Yesterday was our first Sunday back in church for 10 weeks. It was lovely. With the new regulations for church because of the pandemic the nurseries and children's church are not open. I have heard some moms talking about the difficulties this presents for them. Personally, I love hearing your littles throughout church! Robert and I have always preferred to worship with our kiddos. : ) But I remember what its like to teach your kids how to sit in church. Its not easy. Well, with some kids it is easy, with others it feels impossible. But this morning my mom, a pastor's wife, told me I should write up a little something on how to train your kiddos to sit in church. So, I am obeying. If your kids are school age and go to a school this will be easier. In fact, I'm not even going to address school aged kids. I'm only going to talk about babies up to 4 year olds,
First, you are not alone. For thousands of years parents have been teaching their children how to sit through a church service. And adults knew how to listen to a sermon without being annoyed by children. This skill has only been lost in the last 100 years. It is possible! And in this situation other parents are trying o figure it out too. I hope that this season makes church folks more gracious toward children in church. Personally, I love seeing your kids in church! BUT I am going to strive to not get into the philosophy behind why we keep our kids with us. I am going to just stick to practical stuff here. (This is driving Robert crazy, if you want to hear the philosophy and why its a great season to worship with your kids, give him a call.) Second, basic obedience is a must. If your child won't come to you when you call them or won't stay seated at the table for dinner when you tell them to, if they scoff at any command you give them, then there will not be any magical trick to getting them to obey you at church and no where else. There has to be a basic respect for your authority. Babies: For very young babies I am a big believer in wearing them and teaching them how to fall asleep on you. If you have more than one child you have realized the gift this is. With my first everything revolved around her and she always slept in her bed and never could fall asleep in the car or on me. But with subsequent children you are just too busy for that. I train my babies to fall asleep in the sling so that church is easier (along with other things, but I'm staying focused here). This works great with most babies. As for older babies you may need to start teaching more formally. One of my boys had the hardest time with this. He was a screamer! He screamed for joy, anger, boredom, excitement, you name it, he had a scream for it. For this particular baby, starting around a year old, after dinner I would sit on the couch with him in my lap and say "We are going to sit still for a little bit." And we would sit like that until he would sit quietly for just a few minutes. Which took a long time. There was lots of bucking and screaming and lashing out. I just repeated myself and stuck it out. I didn't work on his volume until I got his sitting. It took a year of this practicing before he made it through a whole sermon without my needing to take him out because of how loud he had become. That is extreme. All of my other kids took about a month or two. Toddlers: I recommend (for all of my children, any age, we do this) setting up some chairs in a row(big ones because church chairs and pews are made for adults and feel different to sit in than little kid chairs), putting on a sermon audio, and tell them that we are praciticng sitting in church. Start shorter and add minutes as they get better. In this environment at home you can pause the sermon and deal with behavior freely. You can sit two particular children together who are always fighting and teach them how to keep the peace. I'm going to say the ultimate goal is sitting without anything to play with. And then if you decide that its worth it later you can incorporate paper and crayons or a snack or what have you. Speaking of coloring, here is my favorite sermon notes page for this age: www.mamaslearningcorner.com/listening-pages-for-non-readers/ I think that I've shared it before but just in case! In General: -Snacks are more of a pain than help. They drop them, cry over them, "brother has more raisin than I do!". Its just a big pain! But that is my opinion, it may work for your family. -Everyone goes potty before church starts. -Sit in the front. I know, I know, you don't want to be a distraction but sitting in the front helps little children to pay attention better. If they are in the back they don't even know why your there, they can't see the pastor. And all of the people in front of them are a distraction to them. The closer you are to the front, I promise, the better they behave! -Strategize seating arrangments. At home is a good place to teach your children to sit by the sibling that they are fighting with but not at church. We divide and conquer and put a lot of thought into who sits where and by whom. -Listen to your churches worship music throughout the week. Help them memorize a couple of the frequent ones. I love watching my kids' eyes light up when they know by heart a song that the worship team starts to play! -Have an exit strategy. I do not tolerate my children being disrespectful to the teaching of God's word by yelling or throwing a fit. If my baby starts crying and can't be quieted within a few seconds, if two children start fighting, if the teenager gets tickled about something that flits through their mind and they can't stop laughing, we are out of there. Leave, take a few moments to calm down, have a mini discipline session, short talk, nursing room for baby, or just standing in the back and swaying with baby, whatever it takes and then right back in. (Some toddlers will learn that if they behave badly you will take them out and they can play in a back room for the rest of the sermon. That is a reward and nothing is learned. We don't do this. We get back in as quickly as possible.) -Talk about church throughout the week! The above sermon notes are to help littles pay attention just a bit. I'm trying not to get into the philosophy here but don't look at this time as something to just survive. See it as a blessing and opportunity. Espescially if your kiddo would normally be in children's church and they are older, the conversations about the sermon can be so fruitful! Don't miss out! Don't think "How can I just get my kid to be quiet?" If that is the goal then they will be on a screen playing Angry Birds with headphones, or something. Think, "How can I help my child learn more about God and their church family? How can I prepare my child to spend the rest of his/her life enjoying a real church setting?" This is the highest most honorable and needful thing you can teach your child! It has eternal benefits! -Book recommendation: Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman
0 Comments
|
LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
Categories
All
|