Celebrating Family and Friends - Art History For Kids

This activity focuses on Grandparents, but can also be done with anyone you'd like your children to know more about.  It includes great tips for appropriating art and how to create a portrait. Enjoy!

We are fortunate to have my mother-in-law, Carol, living down the street. “MaMaMa” visits for dinner twice a week. Our energetic kids are 4, 5 and 7 so you can imagine mealtime is a bit of a circus some days. Lately I’ve asked MaMaMa to share a few stories from her childhood and when she does, something magical happens. The children actually sit in their chairs, eat their broccoli and listen to her with wide, curious eyes. They enjoy hearing about great-grandpa Lawrence who was a Marine and one of the first men to land a plane on an aircraft carrier at night. And how when she was little there were no computers, cell phones or video games, and only one black and white television in her home.

My mother, “MiMi,” was recently visiting from New Orleans and I wanted to create opportunities for the children to get to know her family history too. My daughters enjoy art so I thought it would be fun for them to paint her portrait. I decided to make it a group art lesson and invited a few neighborhood friends over. They each brought one photo of a grandparent.

The holidays are the perfect time of year for this family art activity. Here’s an idea: after Thanksgiving dinner, have your child paint a grandparent’s portrait.

Art history for kids – get the creative juices flowing!

Click here for the full activity - enjoy!

Family Memories at Thanksgiving

What better time to capture family memories and stories than when you and your relatives gather to celebrate Thanksgiving? For the past several years, several organizations have encouraged families to listen to one another and record family history over the Thanksgiving weekend. StoryCorps, for example, has launched The National Day of Listening.

So put down that pumpkin pie and forget about the mad dash to the mall. When the parade is over, sit down with an older family member and ask them about their lives, their memories, their stories. Many families have started to ask older family members to tell stories at the Thanksgiving dinner table—memories that provoke more memories and stories. It’s a wonderful way to connect older generations with newer ones, and to create a shared family tradition.

Also, think about preserving those memories for generations to come, away from the hubbub of the dinner table.

The ancestor book and the scaffolding of a family

Re-posted by Mary Cay Kollmansperger, 11/9/2013

When we were in Utah for Spring Break last year I found a treasure. Like, a serious treasure.

It was our “Ancestor Book.” 

It is a vintage-y looking large book that my Dad bought when we were all young and that he gradually filled with stories of our ancestors.

...I had been meaning to find that big book of ours for a while…I wanted to check out some of the ancestor stories we had helped write and illustrate as a model for doing something similar in our own family.

But wow, I found so much more than ancestor stories.

All that time I thought that book was just filled with stories of those who went before us.  Little did I know it was also filled with stories of US.  What made our family run.  In that beautiful ancestor book I hit the goldmine: the whole “framework” for our family.

The scaffolding.

...As I looked through that book memories washed over me like velvet.

How incredibly grateful I am for my parents who masterminded their family to the very best of their abilities.

Want to Give Your Family Value and Purpose? Write a Mission Statement

A somewhat corny, mostly brilliant tip from corporate America

Bruce Feilier, February 2013, The Atlantic

Every parent I know worries about teaching values to their children. How do we ensure that in today's ever-changing world they understand some beliefs are timeless? How do we truly know if they grasp the qualities that are most important to us?

For a long time, my wife and I were so busy responding to the chaos around us in our family that we never had a chance to address these questions. But when I set out a few years ago to try to find the qualities that united high-functioning families, I kept encountering a similar object in many homes. Some families call it a "belief board," others a "statement of purpose."

Could such a document be one answer I was looking for?

The first reference I found to a family manifesto was in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, which was published in 1989. A management consultant from Utah with a Harvard MBA, Covey often asked his corporate clients to write a one-sentence answer to the question, "What is the essential mission or purpose of this organization, and what is its main strategy in accomplishing that purpose?" Executives were usually shocked at how much their answers differed. Covey then helped them create a more unified mission statement.
(full article)

Six Reasons to Pray Compline With Kids

by Jeff Jackson, aka The Hiking Priest

Father Jeff Jackson of Hamilton, Ga., makes a beautiful suggestion to enhance your family's prayer life, and create peace as your children get ready for bed. Say Compline daily with your children (wish we had started this when ours were young!). 

In this recent post from his blog, he writes:

For many years, we have said nighttime prayers with our kids before bed. For much of that time, we would go around and simply give thanks to God for the day’s blessings. Like any prayer method, this form became stale after a few years. The kids would try to outdo each other in thanking God for silly things, and our two youngest, both boys, had a hard time sitting still. A few months ago, Molly and I decided we needed a change. Now that two of our kids are reading, with a third in the next year or so, it felt like the perfect time to introduce them to the ancient rite of Compline.  Full article...

Our family's favorite:

Keep Watch, Dear Lord 
from the night service of Compline, Book of Common Prayer

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen

Why Passing on the Faith Isn't Good Enough?

What if, instead of passing on the faith, we encouraged our children to play with the faith that God has given to them in order to love it into greater vitality?

Every year around this time, my family and I head to the fall fair in the village where my father grew up. It's become a family tradition in the past few years, and every year my family and I take a look at the list of competitions to see what we might want to enter—baking, hand-made cards, and other handicrafts. A few years ago, as we were looking at the different categories, we came across the "Grandma's Linen Closet" category and I started thinking about a small white box tucked inside my bedroom closet. In it are three dresser scarves that my grandmother lovingly stitched many years ago. Before she died, she gave the dresser scarves to my parents, who passed them on to my wife and me when we got married. I spent more time than I probably should have thinking about whether or not to enter these scarves in the fair, but in the end I decided not to enter them because I was worried that someone would spill ice cream on them or that they'd get torn on a sharp object as they were being put up and taken down for display. So they remained in that box, safe from ice cream and hidden nails.

