Leonard Law

"A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent" (Boy Scout Law).

 When my son Tommy had to memorize the Boy Scout Law and explain what it means, I found myself thinking about the advantages of a list of positive character traits to aspire for. I have always felt uninspired to craft a mission statement for our family, no matter how many times I have thought about or read Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families; for some reason it never seemed like something my family would naturally come up with together, and I like family life to feel natural and authentic. "Wouldn't it be fun, though, to come up with our own "Leonard Law" of character traits instead of a mission statement?" I asked myself, and when I proposed it to the family, they all said yes.

At our family gathering to write the law, we began with each individual suggesting a few traits. We decided to whittle the list down to 12, just like the Scout Law. Multipurpose words won out over more specific ones as the debate over which traits to include continued. We decided "strong" could include both physical and moral strength, and "clean" could mean purity as well as personal hygiene and housekeeping. I was sad when "studious" lost out, but everyone convinced me that "curious" and "diligent" both overlapped with it. Making the final cuts took over an hour, and "fun" snuck in as our final choice because we didn't want to seem too serious all the time.

Until we see fit to come out with a new version, the "Leonard Law" says:

"A Leonard is faithful, obedient, curious, diligent, helpful, patient, honest, clean, strong, courteous, kind, and fun."

We have been discussing each of these traits in turn one night a week, deciding what they mean to us and how we can develop these qualities. One grumpy night I used the discussion to tell my children how they really aren't very obedient. My oldest daughter reminded me that these are qualities we want to have, not ones we are already stellar examples of. Since I want these to be times my children anticipate rather than dread, I have decided not to mention something specific my children have done unless it is positive. This week during our conversation I mentioned how each of my children had been helpful.

What do these traits mean to me? I have tried to summarize each in a sentence to give me focus as our family strives to build our character.

• Faithful: We are full of faith in our Savior Jesus Christ and dedicate our lives to emulating Him.
• Obedient: We obey our parents with love and respect, and we obey our God.
• Curious: We eagerly desire to learn about anything that is good and uplifting; nothing is boring.
• Diligent: We work hard with persistence and no procrastination.
• Helpful: We help each other and try to notice and meet the needs of others.
• Patient: We keep an even temperament, and we realize that the most valuable things in life take time.
• Honest: We love truth and represent this in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
• Clean: We cleanse both the inner and outer vessels, practicing good hygiene, good housekeeping, and personal purity.
• Strong: We exercise and face physical challenges to strengthen our bodies. We exercise faith and follow Christ to strengthen our spirits.
• Courteous: We understand that etiquette primarily means being aware of others and the effect of our actions on them.
• Kind: We treat others generously and gently.
• Fun: We believe enjoyment improves everything.

Our Leonard Law is a work in progress because our family and each of us as individuals are good people in progress. As we memorize it and bring its meaning to action in our lives, I think it will help us grow and give us a stronger family identity. Most of all, though, coming up with it was fun, and I want my children to remember it fondly some day when they are adults who have developed good habits of character.

Found Nouns

As much as possible, I try to avoid traditional curricula (textbooks and workbooks) in favor of living books, a concept originated by the educator Charlotte Mason. To me, a book is a living book if it is:

1. Well-written in a literary style
2. By a single author who cares about the subject

For our elementary school grammar studies this year, we are studying one of the parts of speech each month through books and activities. We began September with nouns, using the following three books:


Our final "test" on nouns was to name as many nouns as possible from the picture above. The same object could be named more than once; for example, the dice could also be a cube or a square. My family, my sister's family, and my mom and niece competed against each other. The family who found the most nouns that none of the other families found would win. Next time I try an activity like this, I think I will forego the competition because it made my boys a little too intense. It works just as well to find out how many nouns we could all find together. When I pooled our answers, I found that between the three families, we identified 176 unique nouns in the picture.

Afterwards we discussed how learning about nouns, and that multiple nouns can name the same object, could help us in writing. We decided that it can help us select the best words to represent something and avoid repetition by substituting other appropriate nouns when we can.

I selected the picture I did because it seemed to fit the season. I found it at the following link, where there were some other good pictures that could be used as well. http://www.theotherpages.org/spy/spy012.jpg
The I Spy book series would be another resource for pictures of nouns to name.