May 25, 2015 | Direction
School vacations begin any day now. Here’s an idea that could shift your child’s vacation time from good to great: Wherever you go, whatever you do, find ways to put the spotlight on your family’s talents and strengths. You will hear a lot more gratitude and a lot less whining.
Start by making a list of each child’s talents and strengths….
…including adults who are part of the vacation. Show each child’s list to them and ask the child to circle their top two or three.
Armed with these lists of talents and strengths, search for events and activities that match their talents. This can be a search for local activities, or if the family is also going on a trip, events at your destination.
Sort the possible activities.
Delete any that are unrealistic for your family. Now you have a list of places, people, events, shows, or games that are possible for the trip (or summer days at home without school).
Allow the whole family to choose from the list.
Because of your advance work, there is literally something for every person. Their satisfaction is greater because they are doing something they love or something they are good at. While participating in a sibling’s choice they know their turn is coming.
Take for instance an overnight camping trip.
One child in the family is a natural. She wants to pitch the tent and build the fire. She’s in her element on a camping trip.
The other two children haven’t been looking forward to the camping trip as much.
So you strategically put one child in charge of organizing the tent and the foodstuffs. Where should each person’s sleeping bag be laid out? Where should the flashlight be so everyone can get to it in the dark? How should we separate the evening food from the next day’s breakfast so it doesn’t attract bears? This child is an arranger and he gets a lot of satisfaction out of organizing everything so it makes sense.
The third child is the one staring up into the clouds.
While everyone else was trying to unload the van and pitch the tent, she isn’t paying much attention to the world around her. But that night at the campfire, you ask that child to make up stories to tell around the campfire. The rest of the family can’t believe how funny and scary and entertaining her stories are… but you had a hunch.
Great vacations encompass short-term fun, plus the long-term gain of learning something new or adding onto something we were already good at so the enjoyment is increased.
Vacation isn’t just about mindless fun or distraction or rest.
Yes, these are important. But discovery and creativity and growth are important too. So stay in the moment for 5 more minutes after it’s over, to talk:
- What did we do that you wish we could do again?
- I have an idea for a different activity that we could do…..
- What 3 words describe your feelings about what we did?
- If we did this again, what could we do to make it better?
- What did you (see, hear, smell, taste, feel)?
- What was your contribution to this activity?
With these simple ideas you are likely to get a greater return of refreshment and enjoyment over the long haul.
Next week: Packing children’s suitcases for the trip ahead
Tweetable: Here’s an idea that could shift your child’s vacation time from good to great. Click to Tweet
May 18, 2015 | Direction
“Humans may resemble many other creatures in their striving for happiness, but the quest for meaning is a key part of what makes us human.” — Roy Baumeister
For most people, finding life meaningful and feeling happy are important– and related– goals.
Recognizing this, we start early to move children toward those goals.
Whether you believe that a person’s essence comes from our genetic framework or from God placing a unique soul within each of us (or some combination of both), the outworking of that belief often looks the same: You have potential within you and now you need to decide what to do with it.
Yet it’s difficult for us to face the challenge of what to do next.
We know we need to help the children in our lives learn to tap into the potential that is already within them. But how?
The focus of this blog is always to see the child’s development through a spiritual lens.
Many excellent resources exist that instruct us in the ways of emotional, physical and mental preparation to find happiness and purpose. But what of the spiritual preparation?
Certain concrete, specific actions can help them discover, develop and use the potential of their human spirit.
Each title in this series offers to guide your efforts in all of the attributes of the child’s human spirit:
- Talents and strengths: a vacation planner
- Find and build motivation
- The gift of boredom: desires and passions
- Make work meaningful: try these ideas
- Ask kids what they think of The Big Picture
Helping even young children choose to engage in activities that uncover their talents, motivations, aptitudes and passions–this is part of the spiritual stuff of life.
Next week: Talents and strengths: a vacation planner
Tweetable: We know we need to help children learn to tap into the potential already within them. But how? Click to Tweet
May 4, 2015 | trust
Children who go to religious education classes, Sunday School or parochial school benefit from opportunities to experience God beyond learning facts about God.
Earlier this week, I took my four-year-old granddaughter to the library and to the park for a Bug Hunt. As I steered the car into a parking spot, I asked “What is God doing today?”
Long pause. “I don’t know,” she said.
I continued, “Maybe he would like to come with us to the park to hunt for bugs. Should we invite him?”
Longer pause, then: “Yes, God can come with us while we look for bugs, and other Gods can be with other people so everybody has God with them today.”
Soon we walked past a bush and she said, “Look! There’s threads on this bush,” and we traced the path of the threads from a leaf all the way to the sidewalk. I offered, “Maybe we can find a book in the library to tell us more about the threads.”
The librarian found a picture book for us about spider webs and another book about our best sighting of the day–ladybugs–which we read together in the beanbag chairs provided by the library.
Finally it was time to go home. As we talked about our adventure, I said, “I had so much fun with you today. Do you think God had fun with us?” Her silence was more profound this time.
This silence was that same kind of hush I’ve seen whenever she processes a new experience.
Then she burst into song. I didn’t catch all the words but something about joy and God. I never said anything about her song because I understood that it wasn’t really intended for my ears anyway.
