The nursery ends for kids at the age of 3 at our church, so after Sunday School my husband picks up Isaac and brings him into "Big Church." He's actually done pretty well (aside from one little closing prayer mishap where Daddy was stuck in the middle of the row with him... lesson learned. We now sit on the end. :) He likes to observe everything while we sing and enjoys sitting on Daddy's lap for part of the service. (We're not anticipating that it will be this easy with our ever-moving 1 1/2 year old when he turns 3!) Even though he's been pretty great about the whole transition, he does get antsy, so I've put together some stuff for him to do when he can't sit still any longer.
I'm not going to lie. This all kind of stresses me out. BUT I know it's so good for Isaac to begin watching others worship their Savior and a good opportunity for him to learn to sit quietly.
So here's some of the stuff we're taking to church with us to make it meaningful and that also seems to help him stay quiet:
1. Big Boy Bible. Isaac has his own Big Boy Bible that we take to church each week. It's the Bible my mom gave each of the boys on their baby dedication Sunday.
Our bulletin has the text the pastor will be preaching on, so I try to look up the passage with him in his Bible before church starts. That doesn't always happen, but Matt and I try to have him follow along in his Bible or ours while the pastor reads the text for the morning. I love that he's beginning to familiarize himself with the Word of God and he likes that he's got his own Bible like Mommy and Daddy.
2. Christianpreschoolprintables.com. I print off coloring pages, file folder games and activities from here to put in a 3 ring binder for him to keep his hands busy. Some of them I have to put together beforehand, but it's worth it to have a couple of matching games or file folder games for him to do (and I can keep them and re-use them later).
3. Bible board books. We have quite a few books on hand that tell individual Bible stories and some that have small collections of stories. I put a few of those in the bag for him to look at if he tires of coloring or doing the activities.
I try to sometimes have little "themes" for our bag of activities (like the story of Christmas or Creation or Noah, etc.). In the coming months I'm going to try to share some of those activity packets that I put together and where I've gotten my ideas from.
As a side note, I don't think that having Bible stuff for him to do is a must. Sometimes Isaac just doodles with markers on a sheet of paper. I just like the idea of kind of cementing in his mind that this hour is for thinking about God. When I was growing up and once we could do some writing, my dad always had us "take notes" and write down at least one thing we learned during the sermon on Sunday morning. Most Sundays I had no clue what our pastor was talking about, so if he even mentioned the word "love" in passing, I would write down, "God is love" (usually accompanied with some doodled hearts :). He didn't make us give him a list of all the main points at the end, but he did expect us to make an effort to listen. This was good training and I'm glad he did it. I plan to do something similar in the future, but considering the only letter Isaac's mastered writing so far is I, O and T, I don't think we're going to be getting sentences out of him anytime soon.
I'd love to hear how you help your child learn to listen and not be a distraction to others during Sunday morning worship.
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I love your introduction! :-) It does get easier. We do still have rough weeks when the boys are very antsy, but for the most part we're able to pay attention during the sermon these days. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhen we were training our boys to sit still I practiced at home during the week. I would turn on an audio drama and work with them to sit still through 30 minutes of listening to something. This way they learned what behavior was expected of them. It took a while, but as you said...it was important to us that our sons learn and participate in worshiping God.
My kids are older and know how to write. I pick a selection of verses from the passage the pastor is preaching on and on their school-lined paper they copy the verses with their best writing while they are listening to the sermon. At a young age, printing and then when they learn it, cursive handwriting. They keep their writings in a folder that they bring to church every week. Number of verses also depends on the age. If younger, you could do pre-made sheets that have words from the Bible for them to trace or write. W
ReplyDeleteOne more personal thought...if I did have to take my child out of service, I always attempted to bring him/her back into service. If that was not possible or I had to try too many times and was a distraction, I held my kids firmly and had them sit still and quiet in my lap in the foyer for the remainder of the service. This helped them sit still sooner in church because they figured out going out of the sanctuary didn't release them to run around, talk, and play anyway. W
that is right where we are at with our kids. our 4 year old wants to stay with us and not go to children's church, which is fine, but i have to pack her a "church" bag for the service. our 1 1/2 year old all of a sudden doesn't like the nursery, so he's in there with us, too. i actually LOVE having them with us, but my hubby sometimes gets overwhelmed. he wants them to sit and not make a peep. hehe
ReplyDeleteyou can tell he hasn't taken them with him many places... kids are simply noisy. :)
i look forward to reading more about this from you.
