The most fatal way parents can despise their children is by overlooking or making light of their natural relationship to God. “Hinder not” is the third and final law in what Charlotte Mason calls the Gospel code of education. Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” Even well-meaning, Christian parents who long to see their children come to Christ, have hindered their young children by believing or acting as though they didn’t have a real spiritual life yet.

Study Questions

These answers express my personal opinions and interpretations.

1. 1.In what ways may parents hinder their children’s access to God?
   The main way we hinder children is by failing to joyfully and reverently discuss God—how he loves and delights in us, and how he is the source of every good thing. Mention of God is instead limited to threats of his punishment when children misbehave. (Discussions of God’s law and judgement are crucial; but it will not be the only discussion of God, it will be in the context of his grace through Jesus Christ, and it won’t be used to manipulate the child’s behavior but to touch his heart—from which all thought and action springs.)
   
   I found Mason’s further examples of “hindering” also illuminating.—
   
   

2. •“listless, perfunctory prayers”—Prayers that are automatic,  superficial, or careless fail to communicate the wonder and beauty of speaking to God; prayer becomes a dull, even pointless, duty.
   
   

3. •“idle discussions of Divine things in their presence”—Conversing about God, the Biblical text, or doctrinal issues with a flippant (or even joking) manner is not appropriate whether children are present or not. This certainly does not mean we must be dour and grim. But there should be attention and reverence.
   
   

4. •“light use of holy words”—Would this include exclamations like “For goodness’ sake”? Certainly it would include the use of God’s name in such phrases, carelessly used, as “God forbid!” “Good Lord!” “Lord, help me,” etc.
   
   

5. In all of these things we fail to nourish and strengthen the child’s spirit with love and reverence for the Lord and his ways. Instead, he is blunted to spiritual things, which become to him oppressive or insipid, and even unreal.
   
   Other examples of hindering children come to mind: actively discouraging or delaying spiritual discussions/ private professions of faith until the child can “understand better”; failing to thoughtfully and seriously answer their spiritual questions; making a display to others of their prayers, wise sayings, or spiritual questions.
   

Personal Notes

Charlotte Mason writes that the child has a “natural” [pertaining to nature, impressed on the being by Divine power] relationship to God. Certainly, I think even young children can sense their need for God. That longing, coupled with the simplicity of their faith (“unconscious delight and trust”), does make them especially responsive to God’s Spirit—”as the flowers turn to the sun.” (I wouldn’t call it a ”natural relationship,” necessarily—perhaps “natural desire” or “response.”) The phrasing here does somewhat lend itself to an errant interpretation that children will instinctively—without instruction—know and follow God and his ways. I don’t think, in light of Mason’s wider writings, that this is what she meant herself.

I encountered this verse this week and was struck by its applicability to this post. In Matthew 23:9, Jesus tells his disciples” “But be ye not called Rabbi: for one is your Master [teacher], even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” Charlotte Mason believed that the work of education ultimately belongs to the children. It is the student’s mind acting on the knowledge—through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Mason believed so completely that the Holy Spirit was the one source of knowledge and understanding (for the believer and, through common grace, the unbeliever), that her teacher’s college was nicknamed “The House of the Holy Spirit.” Nurturing the child’s spiritual life—his connections to God’s Spirit—is then crucial to giving him a whole education.

Personal Application

1. •Continue to read the Bible to my younger brothers, and allow the text to minister to them directly, through the Holy Spirit, without undue talk. Invite and respect their spiritual discussions and questions.
   

Resources

“Then there were brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.” Matthew 19:13-15

Other Home Education Commentaries

Becoming Three: Charlotte Mason Volume I Part I.V-VI Hindering, and the Brain

Sparrow Tree Square: Charlotte Mason Monday Part 12

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