Positive affirmations for women & kids

What’s inside: You’ve seen positive affirmations for women (and kids) but here’s a fun look at a Charlotte Mason approach to “positive affirmations”.

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What is an affirmation?

We’ve all seen them – think positively each morning and say a positive affirmation like “I am strong” to yourself in the mirror.

I’ve always been a little skeptical if these work for everyone.

Before you get upset at me, let me explain.

First, I am a rather positive person. I believe it is important to stay upbeat and share encouragement with others.

That’s not to say every day is like sunshine and gumdrops.

And that’s where I get skeptical… If you go to get yourself some juicy affirmations to start your days off on a good foot, and you come across some article called “365 fantastic affirmations for the rest of your year” there is BOUND to be some of them that do NOT resonate with you.

Like “I am a successful and powerful super-person who can leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Because, let’s face it: you’re not.

Sorry to rain on your parade.

And here is exactly where I intuitively feel like there might be a problem with some types of affirmations.

Do affirmations work?

It begs the question, do affirmations work?

I had to look it up.

Turns out there was a study in 2009 that said “YES, affirmations work for people who already have high-self esteem. But NO, they don’t work for people with low-self esteem.” (I’m not actually quoting here– I’m paraphrasing the science-y stuff from the study.¹)

Why would this be? Basically if you don’t believe the statement itself, it leads toward doubt. And telling yourself something that is a basically a lie makes you worse off than not. You see, that low-self esteem person doesn’t really believe “I am an inspiring person” or “I am fabulous.” Where the high self-esteem person might.

The middle of the study had people who questioned the positive statement to find where it was true and where it wasn’t – those people did fine, just like the high self-esteem people. They said things like “I think maybe someday I can become an inspiring person” when they looked at a statement that didn’t resonate truly with them.

One more data point

I also remember reading a study long ago (sorry, I can’t find the source anymore) in which people reported having improved days when they started out their day saying a series of 10 statements that sequentially went from neutral and ended on very positive.

So they’d start with something that was factual like “I am out of bed.”

And then work through some statements like “I’m taking some deep breaths” and “My eyes are open” and move to statements like “I am feeling OK” and “I am starting my day with some positivity.” And finally ending on something like “I can do this!” or “I feel good!”

It did work to change people’s attitudes to be more positive.

My conclusion: Yes, it is possible to have positive affirmations for women and kids, but you have to pay attention to the kind of affirmation you are using.

What does this have to do with homeschooling?

So all this got me to thinking, “What would Charlotte say?”

You see, there are a number of differences between our society today and Charlotte Mason’s day.

We focus on self quite a bit more today than in her day. And maybe that’s a problem. Maybe we can change the focus for ourselves and our kids.

Here are 4 “affirmations” that she used

The motto of the PNEU schools was a quote from Charlotte Mason (CM): “I am, I can, I ought, I will.”

Here’s the full quote:

‘I am, I ought, I can, I will’—these are the steps of that ladder of St. Augustine, whereby we “rise on stepping stones of our dead selves to higher things.”

‘I am’—we have the power of knowing ourselves. ‘I ought’—we have within us a moral judge, to whom we feel ourselves subject, and who points out and requires of us our duty. ‘I can’—we are conscious of power to do that which we perceive we ought to do. ‘I will’—we determine to exercise that power with a volition which is in itself a step in the execution of that which we will. Here is a beautiful and perfect chain, and the wonder is that, so exquisitely constituted as he is for right-doing, error should be even possible to man. But of the sorrowful mysteries of sin and temptation it is not my place to speak here; you will see that it is because of the possibilities of ruin and loss which lie about every human life that I am pressing upon parents the duty of saving their children by the means put into their hands. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that ninety-nine out of a hundred lost lives lie at the door of parents who took no pains to deliver them from sloth, from sensual appetites, from willfulness, no pains to fortify them with the habits of a good life.

-From Page 330 of Charlotte Mason’s Home Education

Another difference between then and now

You might have noticed that this quote is wholeheartedly referring to God and our relationship to him and to others. Charlotte Mason is unapologetic.

You may have noticed our current society is not this way.

I think this perspective can help build “self-esteem” in a proper way – going back to our roots as a moral society that didn’t always think of itself first. Where values and virtues had a fixed standard instead of a relative one.

So positive affirmations for women and kids can benefit from a CM slant.

What CM contemporaries wrote:

“I am, I can, I ought, I will. This was the motto she gave us. I am a human being, one of God’s children; I can do right by my fellowmen and by myself; I ought so to do and God help me, I will so do. Is this not a great message she has given us?”

Michael A. E. Franklin, one of Charlotte Mason’s students; from In Memoriam

The will

According to Charlotte Mason International, CM puts “strong emphasis on the power of our will. In fact, she devotes a whole section of Volume 1 to this topic, entitled ‘The Will—The Conscience—The Divine Life in the Child.’”

Going further on the topic of the will, the Ambleside Online summary of Ourselves, Book 2: Chapter VI: Reason, states:

Coming to the right conclusion takes more than logical reasoning; one must begin from the correct notion. Math is a true notion, and reason works well when figuring out mathematical equations.

Our job is to use our Will to consider whether a notion or idea is right or wrong before our own reason has a chance to persuade us to follow it or not. Accepting false notions that should have been rejected at the outset has led to all sorts of bizarre philosophies, such as atheism, or the idea that matter is a figment of the mind.

Ambleside Online, Concise Summaries

To Sum Up and a Gift for you

The motto “I am, I can, I ought, I will” ends with I will. I think this progression of thought can help us as homeschooling moms and it can help your child become a better person, too.

I’ve made myself a set of “affirmation cards” that I would like to share with you. I hope you enjoy them.

Related Posts

Citations and References

• Ambleside Online summary of Ourselves, Book 2: Chapter VI: Reason,
• Charlotte Mason International
• USOSM | 50 Self-Affirmations to Stay Motivated
• Lisa Appelo | 31 Christian affirmations Rooted in Scripture

1Wood JV, Perunovic WQ, Lee JW. Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others. Psychol Sci. 2009 Jul;20(7):860-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x. Epub 2009 May 21. PMID: 19493324.