Family Life

This website has several excellent articles worthy of a read!
Family Life

The Chronicles of Narnia

If you are no stranger to movies and media, then you couldn't have ignored the Chronicles of Narnia series of movies. Though the movies might be a little scary for a younger audience, these are a beautiful set of movies that help to share about a part of the heart of the gospel message. In The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe we first meet Aslan, the lion who is willing to sacrifice himself for the greater cause.

Movies such as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe open up the floor for you to discuss and explore with your children about who Jesus is and what He did for us.

On the topic of movies, if you ever wonder what the spiritual themes or general content of movies are before you and your family go to see them, check out: http://www.pluggedin.com/ Here you will learn about the content of the movie and will have an inclination of what you're getting into before you take your child to see it.

Max Lucado Stories

From time to time in my classroom, I thoroughly enjoyed sharing with the children books written by the author, Max Lucado. The books are lengthy in words and are geared towards an older set of children, but the illustrations are beautiful and the stories have excellent morals.

You Are Special and You Are Mine are both stories about our loveable hero, Punchinello. He is a Wemmick, that is a wooden creature created and carved by the hands of Eli. In both stories Punchinello has to realize that his identity is based solely in whose he is. Both books serve as allegories mirroring the importance of realizing that it doesn't matter what we have or what others think of us, but that we belong to God and His opinion is the one that matters the most.

Your Child's Spiritual Development

Here is an excellent article on the spiritual development of children broken down by age groups:
Spiritual Development

25 years of excellence

Holland United Methodist Church assessed the growing needs of the community 25 years ago and determined that their was a need for center based program in Dubois County.  Their vision was to provide a program that focused not only on the child's social and education needs, but their spiritual development as well.

Today we continue with that vision.  We are dedicated to the education of the children in our care, while also focusing on their social development.  We are in the business of creating life long learners and the leaders of tomorrow.  We believe that the foundation for your child's future success is established well before they enter the public schools.  It begins with the secure relationships that they have with the staff within the program.  It continues to unfold as the child continues to transition through our program in a group of peers that they have been able to build a relationship with over the years.  Children learn their numbers and their letters, but most importantly they learn to respect the differences of the individuals around them. 

Choosing a Bible for Your Child

Your child will more than likely go through several different Bibles throughout their lives. Understanding that your child goes through several different levels of development through their childhood helps to aid in the understanding of the practicality of this change through Bibles.









It is important to allow your child to select a Bible for themselves (give them developmentally appropriate options, of course), because this allows for ownership and increases the chance that they will be willing to actually use their Bible.


Remember these few hints in selecting a Bible for your children:

Preschool: Choose a Bible storybook, with simple illustrations, that covers key Bible stories and has a small number of simple words per picture. This allows them to see words and letters and recognize that when strung together they have meaning. It helps to familiarize them with this fact.

Beginning Readers: Choose a storybook that contains simple illustrations and more stories than a preschool storybook. It is best if beginning readers have a storybook that takes two pages or more to tell each story. This keeps them interested in the book because they do not consistently have to require an adult to read through the text, but it keeps it in a format that they enjoy to hear through story.

Grade Schoolers: Fewer pictures, more words is the key at this level. Make sure the illustrations are interesting and up-to-date. Simple Bible reference lists and an index are also good features to look for at this age level. At this point your child will be reading on their own more often than not. Don't forgo reading the stories with them, but when they want to discover stories, or reread their favorites, they can.

Teaching Prayer Part 2

We previously discussed the ACTS acronym for prayer last week, and since it had so much to explain, I opted to save some other models for later.

1. ACTS
2. Praying through Scripture: Sometimes it is beneficial to open up to Scripture and pray it into your lives. It is especially easy to do through the book of Psalms. In the plights that the Psalmist lists you can substitute your own, the same can be done for praises and thanks (things you definitely don't want to skip over).
3. Praying together, one by one: This is simply starting off by praying from your heart, and going around the room all doing the same. This one is very important because it allows your child to see that you are comfortable praying with God, and talking with God, and that they can be also.

I pray that you've found these past couple of weeks informative in teaching your children how to pray and the importance of prayer. Though it may seem that bad habits are easier to make than good ones, the repetition of an action breeds habit. Stay tuned for discussion on selecting a Bible for your child to read and how to keep them interested.

Teaching Prayer

Last week, I discussed the benefits of praying with your children. But the question may have crossed your mind, "But how do I teach my child to pray?" The truth is? You teach your children to pray, but simply modeling that prayer is a form of conversation and that the Person they are talking with, hears them and responds through different ways.

1. The ACTS model of prayer
1. A: Adoration. Spend time talking about the attributes of God. Talk about God creating the heavens and the earth and all that is within them. Talk about how God sees everything all at the same time and that it doesn't overwhelm Him. Discuss that God hears every prayer. This way children experience the many things that God is and begin to understand that He's more than just one attribute that we focus on.
2. C: Confession. It is hard to focus on confession during prayer even as adults. But if you begin to cultivate this spirit within your children at an early age, they will begin to see that when they mess up, they can talk to a Forgiving God about what they have done and He will forgive them.
3. T: Thanksgiving. Through thanksgiving we thank God for the people and things that we have. Our response to all that God has given us should, at the very least, inspire our worship and praise, and should very well inspire us to respond by giving back.
4. S: Supplication. This is where we pray for areas where we long for God to work on our lives, and also in the lives of others. After we have entered into a spirit of awe, humility, and thanksgiving, what we find ourselves praying for very well may change from a laundry list, to just a few things. We soon begin to realize that we can rely on God for who He is and that He has our best intentions in mind.

Prayer

It is said that, "the family that prays together, stays together". The active choice to pray together as a family allows for their to be open conversation about nearly anything spiritual.

Through prayer you are teaching your child several things:

1. That prayer is an open, constant conversation with God that comes from the heart and does not require eloquence or "churchy" words to be effective.
2. That prayer surrenders self and trades self-will for God's will.
3. That prayer, as a conversation with God, allows a continual stream of trust and relationship to be built with the Master of the Universe.

How beautiful and simple are the prayers of the children here at the center. As we've made the move to allow the older children to "pray from the heart" before meals and during circle time, it is often quite convicting to move to praying for only the things that we really need and for which we are truly thankful. (Children are much more honest without reservation than we as adults tend to be.)

Stay tuned for different methods of teaching and modeling prayer to your children!