As I wrote yesterday, I have challenged myself to read 4-5 chapters a week of Charlotte Mason’s School Education and share a quote from each chapter here on the blog. The first couple of chapters explore the principles of authority and docility (obedience), and their foundational importance to education. Miss Mason strives for a proper balance between upholding parental authority, and respecting the personhood of the child. Parents should not set themselves up as somehow superior to their children, but make sure the children know that they are human too, and that they can come to them with their questions and struggles:
…it is much to a child to know that he may question, may talk of the thing that perplexes him, and that there is comprehension for his perplexities. Effusive sympathy is a mistake, and bores a child when it does not make him silly. But just to know that you can ask and tell is a great outlet, and means, to the parent, the power of direction, and to the child, free and natural development.
What a rich statement by Charlotte Mason, Anna, and I almost wept for its beauty.