Parenting without Scolding

Shinichi Suzuki, on retraining a bad attitude in a child--

"Scolding does no good and should be avoided....the whole household would do no more grumbling but that we all would have to display better manners and conduct in our daily life. 'If we create such an environment, Koji [the child who had a bad attitude and had been scolded] will, without noticing it, become a good child, and his life will not be harmfully distorted by scolding.'"

This is certainly good food for thought in assessing parenting and the atmosphere we create in our homes.  Are manners and good conduct hopelessly old-fashioned, or do they serve a purpose?  I submit that in a home where people do try to display manners and good conduct to each other, the children absorb this by osmosis.  That is not to say it doesn't take years of polite correction to get a child to practice good manners, but that all the scolding and training in the world is useless unless we as parents are willing to 'walk the walk' in our daily lives.  I also believe that I should correct my children with a kind, gentle attitude, and not by yelling, scolding or acting harsh (easier said than done sometimes, right?  We are all human....) and I try to do this each day. The more practice I get the more naturally it comes to be able to correct and guide my children without losing my own cool...and *they* notice this and take it to heart.

One of my little mottoes is to treat your guests like family and your family like guests.  This fits in nicely with that and provides inspiration to continue trying to live that out in our family life!

Once again, Shinichi Suzuki's advice goes beyond the music lesson!

Her World is Getting Bigger and Bigger

Here is an essay so inspiring that I printed it out on Real Paper to keep in my binder.

An excerpt:

"Once I came home from college to discover my mother beating on our kitchen barstools with drumsticks. 'I'm taking a Taiko drumming class,' she explained. While still homeschooling my youngest sister, my mother has been taking classes on health and medicine in third world countries to prepare her for medical missions trips. She participates in runs and bike races.  She takes dance lessons and cooking classes.  She calls me to tell me what she's learning in her Bible studies. She speaks like her world is still getting bigger and bigger.

"I believe she loves me unconditionally and deeply. I believe my mother finds joy and fulfillment in parenting. Her dedication and sacrifices attest to this. My mother, however, is also a doctor, friend, chicken enthusiast, poodle lover, thrift store ninja, gardener, health and fitness nut, dedicated church volunteer and Bananagrams champion.  And I am so glad she is all of these things.  She sacrificed much--more than most moms, I think, if such comparison can be possible or moral. She homeschooled us. She didn't lose herself in us. Just when I thought she'd poured all of herself into us, she somehow proved that her soul was still individual and exquisite, working out her own salvation with fear and trembling, defining herself by herself and God and not by us.  She has never stopped becoming more awesome."

*THIS* is the kind of homeschooling parent I hope that I can be!

Shinichi Suzuki, Meet Charlotte Mason

I have finished reading Shinichi Suzuki's Nurtured by Love and enjoying seeing how this 20th-Century Japanese music teacher's philosophy dovetails so beautifully with the educational methods of 19th-Century British educator Charlotte Mason.  Both Mason and Suzuki believed in the inherent dignity of the child, in the pursuit of beauty and truth, and in habit formation!

Here are a few tidbits from Suzuki that I copied in my notebook because they rang true, inspired me and also 'clicked' with the educational philosophy that makes so much sense to me.

"Every single human being's personality--his ability, his way of thinking and feeling--is carved and chiseled by training and environment. It shows in each person's face and eyes.  His whole character becomes visible."

"We don't have to look for specific innate abilities or talents.  It is a superior environment that has the greatest effect in creating superior abilities."  (This reminds me of Charlotte Mason's maxim that "education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life"--yes!)

"With the emphasis only put on informing and instructing, the actual growing life of the child is ignored." (Charlotte Mason to the core!)

"The habit of action...this, I think, is the most important thing we must acquire...it is an indispensible skill."

"If one just thinks about it, the chance slips by.  From the time they are children, people are ordered about by their parents to do this, to do that.  They develop resistance, and reluctantly do as they are told, or avoid doing it if possible.  The resistance habit becomes subconscious, until they are unable to perform immediately even those things they think of doing themselves.  They may think something is a good thing to do, but they have gotten so that they are unable to do it simply and naturally.  People lose a great deal this way."

Suzuki's response to a parent who asked if his violin-playing child would ever amount to anything: "The only concern for parents should be to bring up their children as noble human beings.  That is sufficient.  If this is not their greatest hope, in the end the child may take a road contrary to their expectations. Your son plays the violin very well.  We must try to make him splendid in mind and heart also."

Refreshing, visionary words to read.  How many people these days talk of raising a child to be noble? 

Thank you, Shinichi Suzuki, for inspiring me as a teacher and parent--and also as a pianist.  Since reading this book I have memorized one piece of music from start to finish, and now I'm working on playing it beautifully.  (Suzuki believed that the ability to play one piece of music beautifully was far more valuable than playing many pieces with mediocrity!  Mine is merely an extremely simplistic, shortened version of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring but it makes me happy--and maybe a little more noble.)