Proverbs 9:10 (NIV) "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

*Transcription Below*

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

What are the benefits of reading and reading aloud and how can we prioritize making this a frequent rhythm in our homes?
What do the Gospels teach us about God’s view of children?
As parents, if we focused on nothing else, what is your highest recommendation for cultivating a moral and righteous character in our children?

Liz Cottrill is mother of six and grandmother of fifteen who homeschooled for 35 years. For 17 years, Liz has worked with her daughter, Emily, in their family-owned Living Books Library serving local homeschool families in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. For the past 25 years, Liz has been discovering and teaching about the beauty and purpose of a Charlotte Mason method of education. This led to the development of A Delectable Education podcast. In addition, she does personal consultations with homeschool families around the world. Her greatest passion outside of family and teaching about Charlotte Mason is developing and teaching women's Bible studies. Liz is a reading maniac and delights in spending time with her family and walking and biking with her husband.

Books Liz Mentioned:

The Chronicles of Narnia

Heidi

Little House on the Prairie Series

The Yearling

Little Britches Series

The Secret Garden

Where the Red Fern Grows

Little Women

The Singing Tree

The Little White Horse

Books by Beverly Cleary and Carolyn Haywood

A Delectable Education Website

Living Books Library

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Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

*Transcription*

Music: (0:00 – 0:08)

Laura Dugger: (0:09 - 1:59)
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

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Today is the final episode in our mini-series, where we've been learning the Charlotte Mason educational philosophy. And today we're going to tie it in with general parenting principles, all of which are rooted in scripture.

My guest is Liz Cottrill, and she has parented babies to adults, and she's also a grandmother. So, we have a lot to learn from her experience. Here's our chat.

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Liz.

Liz Cottrill: (1:59 - 2:03)
Well, thank you so much for having me. I am just honored to be with you today.

Laura Dugger: (2:04 - 2:08)
Will you just begin by sharing your testimony with us?

Liz Cottrill: (2:09 - 4:12)
Well, it's kind of long, but I'll make it as short as I can. I grew up in an unbelieving family, but we were churchgoers. And when I was 12 years old, I put my trust in Christ.

After listening to a 17-year-old boy at a youth group meeting who presented the gospel so clearly for me that I understood and wanted to receive Christ. And then I met my husband in high school in German class. Actually, I don't remember very much German, but I was interested in him and he with me because we were Christians.

And we just got off on that foot together. And we have been married 46 years, always trying to put Christ first in our family and in our life. I have six children who are all grown now.

Two came to us by adoption later on in our life. And I have four married children with 15 grandchildren. And grand is just a minimal word for what they are.

I have been homeschooling for 37 years. I graduated my last child just this past spring, and it's been a long journey. It was illegal when I first began.

And I struggled to know the right path, you know, when and how and what subjects to teach and all of that. And a friend gave me a copy of Susan Schaefer McCauley's, For the Children's Sake, which I immediately gravitated to and started the narration way of teaching and using nature and art. But it really was another five years before I understood a lot more about Charlotte Mason and tried to implement more of her ideas.

And then when my grown daughter Emily, 15 years ago, started reading me her actual writings, it wasn't really until then that I started to understand her method.

Laura Dugger: (4:13 - 4:23)
Well, and that's incredible. You mentioned it was illegal at that time to homeschool. And you've said before that you and your husband had never even heard of homeschooling when you met. Right.

Liz Cottrill: (4:23 - 6:15)
So, how did you make that choice? You know, it's funny. I had my first child, and I remember a conversation with friends in the nursery at church when we were out of the service with our little ones.

And some of them were teachers, and they were talking about how it would be so wonderful if we could just keep our children out of public school and teach them Ourselves. And that put a little seed in my mind. And then I heard Dr. Dobson interview someone on homeschooling when she was about maybe two. And a year later, a friend took me to a kind of clandestine meeting of homeschool people with a national educator who was big on the idea. And we just decided that was the way we wanted to go. There were people that were actually being prosecuted for truancy and things like that when I started.

But we just wanted to be above board right from the beginning. So, I called the school board and just said, “I'm not going to send my child to school. I'm going to keep him at home, but I just want you to know he is being educated.”

Sorry. And so, you know, they didn't mind it. But I kind of marveled that I did that.

And I had to kind of beg, borrow and steal materials from friends who were ex-teachers and so on and didn't know really what I was about. I just remembered my own experience and tried to replicate that as best I could. And anyway, it was a process.

