masterly inactivity

Masterly Inactivity.

Almost an oxymoron.

It’s a hard one for sure.

Another Charlotte Mason tenet I try to figure out the balance of what she says and what I know and what we’re actually doing and how I can misuse even the beautiful intentions of my own heart.

Masterly Inactivity.

It’s the idea that our children need time.

They need large quantities of time when they are not being shuffled from class to piano to karate to dinner to homework to bath to bed.

They need time regularly.

And in abundance.

Time to begin and finish that wooden block village that looks exactly like Jamestown.  Time to spend so long outside that they actually do get hungry enough to eat that giant portion they consume at dinner.

But this is not just free-for-all no-restrictions time, although to your young child, if you do this well, it will seem like that type of time to them.

As a parent, it’s up to me to schedule the time and to create and foster an environment that lends itself to using that time well.

To place my children in situations where weaving yarn on their fingers and designing special clothes for their dolls is exactly what they want to do, and what you want them to do too.

At its worst . . . it can be an excuse to be lazy.  A reason to say “no school” as if you are heralding the start of a new creative force when actually you just want to take a nap, clean the kitchen, finish a novel, call a friend.  (Not that you don’t need to do those tasks sometimes.  You definitely do.)  It can be an excuse to not plan, to be unprepared and to let your child assume they are the boss of their own time schedule.

But at its best . . .  masterly inactivity can be beautiful, productive, enlightening and inspiring.

For me, it requires a touch of extra perception.  Awareness of my children’s personal rhythms and bents.  Intentionality.  Being okay with setting aside my agenda for that half hour or that afternoon and letting some moments develop and flourish without my intervention.

Walking away, but keeping an ear and an eye open.

If this all seems too vague and you’re like me – a fan of the specifics – I’ll try to give you a few examples.

Yesterday afternoon — London’s working on her math.  Mosely’s finishing a craft project on the front porch.  I put Otto down for his nap.  Assign Piper to a rest time space.

I seek out my first-grade-finishing-new-glasses-wearing son so we can complete our daily reading time together.

I find him quietly engrossed in an over-sized library book about the Greek heroes we have been studying all year.  I back out of the room and let him pursue that book instead.

It’s an easy decision to make.  Bergen’s already a fabulous reader so missing a reading lesson with me won’t hinder his education.  And I decided it’s far more lovely and beneficial to promote his desire to independently read about a subject matter that is of interest and that falls directly in line with what we have been studying anyway.

Our reading lesson together is almost always finished in less than half an hour – sometimes he breezes through it in fifteen minutes.

The boy read that book, pored over the pages, for more than an hour.  

By himself, without my instruction.

That’s one picture of Masterly Inactivity.

Recently London had a little time and a lot of Legos.

And the kid is a giant fan of realistic art.  (A little Andy Warhol-style perhaps.  We had recently visited a museum featuring his works.)

She spent an afternoon creating Lego replicas of ordinary objects throughout our home and furtively placing her impersonations next to the originals.

We left them there for weeks.

Masterly Inactivity.

It can’t really be forced or scheduled precisely, more like allowed.

And it almost always has to happen at home.

Which means, you need to be home sometimes, some days.

No – that does not mean you have to homeschool – although I do view this concept as part of the educational process of our children so I do think it’s far easier to incorporate through the homeschooling lifestyle.

But even if your children are in a traditional school environment, they still need (and crave) this extended home time.  (And so do parents, I believe.)

Full Saturdays where the car never backs out of the driveway.  Sunday afternoons spent with all the screens and electronics powered down. Evenings where there are no friends over and no swim lessons and no family movies.

We can make our homes more inviting for such “play” as well.  

A corner table where puzzles can be left up for several days in a row.  A stockpile of markers and papers and Popsicle sticks and old wrapping paper.

Masterly Inactivity.

It’s not being lazy.

It’s not taking a backseat to your child’s education or development.

It’s actually proactive.

It’s walking that tightrope of stepping in versus stepping back.  Of dictating versus presenting.

Allowing opportunity and self-motivation to shape your child’s interests and skills.

All while under your watchful parental eye.

It’s probably entirely misnamed.

I don’t think it’s inactive at all.