Flash is ahem, an energetic two-year-old, and thankfully we have a wonderful nursery at our tiny church. At three, he's supposed to go to worship and leave after the Children's sermon for church school. The Children's sermon is often an age-appropriate version of the adult sermon.
Sometimes I do them :)
Occasionally, we bring him in after the sermon to listen to the hymns and participate a bit. But he can be so disruptive to us and others, so we are introducing him slowly. A child of the same age attends in a similar fashion and is somehow able to handle it better. She is known to interject church appropriate things like "Jesus loves me, he's in heaven", and emphatic Amens.
MY child wants more communion bread and juice (we pass). He will run ANY object along the pews with a vroom car sound. Hymnals and crayons (church provided) don't mix!
I'd really like him to be in church. I just don't think he is ready for formal public worship.
Thanks to http://www.lutheranzephyr.com for the idea. He was our neighbor once-upon-a-time.
2 comments:
Don't worry about the energetic child. Each one is different. Since my boy was quite energetic, even ran around in church a time or two, I know about this. The biggest problem is the people who had zombies for children who get judgemental. ("Well! He's sure ALL BOY!" sniff.) Well, better to have energy than be a zombie.
In our case, my child could easily drive me up a wall, still does, and he is out of the nest. But I would try to think back to his 21 days in intensive care when he was SO SO still in the bed, and give thanks for the energy and health. He had an terrible infection when he was a toddler.
But here is something to try. Sometimes the kids who are wiggly, etc. are that way because they are craving stimulation, which is the opposite of what they are going to get if you say, "Shhh, sit still." So before you leave for church, try to encourage him to (depends on his stage of development) log roll, frog jump, hop, summersault, swing especially in a prone position, or whatever you can think of that stimulates the brain and those things in the ear that control balance.
Then when you get to the church, he may have enough stimulation to last awhile. I am not talking about overstimulation that you might get from a tickle session, but physical stimulation that people crave naturally, but some people need more of it. I'm kind of thinking that being strapped in a car seat on the way to church is sort of anti-stimulating for the wiggly child, so maybe after a long ride, the child craves more inner ear stimulation.
If he is old enough to get it, you give a little pep talk before you go into the building about a couple of simple behaviors you expect.
Each child is different, so just remember at some time in the future, his traits will be his strengths!
Blessings!
As a former Children's Coordinator in a fairly large church, I had the pleasure of helping parents introduce their children to worship. Two years old is pretty tiny, but depending on the context of your church, there is definitely a place for him. It seems like such a great idea to do what you've been doing--occasionally having him be with you in worship for some for some of the time and having him be in the nursery for some of the time. The key thing for me when I was a children's coordinator was to communicate with parents that the pastoral team did not have the same expectations of children in worship as we did for adults---we didn't mind at all if there was wiggling, talking, crying as long as parents were helping their children worship! I love reading what your blog, because it sounds like that's exactly what you are doing.
Also---one tip for helping kids engage in worship---sit near the front so they can see what's going on!
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