And by the time my fourth child was in school, there were absolutely no laws at all on the books about homeschooling in Michigan where we live. So, there had been several stages of them becoming more open to it over the 10 years since I started.

Laura Dugger: (6:16 - 6:44)
Wow. And I love how that seed was planted through a conversation. And I've spoken with some mothers who have chosen to homeschool, and I've always been intrigued by this concept of morning time.

They say that they use that time to gather their children and read the Bible together. So, even broader than that, will you vision cast what type of healthy rhythm is available with Charlotte Mason's recommended schedule?

Liz Cottrill: (6:45 - 8:29)
Well, she was a proponent of very short lessons, which for children under nine would be a maximum of 20 minutes long. And some of them are even shorter. And so school morning does run along at quite a little cliff because you're constantly changing pace.

But that is something that most six- and seven- and eight-year-olds love. And we do begin with Bible. And if you have children of multiple ages, the schedule broadens out for them.

I am not personally a big fan of the quote unquote morning time because all of her morning is together and separate and then together again. And what happens a lot of times when you have too long of a gathering of all ages is that the older children are then left with all the real hard toil at the end of the morning. And, you know, the little kids usually can only stand, you know, maybe half an hour at the most.

But we always sing a song and then had our Bible lesson, which Charlotte Mason has a wonderful plan for how to study Bible as a school subject so that they get to know the entire story from Genesis through Revelation. And then usually we have some poetry and then we just move into all our subjects, which vary from day to day. I mean, math and reading and things like that happen every day.

You know, some days we have art, some days we have geography, you know, all those things happen at various times through the week and not every single day. So, that helps you to cover a lot of ground in a week. That makes sense.

Laura Dugger: (8:30 - 8:36)
That does. And so that may be the focus in the morning. And then what does that open up for the afternoon time?

Liz Cottrill: (8:36 - 9:43)
So, afternoons are especially for young children, mostly free for them to play and explore and enjoy nature. There are some recommended activities that could occupy some of the afternoon hours, especially if you live in Michigan like I did. And we're snowed in much of the time in the winter months. ‍

But handicrafts and nature walks and reading and housework and things like that could be part of the afternoons. They're more open ended. They're not time limited the way school lesson mornings are.

So, it ushers in a sense of maybe a more leisurely pace in the afternoon, would you say? Yes. And, you know, you might say this afternoon after we come in from play or nature study, we're going to draw.

But there's no regulation that that has to end after 15 minutes or something. You know, some children get really involved in making up their own play or having a puppet show or just doing whatever they want with their free time. And they don't want to be curtailed, you know?

Laura Dugger: (9:44 - 9:56)
Sure. And I'm wondering then for the mother, if she's the one doing the homeschooling, is that the time when you used it for lesson planning or preparing for the next day's work?

Liz Cottrill: (9:57 - 10:20)
Or doing the laundry and getting dinner ready and all the other million things you have to do every day. Yeah, I usually encourage moms to take 10 minutes to plan for the next lesson day. And sometimes they get that done even before lunch so that when lunch happens, you know, basically their mind is off school and just on to all the other life that we have.

Laura Dugger: (10:21 - 10:29)
Wow. And if this is new to someone and they hear 10 minutes to plan the next day's lessons, how is that possible?

Liz Cottrill: (10:32 - 11:06)
Well, mostly because a lot of your lesson is already determined by the amount of time you have. There's only so much you can do in any lesson. A young child would have maybe 9 or 10 lessons in a morning.

But usually there's been some preplanning in the summer or before that school term starts. So, a lot of it, you already know what you're doing. And so, we're just specifically troubleshooting or figuring out what's going to happen the next day.

You know, so we give a right amount of math work or choose the vocabulary for the reading lesson or whatnot.

Laura Dugger: (11:07 - 11:41)
Okay, that's helpful. And you say that your own education began when you were born into a family who loved and valued books. And Charlotte Mason is quoted saying, “The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.”

So, Liz, what are some of the benefits of both reading and reading aloud? And how can we prioritize making this a frequent rhythm in our homes?

Liz Cottrill: (11:43 - 15:13)
I have to preface what I say by saying that this is a huge problem in our culture today. I don't know if you know that my daughter Emily and I started a library for homeschool families. And I have about 20,000 books in my library that we loan out to 40 to 50 families each year.

