A Tender Reed
Sheila Carroll
There is something hopeful about the beginning of a new school year. We gather the books, arrange the shelves, sharpen the pencils, and make our plans. After the looseness of summer, a fresh schedule promises order. We begin with a vision of all that might be accomplished.
It is also remarkably easy, in our eagerness to begin well, to run roughshod over the children.
The lessons must be completed. The child must pay attention. The narration must be given and the copywork finished. Before long, the plan can become more important than the child sitting across the table.
The prophet Isaiah gives us a very different picture of the way Christ deals with those entrusted to Him:
“A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.”
—Isaiah 42:3
A reed is slender and easily bent. Once bruised, it bears even less pressure than before. Christ does not break it. He understands the tenderness of living things and knows how to care for weakness without extinguishing the life within.
Surely this is a picture for mothers as we begin another year with our children.
Near the beginning of Home Education, Charlotte Mason includes a brief section called “The Child’s Estate.” She finds in the Gospels what she calls a code of education, summed up in three warnings given by Christ:
“Take heed that ye OFFEND not—DESPISE not—HINDER not—one of these little ones.”
I have long found these among the most difficult pages in Mason’s work—perhaps in all six volumes. The words themselves are severe. It is uncomfortable to consider that we might offend, despise, or hinder the children we love and for whom we have sacrificed so much.
Yet love and good intentions do not always keep us from dealing roughly with a child. A mother may sincerely want what is best and still become impatient with slowness, dismiss a fear that seems small to her, or press on with a lesson after the child’s power of attention is spent.
Mason uses offend in the Gospel sense of placing a stumbling block in another person’s way. She believed that children are born with an awareness of law and with the expectation that those who govern them are also under authority. The parent is not free to be arbitrary simply because she is the parent.
A child is confused when expectations change according to a parent’s mood. He is discouraged when he is required to work beyond his strength or his attention span. He may learn carelessness when we assign more than he can accomplish well, or resistance when every sign of weariness is treated as disobedience.
The laws of health, attention, habit, and moral life apply to the mother as surely as they apply to the child. Safeguarding the child means respecting those laws. It means remembering that attention grows through wise use, that the body requires movement and fresh air, and that habits are formed through steady, patient repetition.
Mason’s use of the word despise is equally searching. To despise is to think little of someone, to undervalue him or hold a low opinion of him. Few mothers would say that they despise their children, yet we may think lightly of what is very serious to a child. We may laugh at his fears, hurry past his questions, speak freely about his faults, or assume that a difficulty which appears small to us must also feel small to him.
To honor the child is to remember that he is a whole person now. His thoughts and affections matter. His struggles are real even when he cannot explain them. His faults require our wise attention because habits shape a life, but correction should never humiliate the person who is still learning how to govern himself.
Mason then turns to the child’s relationship with Almighty God. She considers hindering this relationship “the most fatal way of despising the child.” Christ’s words are wonderfully direct:
“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.”
The spiritual life of a child is real. Children possess a natural capacity for wonder, trust, reverence, and love. We nourish that life through Scripture, prayer, beauty, gratitude, and the quiet acknowledgment of God’s presence in the ordinary life of the home.
We can also crowd that life with too many words. Anxious instruction, constant moralizing, and forced expressions of devotion may make God seem burdensome or perpetually displeased. Our part is to introduce the child to the things of God, live our faith honestly before him, and make room for the Holy Spirit to work.
Mason’s three warnings can be turned gently toward their opposites. Instead of offending the child, we safeguard him. Instead of despising him, we honor him. Instead of hindering him, we make way for him.
Perhaps, before beginning another school year, we might look again at the children who will live within our carefully made plans. One may be eager, while another is already anxious. One moves quickly through every lesson, while another labors over a single line of copywork. The child sitting before us in September may have changed since May. He may be carrying disappointments, weaknesses, or questions that he cannot yet name.
Each child is a tender reed.
There will be days when we speak too sharply, press too long, or allow the work to loom larger in our eyes than the child. We can stop, remember the gentleness of Christ, and begin again. He has dealt tenderly with us. We can ask for the grace to deal tenderly with the children given into our care.
If you would like to read “The Child’s Estate” for yourself, it appears near the beginning of Charlotte Mason’s first and most foundational volume, Home Education. Living Books Press has completely reformatted the original text into a clean and beautiful digital edition, which I am glad to offer freely to every mother who would like to read it.