Developing a habit of paying full attention is one of the keystones of a Charlotte Mason education.

We know that. We talk about it a lot, but what does it look like?

And is it the same for every student?

Today we want to dig a little deeper into the habit of attention

and give you some practical ideas for how to cultivate it in your child.

Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I'm Sonia Schaefer. We talked last time about being

intentional to work on habits in your home and in your home school.

We gave several practical tips about how to make that happen, and we explained that the habits that Charlotte Mason encouraged us to cultivate in our children are really broad categories. The habit of courtesy, the habit

of thankfulness, the habit of taking initiative. All of those habits can be applied in many

different ways. Some of our kids may be able to jump right in and generalize a broad habit category, applying

it to all areas of life at the same time.

But other children need more guidance.

They need to specialize, to focus on one specific application at a time. If you missed that episode, I encourage you to listen to it

in order to get the big picture. Check the show notes for a link. Now, last time I promised

that we would unpack several of the key habits that Charlotte Mason wrote about and look

at ways to customize them for each child. Today,

we're going to focus on the habit of attention. Let's start by defining the habit,

just so we're all on the same page. Charlotte described attention as turning the whole force

of the mind to the subject at hand. She also described attention as turning the whole force of the mind to the subject at hand.

She also called it the fixed gaze of the mind.

We could say that attention is intentionally directing your whole mind toward something and keeping it there as long as needed.

If that effort comes easily to your child, you can probably generalize the habit and just encourage him to work on paying full attention to whatever is at hand in all situations, at home, outside the home, with you, with some other

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