They have a membership, so they have access to wonderful books. But it wasn't long into this journey almost 20 years ago that I realized that most moms had not even read Little House on the Prairie. And very common children's books were a mystery to them because our culture has kind of lost the art of reading.

I think it's a pretty known fact that only one in four adults ever reads even one book in a year. And I guess books are critical to our culture. They're definitely integral to the whole education process of our children.

They can learn so much more through a whole book than they can through a few paragraphs in a textbook. And the bottom line is that you can't give your children what you don't love yourself. So, the best way to ensure that you make your child become a reader is to be a reader yourself.

So, children, I always say, have to be surrounded by books. There are even education studies out worldwide in all socioeconomic brackets that children who grew up in a home of 500 books or more automatically become readers as adults. I just think that's fascinating.

So, they need to be surrounded with books, but they need to see you reading. And we need to make time to read to them from the very youngest ages. They should be well into early chapter books by the time they ever start school.

And so, reading as a family is just a wonderful, enjoyable activity. I think that when I say they need to see you reading too, I just want to add that that doesn't mean on your phone. Because for all they know, you're looking at YouTube or Facebook or something like that.

I had a friend who said that she really woke up to this one day when her kids were running through the room and she was reading an actual book and her son stopped and said, what are you doing? It just shocked her because she was a reader, but she didn't often read from an actual book. I do think reading as a family builds a wonderful culture in your home.

It is one of the wonderful ways of keeping a family together. You have common jokes and insights and just conversations because of the things you've been reading together. And Charlotte Mason said that our books are our greatest teachers.

And I think that's because they fertilize a child's imagination. They give them so many ideas about the world that they just can't receive from TV or just our normal life. Reading really is the most countercultural thing that you can do.

It slows down our life, the pace that we all live at. It gives us time to spend together to relax. It brings a sense of peace in the home.

Just a lot of enjoyment to life. I can't imagine living without books.

Laura Dugger: (15:14 - 15:30)
And Liz, I just get so excited to hear you describe all of this and some of the benefits and the culture that's added. Are there any other books you talked about? Little House on the Prairie.

Are there some other chapter books that you have especially fond memories of sharing with your family?

Liz Cottrill: (15:32 - 16:24)
Well, it's no secret to the world, if anybody has ever heard me talk or read anything I've written, that Heidi by Johanna Sperry is probably my all-time favorite. I had my six-year-old daughter, my third daughter. I read it to all my kids.

I read all the books through to her over several weeks or whatnot. And at the end, she said, read it again as if it was a little picture book. And so, I just started it over again and we read it again. ‍ ‍

And then I promised her I'd read it to her every year while she was growing up. So, it's a precious book. I love Ralph Moody's Little Britches series for children and all the classic things, Anne of Green Gables and The Yearling.

And oh, my goodness, how many would you like me to say?

Laura Dugger: (16:25 - 16:29)
Feel free to share a few more and I will put links to these in the show notes.

Liz Cottrill: (16:30 - 17:39)
Well, the Narnia series and The Secret Garden, Where the Red Fern Grows, Little Women, The Singing Tree by Kate. It's pronounced Charity, S-E-R-E-D-Y. I could go on and on.

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Gouge. Just dozens. And the fact is that great books are still being written today, but they're like a needle in a haystack.

And so, if you go back to books published before 1970, you are going to find just amazing books that still speak to children. Because adventures are always adventures to a child. They don't care if they were driving horse and buggy or old cars.

And books that children loved back in the last century, in the 20th century, it was the golden age of children's literature, they say. There were as many books published in the 1930 to 35 era as were in the previous 500 years for children. And it just grew from there.

Laura Dugger: (17:39 - 17:47)
And there are a few reasons for that before 1970. Didn't that have to do with the library and with publishing houses?

Liz Cottrill: (17:48 - 18:40)
Yes, the government passed an educational bill, 1964, I believe, President Johnson, that funded school libraries. So, all of a sudden, all of these small county schools and libraries that had very limited resources and had to be very picky and choosy about what books they put into their library had a flood of income. That produced a flood in the publishing houses of producing books of all kinds.

So, there is a lot of junk out there and unhelpful stuff. But the classics that I grew up on back in the 60s, Beverly Cleary and Carolyn Haywood and all the series they wrote for children are just timeless. My grandchildren still enjoy them, even though they like the latest and greatest, too.

Laura Dugger: (18:41 - 24:25)
Sure, but that's helpful to have that context to realize that previously it used to be only the best of the best were able to be published. And that changed. And now a brief message from our sponsor.