Tweetable:
Ask children, “What is God doing today?” and see how they experience God beyond the facts they’ve learned. Click to Tweet
Apr 27, 2015 | Attachment
Skill #1: Attentiveness: Notice spiritual activity in children.
It occurs most often in the context of everyday life, but don’t overlook its presence here:
- Dreams
- Awe-inspiring activities
- Peace in hard times
- Out-of-control events
- Coincidences and unexplainable events
Skill #2: Active listening: Engage the child in conversation about it.
- Situation 1 Dreams – “As my son was going to sleep he said he was afraid to go to heaven because he didn’t know what it would look like. I told him to ask God to show him while he was asleep. When I followed up two days later he gave me a detailed description. I asked him if it took away his fears, now that he saw it, and he said yes.”
Situation 2 Awe-inspiring activities: “For me, surfing helps. Just being in nature and contextualizing myself with the ocean as this immortal force, this elemental force. And then doing some sort of mindfulness meditation, I think yoga is a good starting point.”- Situation 3 Peace in hard times: “I was 6, maybe 7, when my pet cat died. I wanted to know where my cat went, why she couldn’t come back, etc. I was completely satisfied with my parents’ answers of “She went to Heaven.” God is watching over her now.” That’s when I realized there was some other higher being out there. I felt peace. I remember it distinctly. It was peace knowing that there was someone watching and caring for us that we couldn’t see or touch, but they were out there.”
Situation 4 Out-of-control events: One woman says, “When I was a child in Uganda I remember times when things were out of control and I didn’t expect anything positive to come out of it. My mother helped me recognize God when something good did come out of it.”- Situation 5 Coincidences and unexplainable events: “My teenage daughter called me to tell me that she had pulled a 10-year-old up from the bottom of the pool where she lifeguards. The next morning she said, ‘I couldn’t sleep last night, Ma. I kept thinking about that girl and what might have happened if I hadn’t rescued her. Nobody noticed she was lying at the bottom of the pool. Not even her own sister who was with her. I just can’t believe what happened.’ And I responded, ‘You did something extraordinary. You should feel incredibly good about yourself.'”
Skill #3: Acceptance: Discern if the child wants information or empathy.
Pay attention to this distinction. Accept it either way and respond accordingly. The child in Situation 3 needs information about her cat. The child in Situation 5 wants understanding.
Tweetable: Good news. We use these same 3 skills with kids to develop either spiritual or emotional intelligence. Click to Tweet
Apr 20, 2015 | trust
“I want the gummi bears!!!” cried the child from the car seat, melting down on our way to get lunch because I said he can have the candy after we eat.
As children get older, their disappointments grow larger. In my work of facilitating support groups for children, I find that hurt and angry feelings get directed at God too, and it is often due to:
- Prayers not answered.
- Hurt by religious people.
- Overwhelmed by evil and suffering in the world.
Many children (age 11 and under) say that unanswered prayers disappoint them the most.
They see the needs within their extended family. They hear the adult conversations. They care so much. Some of them spend a lot of time praying for what is best for everyone involved. When the situation doesn’t change according to their wishes, they may conclude that God hardly listens and feel personal rejection by God.
This topic is obviously a vast and complex one. My only goal here is to try to find a few ways we can help children when they feel disappointed with God. We can help them when we:
- Offer empathy by listening without trying to change them or their feelings.
- Accept all the child’s feelings and thoughts about God.
- Express care and support.
- Be mindful of our own feelings about God and not try to project them onto the child.
Sort out the expectations or conditions the child places on God.
Moving from the emotions of their upset, we can also help children in sorting through and discovering their expectations of God. Every relationship involves expectations. It’s true at the child’s school, in the family unit, in the neighborhood, on a sports team. Someone has said that 80 % of our expectations are assumed– never really expressed.
1. Express exactly what you expect of God.
Start by asking, “What do you expect God to do when you for pray for something?” Allow the child to respond by writing it or by speaking it or by returning to it later after they think about it.
Now here’s the part we almost always overlook: Help the child find a way to express expectations directly to God (and how they feel about it). It can be in the form of a “Dear God” letter or a talk-out-loud where no one can hear, or some other approach they decide on.
2. Consider changing expectations to be more realistic.
- How realistic are the child’s expectations of God?
- How reliable are their sources of getting information about God?
- In what ways do they expect God to respond?
- What are God’s limitations? (For example, some would say that one of God’s self-imposed limits is refusal to force people to do anything against their will.)
- Observe others and search out some different expectations for God.
3. Decide what to do.
- Exit: Some children choose to terminate the relationship with God, but that is rare before adolescence. (And from many sources we glean that God never stops trying to connect with them.)
- Stay and withdraw: These children continue to believe in God but withdraw from trying to have any kind of relationship with God at this time. If the family is religious, they may pretend to go along with it.
- Stay and revise: By changing expectations of God, the child is more conscious of the possibility that God’s perspective is different, and that God’s gift of presence is only beginning to be discovered.
Dr. Bill McRae’s organizing principles for expectations were adapted here for use with children.
Tweetable: Here are a few ways to help children when they feel disappointed with God, like God doesn’t hear or care. Click to Tweet
