Charlotte Mason’s educational method encompasses all of life. This podcast episode explores the possibilities of sharing and showing love as a family through acts of mercy and service to our neighbors near and far through an interview with friend and Mason educating mom of six, Vanessa Kijewski, who shares her experiences in training her children to give.

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“A child who is taught from the first the delights of giving and sharing, of loving and bearing, will always spend himself freely on others, will love and serve, seeking for nothing again; but the child who recognises that he is the object of constant attention, consideration, love and service, becomes self-regardful, self-seeking, selfish, almost without his fault, so strongly is he influenced by the direction his thoughts receive from those about him.” (2/288)

“The tender sympathy of the child must be allowed to flow in ways of help and kindness towards all life that anyway touches his. I knew a little girl of five, who came in from her walk under an obvious cloud of distress. ‘What is the matter, H––?’ she was asked. A quick little ‘Nothing,’ with the reticence of her family, was all that could be got out of her for some minutes; but a caress broke her down, and, in a passion of pity, she sobbed out, ‘A poor man, no home, no food, no bed to lie upon!’ Young as she was, the revelation of the common life in humanity had come upon her; she was one with the beggar and suffered with him. Children must, of course, be shielded from intense suffering, but woe to mother or nurse who would shield, by systematically hardening, the child’s heart. This little girl had the relief of helping, and then the pain of sympathy ceased to be too much for her.” (2/265)

“Love desires to give and serve; the gifts and the service vary with the age and standing of the friends; the child will bring the gift of obedience, the parent may have to offer the service of rebuke, but the thought of service is always present to Love. “Love not in word, neither in tongue,” says the Apostle, “but in deed and in truth”; that is, perhaps, “Do not rest content with the mere expression of love, whether in word or caress, but show your love in service and in confidence”; for the love that does not trust is either misplaced or unworthy. Love has other signs, no doubt, but these are true of all true love, whether between parent and child, friend and friend, married lovers, or between those who labour for the degraded and distressed and those for whom they labour. Let us notice the word degradation: it is literally to step from, to step down, and it is really a word of hope, for if it is possible to step down, it is also possible to step up again. All the great possibilities of Love are in every human heart, and to touch the spring, one must give Love.” (4/1/85)

“We owe knowledge to the ignorant, comfort to the distressed, healing to the sick, reverence, courtesy and kindness to all men, especially to those with whom we are connected by ties of family or neighbourhood; and the sense of these dues does not come by nature.” (3/85)

“Nothing is trivial that concerns a child; his foolish-seeming words and ways are pregnant with meaning for the wise. It is in the infinitely little we must study in the infinitely great; and the vast possibilities, and the right direction of education, are indicated in the open book of the little child’s thoughts.” (1/5)

Ourselves, Book I, Part III, Section II: Justice (Volume 4)

Love desires to give and serve by Vanessa Kijewski

The Ministering Children’s League (PR 2)

The Ministering Children’s League (PR 10)

The Ministering Children’s League (PR 14)