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Now, back to the show.

In addition to reading, handicrafts are another piece of the Charlotte Mason education. So, can you explain what is meant by that term handicrafts?

Liz Cottrill: (24:26 - 25:45)
Well, it's a huge arena of things, but it's basically learning to work with your hands, doing purposeful tasks, making things that will make life beautiful. So, it's aesthetic as well as useful. So, I think we all could see that learning to knit is great fine motor training for a child, but being able to make a handmade sweater for someone is serviceable and lovely.

But all kinds of things, woodworking, embroidery and sewing, paper folding and origami, clay modeling, weaving, all of these things, basically a child can start at the rudimentary stage and develop over the years. And there was a huge emphasis with Charlotte Mason that these crafts would then give children opportunity to help and serve others. So, if you know how to work well with your hands, you'll be able to help someone change a tire, or you will be able to make cookies or gifts for people who are sick or shut in or lonely.

Just you'll be a useful person. And she was very interested in the whole person, not just training the mind.

Laura Dugger: (25:46 - 26:02)
And I would love to know, I'm sure there's a lot of brain science behind this, even like we know that movement and physical activity, that there is a mind-body connection and how that even unlocks emotions. So, I wonder what is freed up when we work with our hands?

Liz Cottrill: (26:03 - 27:04)
One of the things for little children in school, because this was part of the morning lessons, the training process the first few years, as they get older, they work more in that free afternoon time we were talking about. But it gives them a rest from all the effort of paying attention and thinking through things in school. And then there are just the benefits that we all benefit from serving other people.

We all benefit when we are doing something productive and not just rambling around the house, bored and looking out the windows and causing mischief too. So, I think it benefits the mother in many ways, because the children are trained up to learn how to do chores and housework. So, the whole family can be working together.

They can learn how to garden together. That can be a handicraft, for example, that brings in food. And then they can learn to can as they get older.

And, you know, the sky is the limit.

Laura Dugger: (27:06 - 27:32)
That's really helpful to hear. And regardless of schooling choice, there is another Charlotte Mason principle that we all may relate to in parenting in general. And she explains the principles of authority on the one hand and obedience on the other are natural, necessary and fundamental.

So, what can this look like in our parenting?

Liz Cottrill: (27:33 - 29:31)
You know, she also said that we as parents are deputed as the authority of our children by God. And I think when we realize that this is a God given office that we hold and by authority, I know a lot of people recoil a bit in our day and age, but she meant that we were made by God to lead and guide and protect the children under our care. And children naturally look to us for those things, don't they?

So, when that relationship is understood and a parent is comfortable with the fact that they are the authority in their child's life, the children stay in that role most naturally, too. They respond with trust and obedience. So, loving leadership, you know, is not, as some people think when we say authority over your child, it is not like being overbearing and dictatorial and arbitrary or inconsistent.

And, you know, both ends of that spectrum are a disrespect of the child as made in the image of God. And as someone who God has entrusted to you to bring up, to know him. So, much of what is considered love in our era is just pure child centeredness or indulgence of the child.

We think that's love and love and discipline go hand in hand. And by discipline, I don't mean corporal punishment at all. I think there are many ways to guide a child that help them feel that security, that someone knows the boundaries, that I'm safe within this space.

I have a lot of freedom as long as I obey within these limits. I think we're all like that, right.

Laura Dugger: (29:32 - 29:45)
Absolutely. And you parented six children. So, what insight do you have for helping us teach our children to distinguish between I want and I will?

Liz Cottrill: (29:46 - 32:01)
And this was a very helpful thing when I started reading Charlotte Mason, to have her distinguish some of these things, because, you know, as parents, we can get into power struggles with our children because we tell them or ask them or prefer them to do a certain thing. And they just don't want to. So, she taught that the will is our decision maker.

It's what causes us to choose things. It's our independence. I can say yes to this or no to this.

Right. But this is sometimes a struggle, even for us adults. I mean, the candy bar is laying there.

You know, you shouldn't eat it, but you want to. So, we all have big and little struggles with what we want versus what we know we ought to do. And she said children should have a sense of ought that they should know there is a right and a wrong.

So, she talked about how we can teach our children what we should do is what helps the other person or gives them their due rights. But the will can get kind of weary of making a lot of decisions, too. And we all talk in our day and age about decision fatigue.