When I think about passing on the faith, I'm reminded of these dresser scarves that were passed down through the generations of my family. Link to full article

A Faith That Asks Questions...

by Greg Mettler

A group of high school seniors sat in a circle exploring what it means to have faith. One said “belief.” Another said “trust.”

A third ventured a description that others doubtless thought of but hesitated to share, not wanting to seem dismissive of their religious peers or their teacher.

“I think faith is basically choosing to accept something in spite of the fact that it can’t be seen or proven,” the student said. “It’s what you need to have to believe in God or heaven, because no one can prove that they exist.”

I get excited in moments like these. I’m an Episcopal priest, school chaplain and the teacher of this class.

Some students looked toward me nervously when this comment was made, but far from feeling defensive, I brightened at the opportunity to engage my students in a substantive discussion about the value of faith — one that must include questioning at the boundaries of what we can’t see or prove.

Read more...

Pray Without Ceasing!

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Rejoice always; pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Last Sunday we were treated to a communion hymn sung by our fabulously talented Angel Choir.  Watching them sing Rise and Shine and Give God Your Glory, Glory (the "arky song") was one of the highlights of my day.  Angel Choir days have become my favorite Sundays for more reasons than I can list. Right at the top of that list is the opportunity to witness this young group practicing what I call full-body worship! Singing, spinning, hopping, clapping, waving - every bit of that belongs in worship and in prayer! Prayer is about recognizing God's glory and giving thanks.  Watching these kids do just that was a great reminder to me that I could stand to spice things up a bit myself and think outside the box when it comes to my own prayer life.

As we think about incorporating prayer into our daily lives at home, let's look to our children more often to guide us to spontaneous joy!

For more about this, check out this recent post from Building Faith called Moment to Moment: All "for Jesus"

Praying With and For Your Children

A Blessing This Week

Hope everyone is having a terrific week!

Prayer has really been on my mind this week after our meeting - no surprise.  I thought all day Sunday about blessing my children, after our discussion.  My insecurities were taking control as I imagined the response I'd get trying to actually "bless" them - eye rolling or literally running away!

As often happens with me, God dropped an opportunity right into my lap Sunday evening with one of the boys, so I mustered my bravery and jumped on it.  I got there, despite my lack of nerve, and it went very well.  I'll be looking for more ways to offer blessings that I am comfortable with and that seem to suit the moment, rather than trying to force the issue.

So I want to challenge you all to give it a try if you haven't already.  Don't worry about what you say or how is goes - just take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself.  Here are some tips from a website called The Blessing.  I'm not sure their entire program is for me, but these guidelines were helpful.

The blessing is a life-changing gift of unconditional love and acceptance passed down from one generation to the next. Through the blessing, children (and adults) find out what it means to be highly valued and loved by someone else using five specific actions first laid out in the Bible:

• Meaningful touch
• A Spoken Message
• Attaching High Value
• Picturing a Special Future
• An Active Commitment

We're interested to know how you all are doing - please let us know!

Praying With Children

by Troy Cady

There are so many ways to pray. Why not take some time this week to talk about and model prayer with children? Here are 10 ways you could experiment with them.

1. Pray by singing.

2. Pray simply.

3. Pray short, memorized phrases.  

4. Pray with a visual focus.

5. Pray through art.

7. Go on a prayer walk.

8. Breathe.

9. Pray in silence.

10. Pray a “pretend prayer”

The main thing is: have fun and experiment. Find how your child best connects with God and encourage that any way you can. Read the full article for more information.

Posted by Mary Cay Kollmansperger, October 2, 2013

Dear Parents With Children in Church...

Dear Parents with Young Children in Church...

You are doing something really, really important. I know it's not easy. I see you with your arms overflowing, and I know you came to church already tired. Parenting is tiring.  Really tiring.

I watch you bounce and sway trying to keep the baby quiet, juggling the infant car seat and the diaper bag as you find a seat. I see you wince as your child cries. I see you anxiously pull things out of your bag of tricks to try to quiet them.

And I see you with your toddler and your preschooler. I watch you cringe when your little girl asks an innocent question in a voice that might not be an inside voice let alone a church whisper. I hear the exasperation in your voice as you beg your child to just sit, to be quiet as you feel everyone's eyes on you. Not everyone is looking, but I know it feels that way.

I know you're wondering, is this worth it? Why do I bother? I know you often leave church more exhausted than fulfilled. But what you are doing is so important.

When you are here, the church is filled with a joyful noise. When you are here, the Body of Christ is more fully present. When you are here, we are reminded that this worship thing we do isn't about bible study or personal, quiet contemplation but coming together to worship as a community where all are welcome, where we share in the Word and Sacrament together. When you are here, I have hope that these pews won't be empty in 10 years when your kids are old enough to sit quietly and behave in worship. I know that they are learning how and why we worship now, before it's too late. They are learning that worship is important.

One Minute Mindfulness Moment

I'm going to try this again - tried it in the car during a particularly stressful drive to school last week. Didn't go well. I think the dinner table is my best bet, so I am going to give it another shot :-).

http://themindfulparent.org/The_Mindful_Parent/Welcome.html