I love how you are making this transition something to celebrate--like a rite of passage with the gift of the Bible. We also love to use lapbook materials during church--but your idea of using the 3 ring binder is much better than what we've been doing. I will definitely be implementing this!
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that my children really respond when they already know a song that we sing in church. It grabs their attention, they get huge smiles on their faces, and they actively participate. I love seeing that sparkle in their eyes during the worship service!! Because of this, I'm trying to incorporate more hymns and contemporary Christian music into our week.
From personal experience, I want to second Stacey's comment about singing the hymns and songs at home during the week. That really does help! On Saturday nights, for less than an hour, we have a family "prepare to worship" time where my husband teaches them from the Word, we sing hymns and worship songs while they play their guitars, and finish with a "clean our hearts" prayer time to prepare for worship Sunday morning. One week, my husband was able to get a bulletin early showing the songs to be sung the next Sunday. So, we sang those songs during our Saturday night family worship. The next morning with EVERY song we sang, our kids eyes got big and their mouth's dropped open and they sang out those worship songs with smiles because they were able to make the connection from just the night before! Their eyes also get big when the pastor or Scripture reading quotes a verse they have memorized. All of this to say that the "parenting for the pew" really goes to a deeper level when the training is done throughout the week at home before you even sit in the pew.
ReplyDeleteSide Note: I read once that younger children's eyes are not developed enough to follow a music screen. We had them look up the songs and use the hymnals instead, which also gave them an engaging element when they were younger and just learning to read. W
In my church (Mormon) we always have our kids with us during the Sunday morning sacrament meeting, whatever age, and it is killer! I have twin 19 month old girls and keeping them quiet is hard. In our church the big "rite of passage" is when your kids turn 18 months because then they can go to nursery during Sunday School and the third hour (Relief Society for the women, priesthood for the guys), because until then you have a squirmy, tired infant/toddler for THREE WHOLE HOURS! I don't know why we do it this way, I guess because we don't have paid nursery leaders or because liability or something.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, keep the suggestions coming because I sure need some help keeping my girls entertained until after the worship service.
I imagine you're already familiar with it, but "Parenting in the Pew" by Robbie Castleman is a great read on this very topic!
ReplyDeleteI have an idea that may help with active listening! For those who can read, write various words on a piece of paper that they are likely to hear in the sermon. Have the child check off everytime he/she hears the word. For little ones, you could print out little pics to represent the words (Triangle for God, Cross for Jesus, heart for love) Then, whenever your little one hears "love" they put a check next to the heart!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input, ladies. Excellent suggestions! @Teamboyer, I've heard of it, but had forgotten about it... I'll be adding it to my book wishlist! @Joy, What a fantastic idea! I LOVE it and I'll definitely have to try that out!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post. When we take our boys in with us, they each bring a special notebook for 'notes'. I also listen with an ear for what they can grasp and will bend down and whisper an application or draw their attention to something the pastor said.
ReplyDeleteHave you read, Hidden Art by Edith Shaefer? She used to illustrate the sermon for her young children. They loved watching her draw what the sermon was about. I'm a horrible artist bue will sometimes do stick figure drawings for them.
We also loved Parenting in the Pew and like Stacey said above, we request the song list and listen to them on youtube the week before we'll be taking them in.
I've loved all of your ideas and the other ideas people have given so far.
I've enjoyed reading your post. There are some great ideas here. When I was a young mother I had 3 wiggly lttle boys with me every Sunday while my husband preached. My boys are grown up (and it happened so fast!) and now various children take turns sitting with me on a Sunday. Here are some of my favourite ideas:
ReplyDelete1. Bible Acrostics: I write a phrase down the left-hand side of a paper and the child searches for words in the Bible that start with those letters.
2. I write down a few key words (God, Jesus, love) and some numbers. The child looks up those song numbers in the song book and counts how many times those words are used in the song.
3. I draw squares(or any shapes) on a paper. The child listens to the sermon and draws things inside the squares that are talked about in the sermon.
4. I show the child how to trace the shape of their hand. Then they write the names (or draws faces) of people they want to pray for. And then encourage them to pray silently for them and check their names off as they pray.
I only do these activities during the sermon. The rest of the time I encourage the children to participate as much as possible in singing and praying.