Right. And so, she taught parents to teach a practice with their children how to rest the will when it is in that struggle or turmoil of having to decide whether I will clean my room because mother has asked me. But I do not want to do this nasty job.

So, she said to teach them how to turn their thoughts momentarily to some other thing. Think about something pleasant and desirable that you love just for a moment and then return to the decision at hand, and you will discover that automatically your will is stronger and able to do what it ought to do instead of just what you want to do. And it's really the whole call of Christ on all of our lives.

You know, he said, follow me, lay down your life, don't serve yourself, but serve others. And those are hard things. But when we think of him and the joy of serving him, they become easier to us.

And so, we're beginning to train our children to that habit, too.

Laura Dugger: (32:02 - 32:32)
And like you said, yes, that's beneficial to all of us. Charlotte Mason is also quoted saying, the question is not how much does the youth know when he has finished his education, but how much does he care? So, Liz, from your experience home educating many children, how can each of us bring up our own children so that they do care and they do desire to be lifelong learners?

Liz Cottrill: (32:33 - 35:10)
I think first is to recognize that every child has an innate desire to learn. A baby is curious from day one, right? We just see them interested in everything.

They're interested in things we have long since forgotten about. They notice everything. And in Charlotte Mason's method of educating, the entire curriculum was called a feast because there were so many different kinds of things.

You know, it's like a big smorgasbord for learning. And I think that in itself builds a lot of care and interest. You know, I think it's also the way God gave us his word and his world and said, taste and see that the Lord is good.

So, when we let our children learn a little bit of this and a little bit of that, they are tasting all kinds of things and discovering new delights all the time and things they would never have noticed or been interested in otherwise. I think it is not pushing our children ever in school. We have very false ideas sometimes about the level a child should be at.

We think more is better all the time. And we're always either pushing or pulling them, dragging them through where they're not really quite ready. I think it's also not leaning on rewards or penalties when it comes to school subjects, especially.

They're maybe not the best idea of parenting in any arena, but knowledge, Charlotte Mason said, is delectable. All kinds of knowledge. And I think that this carries over outside of school to help a childcare is to talk about interesting things with them all the time.

I think in general; parents don't talk to their children a whole lot anymore. We don't have just conversations on other topics that are not currently the hot thing on social media or something.

Interesting your children in a lot of different things is like amending your garden soil in the spring, you know, adding lots of different things so that you ensure a good crop. I think that when you give your children a little of this and that, you are automatically appealing to their instinctive curiosity. And you're giving them the idea that there are dozens and hundreds of things to know and they pursue them then.

Laura Dugger: (35:11 - 35:43)
Well, learning is such a value in part because we hope to grow wise and provide a home environment where our children can grow wise as well. And it makes me think of Proverbs 9 10 that says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. So, how can we experience the Holy Spirit as our supreme educator and encourage our children in the same way?

Liz Cottrill: (35:44 - 37:01)
Our children have a natural thirst for knowledge and truth. It's in the heart of every person who's made in God's image. And the spirit, of course, is the one who leads us into all truth.

There is no truth that is not God's truth. So, you stand as a teacher in Charlotte Mason's way of teaching. You are outside in a way you recognize that your child is the learner, and you are just presenting the lessons and the feast.

And it is amazing to see how the spirit does work in our children. One morning, this was brought home to me just personally by the Lord when I was reading the beginning of the book of Mark to my boys during our Bible lesson. And when I got to the phrase where John the Baptist says, “prepare the way of the Lord.” It was like the Holy Spirit tapped on my shoulder and said, “that is what you will be doing all morning.”

Because we don't know what God is going to use in their life. And the Holy Spirit does. So, I think it's a lot of trust that he is active and breathing life into our school lessons.

Laura Dugger: (37:02 - 37:03)
I love that.

Liz Cottrill: (37:03 - 37:52)
Prepare the way for the Lord. Yes. And, you know, we just are constantly amazed at what our children's insights into the scripture are.

But they have those insights when they're doing an art lesson and looking at a beautiful painting. They'll say, oh, this reminds me of or they receive instruction morally from their stories that they're reading. And even in geography and natural sciences, you know, they're seeing all the things God's made and it increases their wonder.

And, you know, the Holy Spirit speaks to them in all kinds of areas. So, I think allowing them to explore and engage, which, you know, traditional workbooks and textbooks do not allow for as much.

