Habits are powerful, I think we all know that. But just how powerful surprised me. One study showed that almost 45% of our daily actions are the results of habit. That’s almost half. HALF. Whoa.
Because of this, if my homeschool room were on fire and I only had time to save one book, I’d save my Charlotte Mason habit training book. I think helping our children learn good habits is the foundational key to success no matter what subject they are learning. Plus the book is big and wide, making it a better candidate for putting said fire out.
1. Curiosity
“Why? Why why why? But why? Why, mommy? Why? MOMMY WHY????” Ringing a bell? Sans the “mommy,” I assume, this is exactly how many successful engineers think. Truly understanding why something works the way it does—be it a code library, a car engine, or popcorn—is how to grow as an engineer.
Try it: I’m starting out with an easy one here; kids are already curious! Let’s embrace that curiosity. The next time your kid says “why?”, stop what you’re doing and get to the bottom of it! You don’t have to know the answer. Do some internet or YouTube research, or even better pick up an encyclopedia. (Gasp!) Having a good age-appropriate encyclopedia on hand is a must. Our family uses the Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia. Just know that encyclopedias aren’t free from bias, so as with everything encourage your child to use wisdom as they read.
2. Independence
In 2021, people around the world spent more than $315 billion (with a B!) dollars on online learning. The pandemic obviously had something to do with that, but even with everything going back to normal, e-learning is still steadily increasing. A huge part of that market is curious engineers taking it upon themselves to learn new skills, grow in competency, and further their careers. Teaching our kids to independently identify areas of growth, know how to seek out that growth, and stick to it—all without a boss or parent telling them to—is vital.
Try it: Get your kid a library card. If they ask a question, or seem genuinely interested in a topic, historical event, or skill, make a note of it. Next time you are at the library, remind them of what they were curious about and have them run and grab a book that would address their curiosity. Alternatively, enroll them in a self-paced online course as part of their education. Outschool is a great place to start for younger kids, or Coursera, Domestika or Skillshare for older kids.
3. Helpfulness
Engineers are often stereotyped into the standoffish, cold and calculating sort. As with any stereotype, it does apply to some engineers, but not others. Fundamentally though, that stereotype misses the mark by quite a bit. Engineers are people who want to help. They see a problem and they want to fix it. Now some don’t come across that way for sure, but isn’t problem-solving—the bread and butter of engineering—just another term for helping? Take Mark Zuckerberg for example. Politics and Facebook aside, he is an engineer. He saw that his wife wasn’t sleeping well at night and invented a box that helps her sleep. In his words, “As an engineer, building a device to help my partner sleep better is one of the best ways I can think of to express my love and gratitude.”
Try it: Next time you have a problem, even a small one, ask your child if they have any ideas for how to fix it and give them the space and supplies to follow through on their design. Then use it, and let them know how helpful it was! My 5 year old invented “Jonesi cones”. They’re basically orange posterboard rolled into a cone shape, like little paper road cones. He enthusiastically ran and grabbed them whenever I was sweeping so that everyone would know not to step in and scatter my dirt pile.
4. Listening
The first thing an engineer needs to understand is what problem they’re trying to solve. SO often I hear horror stories of a customer or client wanting a widget (app/website/fighter jet) built, the engineer building it, and the customer saying “that’s not what I wanted at all.” Many an hour and dollar have been wasted designing solutions to problems that didn’t exist. Yes, I know, the client didn’t clearly communicate what they wanted… if they even knew what that was in the first place. BUT a great engineer won’t settle for that excuse. They’ll dive into the fog of vaguely-thought-out hopes and dreams with their notepad of observation, pen of clarity, and coffee cup of patience in hand.
Try it: Ask your kid to chop onions, or something like that. Ideally, they need to ask you how many onions, and whether you wanted them chopped roughly, diced or sliced. Praise any clarifying questions they do ask, and drop hints about any other information they need but don’t yet have. You could apply this to asking the kids to get a book, get dressed, or color you a picture. This might seem overly simplistic, but it helps develop the skill of active listening which most adults, myself included, severely lack.
5. Speaking
Engineers don’t just need to know how to listen to and solve problems, they also need to know how to communicate. Contrary to stereotypes, the best engineers must actually be able to communicate very well. They need to be able to lay out project expectations, describe issues to others without jargon, and clearly lay out use cases for their products. As Albert Einstein says, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Try it: Ask your kids about their ideas. Take time to sit and listen to what they say. Ask questions. Seek to understand. That’s really all it takes. Another way to develop this skill would be, if you are a board gaming family for example, to host a regular game night with family or friends and have your kids be in charge of explaining the rules of some simpler games to any new players.
