the meantime, the fixity of attention with which the trained professional man-- the lawyer, the doctor, the man of letters-- listens to the roundabout story, throws out the padding, seizes the facts, sees the bearing of every circumstance, and puts the case with new clearness and method; and contrast this with the wandering eye and random replies of the uneducated;-- and you see that to differentiate people according to their power of attention is to employ a legitimate test. (Vol 1, p 137)
Reflection Questions:
How have I observed the habit of attention developing in my children during our homeschool days, and what specific practices have helped cultivate it?
(Consider moments where your child was deeply engaged—was it during nature study, reading, or something else?)
In what ways am I modeling the habit of attention in my own life, and how might my example be influencing my children—positively or negatively?
(Think about how you handle distractions, stay present during lessons, or observe the little things in nature or conversation.)
Do I keep lessons short and varied enough to protect and build my child’s ability to attend? What adjustments might help us better honor this principle?
(Reflect on your daily rhythm—do your lessons feel fresh and intentional, or rushed and draining?)
How am I using the natural world, like Charlotte Mason encourages, to awaken my children’s attention and wonder?
(Consider if your children are learning to truly "see" like in the wildflower story, and how nature walks or outdoor time are structured. If you need help here, check out my free nature study guide for learning about flowers.)
When my children struggle with attention, do I respond with discipline, understanding, or both? How can I better balance grace and guidance in those moments?
(Think about what methods have worked—or not—and how your responses shape habits long-term.)
**If you want to be effective with your Nature Study work, check out my Nature Study Hacking Guides at www.howeverimperfectly.com. Learn how to get outside and use those lovely nature journals which will help you and your children cultivate the habit of attention with ease.**
20 Principles of a Liberating Education:
#2 The Good and Evil Nature of Children
#3 Parents are in Charge and Children Must Obey
#4 Limits to Our Authority as Parents and Educators
#5 Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life| a primer
#9 Feeding the Hungry Mind
#10 From Bucket Heads to Bright Minds| The True Role of Teacher & Learner
#11 Drop the Timeline Song| Education is Cultivating Wisdom Through Nourishing Ideas
#13 The Curriculum i.e. The Living Library
#15 The Habit of Attention (You Are Here)
Bibliography for further reading:
Know and Tell by Karen Glass
Start Here, a Journey through Mason’s 20 Principles by Brandy Vencel
Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason
Home Education by Charlotte Mason
Laying Down the Rails by Simply Charlotte Mason (This book explains the habits and gives excerpts of Mason’s own words on each habit to be cultivated)
Laying Down the Rails for Children by Simply Charlotte Mason (This book has lessons on habit training to do with your family)
What did Charlotte Mason say about short lessons? by Brandy Vencel
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