Laura Dugger: (37:53 - 38:37)
Well, and even as you're speaking, it makes me think about Philippians 2:13, because you're talking about the part that is our part to do. But it also says, for God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. So, that is helpful to realize we can help prepare the way for the Lord.

But he's the one who's going to give us and our children the desire to obey and learn these things. Well, and kind of on that topic, what control do you believe that we as parents have to influence the divine life of our child?

Liz Cottrill: (38:39 - 40:38)
Well, I think God, in all his wisdom, made parents to be the primary influence in our child's life. You know, Deuteronomy talks about to teach these things to your children while you walk and while you sit and while you lie down and all those things. I'm not quoting it exactly, of course, here.

But so, it's a way of life. We have our mind on God, and he is the center of our life. Our children are automatically going to assume that that is a normal way of being.

But, you know, to a baby, we actually are God to them. We control everything for their life. And so, they begin learning and they're going to have their view of the world and of God shaped by our attitude toward our children, by our behavior toward them, the way we care for them.

If God is our orientation, he's going to be there when we're having fun or even in our discipline moments. God is going to be our reference point as a family. So, they grow up in this culture where God is first, and we look to him and everything.

And I don't mean this means we have to talk to our children about God all the time, but I think it's a pattern of life. I also think that as parents, we teach our children much about God and how to live with him and others in the world. When we are humble Ourselves, when we go to our children, when we have offended them and ask their forgiveness, when we have behavior issues with them and we ask God for wisdom with our child.

We just bring prayer or his wisdom into situations naturally. And I think they just automatically assume or realize our reverence for God by our own demeanor, our own attitude toward God every day Ourselves.

Laura Dugger: (40:39 - 40:45)
Well, and furthermore, what do you see the gospels teaching us about God's view of children?

Liz Cottrill: (40:48 - 45:12)
I'll tell you, this was my biggest turning point in accepting Charlotte Mason's method of teaching, because I thought if this was what she said was at the heart of her educational method, I could trust her to learn about the things I didn't understand about her method yet. I think it begins with realizing what Jesus said that you cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you do so as a little child. And why is that?

Because children are naturally humble. They're naturally weak. They're naturally poor in spirit.

And he said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So, it helps us to remember when we're working with children that this is God's way, because our children can cause some friction in our life, right? They can be obstinate and oppositional and irritating and slow and whining and frustrating.

It's natural for us to push back on those things. But when we realize their character is being formed, that we're accountable to God for these things, then her three rules from the gospels that we should not offend children, which means we don't sin against them. We don't hurt their body or their feelings.

We treat them as we would treat our own friends. We would never say things to our friends that we all feel quite free to say to our children sometimes. And we need the humility, like I've said before, to go to them and ask their forgiveness and to pray with them and to reconcile with our child and not just assume, oh, well, they'll understand when they're older or just, I guess it didn't hurt them that much.

We should never assume those things. Jesus said, do not despise the children. So, when we don't think that they're worthy of the best books, that they are worthy of learning important ideas straight from the truth of books, and we think they have to have dumbed down materials that are just shaped for their, what we consider thimble full of ability.

I think when we're impatient with our children in school lessons and, you know, as a homeschool mom, I did it for so long and I know how easy it is, but we have to ask God for the patience and kindness of Jesus. And we can just very easily dismiss our children that their thoughts are silly. We can belittle them for ideas they have.

We can use our words to make them feel small. And I think Jesus was saying, don't despise them. And then the third thing he said was not to hinder them.

And again, I think by holding them back, by not allowing them to progress when they're ready to learn more, by assuming that they're too young for this or that, sometimes I think we're babying them too much and holding them back. That's a hindrance. I think that especially middle school boys, we don't like them to be growing up, and we don't allow them to exert some of the independence that's just natural with them getting to that age.

So, we just need to remove things in our lives that are going to make school a struggle for them, which doesn't mean we don't require them to learn, but we need to allow them to make mistakes. I mean, how are they going to learn to solve math problems if we're always saying, no, you're doing it the wrong way, and take it out of their hands and show them the way we do it. It's better for them to get the understanding by trying several times.

We let them do this when they're learning to walk and talk. When they start talking, they say things, and only we as mothers know what they're asking for because it isn't clear yet. Well, that is true of every single area of their life.

So, not hindering them means that we work with them and allow them to grow up into the things that they're getting understanding about. And I think sometimes in school lessons, not hindering them is just if they have trouble keeping their hands busy doing what they're supposed to be doing, then let's remove everything in their reach that is going to tempt them to fool around and not pay attention.