6. Planning
Sometimes the spaghetti-at-the-wall approach is a good one, but not often in engineering. Who came up with that phrase anyway? What were they trying to do? So strange. Anyway, addressing a problem almost always involves designing a solution, carefully testing it on a small scale, planning milestones, and only then building the final product. Humans are impatient and like to just dive into things, but planning is a vital skill for engineers.
Try it: Buy your kids an “inventions sketch book”. Just a nice, high quality sketchbook that you can encourage them to write down any of their ideas in. Fleshing something out, even just a little bit, before grabbing the scissors and glue is a great first step. For any normal school project, be it writing an essay or building a robot, buy them a nice planner and teach them the lost art of scheduling out their project. If it’s due on Friday, have them set a goal for where they’ll be this Wednesday and have them stick to it. Celebrate with brownies on Thursday night when their project is already done because they planned well.
7. Perseverance
Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, said “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” About his own invention of the light bulb (nope, not here to discuss who should get credit for actually inventing it, the principle of this quote holds true either way), he said, “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.” Engineers need perseverance to continue through failures, bugs, crashes, and caffeine shortages.
Try it: Reframe failures as steps towards success. No, not every project works out, not every problem is solved, but something is learned every time your kid tries something. Every time your kid “fails”, debrief with them and clearly identify something they gained.
8. Humility
There is a big difference between being self-assured and being prideful. A self-assured engineer will know his or her skills and be confident in them, seeking out learning opportunities with complete transparency. They’d value others and seek to build them up with no thought of competition. A prideful engineer’s self-identity is tied up with their perceived success. Unwilling to admit wrong, and seeing coworkers as competition, they’d put whatever project they’re working on in jeopardy… the Challenger disaster is a great example of pride wreaking havoc on engineering.
Try it: If your child knows a skill (anything from tying shoes to soldering), encourage them to teach someone else. Let them feel the joy of another’s success. If a sibling or a friend knows a skill that they would like to improve in, encourage them to ask to be taught it. Nurturing the desire to pour into others, and the willingness to ask others to pour into you, is as humbling as it is life-giving.
9. Teamwork
When we think of an engineer, many of us picture a solitary-hacker-by-day, Dungeons-and-Dragons-warrior-mage-by-night type of guy. In reality, however, engineers rarely work alone. The problems are often just too big for one person. Even warrior mages are usually part of a guild! Teamwork is a HUGELY important part of being a good engineer.
Try it: Have your children (if there are more than one) work together to put ideas into practice. To build a giant toilet paper tower, cook dinner, or even write Scratch code. Encourage them to listen to each other, to divide responsibilities, and to encourage one another. Check out this site for some ideas on how to build teamwork using STEM activities.
10. Morality
Engineering is not amoral. So often engineers hide behind the veil of “I’m just following the science, leave the moralizing to others”. Many MANY horrors have taken place because of this self-imposed disconnect with right and wrong. Think about the building of the tower of Babel vs. the construction of the temple. Both were, I would say, similar engineering undertakings. God, however, was concerned with the hearts of the engineers. Truly good engineers don’t just build cool stuff, they build stuff that honors God and expands His kingdom, whether by being morally upstanding in the workplace, or by building a product that brings life and aid to others.
Try it: Before your child takes on any new project, during the planning stage, ask them how this project honors God. It could be as simple as “this football game I’m coding will bring joy to others”. Pray with them before, during and after their undertaking.
Conclusion
These habits—curiosity, independence, helpfulness, listening, speaking, planning, perseverance, humility, teamwork and morality—are the foundation for any successful engineer… Or any successful adult for that matter. By focusing on these, you’ll equip your child to think like an engineer more effectively, which will help them in whatever career they choose. I’ll leave you with a post by the late-great Charlotte Mason to inspire your homeschool habit journey!
“This relation of habit to human life—as the rails on which it runs to a locomotive—is perhaps the most suggestive and helpful to the educator; for just as it is on the whole easier for the locomotive to pursue its way on the rails than to take a disastrous run off them, so it is easier for the child to follow lines of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines at his peril.”
-Charlotte Mason
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