Habits: The Mother’s Friend (Pam Guenther)

Habits: The Mother’s Friend

The Development of Mental and Moral Habits in Children

Are you tired of nagging, yelling, bribing, manipulating, or coercing to get your children to behave in a certain way?  Habits: The Mother’s Friend will teach you how you can joyfully and habitually train your children in lifelong skills of habit and ease of self-management.

Habits can be formed or changed in many areas of moral and mental development. It is by using this tool that a mother can mold and shape her children’s character without the task becoming overwhelming or tedious for her or her children. Some of the mental and moral habits addressed in this book are fear, courage, pride, pretense, manners, order, obedience, truth, industry, leisure, and a chapter on special needs with a focus on autism.

Have you admired the mom in that large family who has happy, respectful, and well-behaved children while she actually is content and happy managing the household and teaching at home?  Pam Guenther, a mother of six, is such a mom.  In Habits, she invites you into her own home to share what she’s learned about habit training, to make her own home life run more efficiently and pleasantly.

About the Author 

Pam Guenther is a homeschool mom of six children. The last ten years of her life have been dedicated to raising and educating her children in the best possible way. She has read, thought, discussed, and written her way through great educators of the past, such as Charlotte Mason, H. Clay Trumbull, and Gorham D. Abbot.  Pam is passionate about sharing the forgotten tool of habit training with this generation of mothers.

After receiving her master of biology in physical therapy, she went on to work as a pediatric physical therapist for the next 15 years (and counting). Pam’s brother is autistic, and she has worked closely with many autistic children throughout her career as a physical therapist. She has had to learn to understand children and how they work.

Table of Contents

The Mother’s Purpose

Part One: Moral

• Obedience
• Temper and Mood
• Fear and Courage
• Justice and Generosity
• Pride and Pretence
• Truth
• Manners and Order

Part Two: Mental

• Attention to Task
• Activity, Industry, and Leisure

Part Three: School / Instruction

• Homeschool
• Spiritual Disciplines

Part Four: Special Populations

• Infants
• Special Needs / Autism

Appendixes:

• Goal Chart
• Bathroom Wipe-Down Checklist
• Deep Cleaning Schedule
• Weekly Cleaning Schedule
• Chore Chart
• Picture Schedule