Laura Dugger: (45:13 - 45:26)
Well, as parents, if we focused on nothing else, what is your highest recommendation for cultivating a moral and righteous character in our children?

Liz Cottrill: (45:28 - 46:32)
Well, obviously reading the Bible to your children is a wonderful moral instructor. But I think that novels and poetry and tales, fairy tales, fables, all those things are the children's best teacher. Charlotte Mason said, knowledge touched with emotion is what our minds absorb.

And so, when you're reading a book and you become excited or tense or nervous, I mean, you can watch heart monitors and EEGs, how the mind changes when we're reading different parts of things. And as a parent, a book is the third party that the child will accept much more easily than if we just try to instruct them. I think books engage their imagination and kind of give them a chance to practice life in a safe way.

So, they may have thought that doing a particular thing is a smart idea. But when they encounter a heroine in a book who does it and it doesn't turn out well for her, then they learned a lesson safely.

Laura Dugger: (46:33 - 46:55)
I love that thinking about the book as a third party and maybe even a mentor, someone to partner with us to help cultivate that character. And Liz, you have so much to offer, even with your living books, library and your podcast and so many things. If we want to learn more from you after this conversation, where would you like to direct us online?

Liz Cottrill: (46:56 - 47:45)
Well, on our website, A Delightful Education dot com, we do have some teacher training videos, we call them, but anybody would be welcome to watch those. And I have done a whole hour long talk about moral instruction through all kinds of literature for children that would, I'm sure, be of interest to any parent, regardless of what educational method they follow. I've made videos on how to teach a child to read and how to keep the wrong books out of their hands and things like that.

So, that would be one specific, but https://www.livingbookslibrary.com. We haven't done a lot with that website, but it's still there. And there are lots of blogs and archives that I've written about children and books and discipline and things like that.

Laura Dugger: (47:45 - 48:03)
Wonderful. We will link to that in the show notes for today's episode. And Liz, you may already be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge.

And so, as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Liz Cottrill: (48:05 - 48:57)
You know, I think as a Christian parent, the best thing you can do for your child is to spend time alone with God yourself every day, even if it's three minutes. We need to learn to listen to him and his word, and we need to bring our concerns to him and orient Ourselves to him because the job we have before us is life and death, really. And if I was to add to that, I would say, learn to really listen to your child.

They're telling you all kinds of things, and we need to hear what's really in their heart and deal with their heart issues. And that's probably why I say spending time with God, not only for our own personal growth and maturity, but it is our lifeline as a parent to be able to have wisdom for our children.

Laura Dugger: (48:58 - 49:22)
Well, and Liz, you have modeled that so well, and you're just a wealth of knowledge. And it's been encouraging just to hear your courageous decisions, even going back to choosing to homeschool at a time when it was not even legal, but trusting in your Lord. And you've modeled that for all of us today.

So, thank you for all that you've shared. And thank you for being my guest.

Liz Cottrill: (49:23 - 50:22)
Well, I am so appreciative of your wonderful questions and thought-provoking things that you've asked. And can I just add one other thing? Oh, please do.

So, I don't know if your listeners are aware of the fact that I am totally blind and have been since birth. And so, I know how scary it is to venture out into homeschooling. I know what a struggle it is to find books to read because there weren't a lot available to me as a blind mother, either for school or just for fun.

So, I just think that one of the reasons God planned for me to have this handicap through my life is just to encourage moms that we really do need God's sight and wisdom. And no difficulty you have before you is too great for Him to help you to navigate the waters of raising children.

Laura Dugger: (50:22 - 54:17)
That is beautifully said. And I just appreciate you sharing that. Thank you for opening up to us and what an incredible perspective you have. So, thank you, Liz.

One more thing before you go.

Have you heard the term gospel before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you.

But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves. This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own.

So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much.

He made a way for his only son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what he has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So, would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to take our place.

I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to you. Will you clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare you as Lord of their life? We trust you to work and change lives now for eternity.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring him for me, so me for him.

You get the opportunity to live your life for him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned.

So, you ready to get started? First, tell someone. Say it out loud.

Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible and I love it.

You can start by reading the book of John. Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read scripture that describes this process. And finally, be encouraged.

Luke 15:10 says, in the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. And if you've already received this good news, I pray you have someone to share it with.

You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.‍ ‍

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce

Practical chats for intentional living

A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.

They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!