Tag: Family

Being a Welcoming Nursery Worker

  • Have your heart ready to receive the child(ren).

                If you have prepared your heart and mind in prayer and thinking about good hospitality when a family arrives at the door of the nursery you will be a step ahead in being a welcoming nursery worker.

  • Put a smile on your face and greet the parents and child warmly.

                Greeting a family and child with a smile and a “Good morning!” or “Hello!” can go a long way. When a new person walks to the door to drop off their child off to strangers a smile is a reassuring gesture that will make them feel at home. It’s an awkward moment when a parent walks to the nursery and feels ignored or like they must begin engaging in conversation with the worker because they are shy or preoccupied. Help ease the stress of separation anxiety from both the child and the parent by making them feel welcome.

  • Receive the child and their belongings.

Whether it’s an infant, toddler, or preschooler there is a hand-off from the parent to the worker that should work into being easier the more comfortable the parents and child become with the process. Take their child, then take their belongings and put them away where they belong. If their child cries at this time…

  • Assure the parents that you will contact them if there is an issue.

However your church contacts a parent whether by pager or by text, assure them you will contact them if there is an issue. Do not allow their child to cry for more than 10 minutes without contacting them to come back and check on the child. Some children’s separation anxiety does not calm down easily and most parents would not like to hear their child was inconsolable for an hour or longer waiting for the service to be over. 

  • Listen well. Receive the instructions for the child’s needs and write them down.

A parent should feel their desires and needs are heard about what can and should not happen with their child during our care. Whether it pertains to feeding times, food allergies, or preferences for a nap, please write it down to help you remember and communicate to the other workers.

  • Explain any procedures and answer any questions kindly.

If there is something that needs to be explained, such as your church’s sickness policy, please give the instructions kindly to the parent.  If an issue arises that you do not know how to deal with please contact your nursery coordinator to help you work it out with the parent.

  • Keep smiling and engaging the child throughout your shift in the nursery.

Cultivating an atmosphere of love takes work to show a child that church is a safe and good place to be. When a child cries and is frustrated that their parents are not with them or they’re tired, keep doing your best to speak to them kindly and use gentle gestures. While some verbal corrections for a fighting toddler or redirecting a child to do another task may be needed, remember to keep their nursery experience as positive as possible. We’re not the parent and no form of physical discipline should be exercised on the child. Don’t stop to take a phone scrolling break or solely talk with another nursery worker, engage the child(ren). Singing songs, reading books, rotating toys, or playing on the floor with the child(ren) can all be simple ways to engage little ones. 

  • Make it a good goodbye.

Make the pick-up process easy by getting the children and belongings ready to go during the closing portion of the church service. Guests and members alike love to hear good feedback about their child’s experience and personality. Keep the parents informed about any notable situations or needs and always report injuries like a bump on the head or another child biting theirs. If there is time, ask parents about their week and invite them to come to the next service.

 

If a parent feels a place is safe and the workers are genuinely safe and caring toward their child(ren) then they will have a greater desire to come back. Many nursery workers have had a profound impact on creating long-lasting connections with families by loving their children and engaging them. If a family feels welcome and safe it can build trust and move them toward joining your church family. Never underestimate the importance of being a welcoming and hospitable servant of the Lord!

 

Training Children in Character

Here are some of my favorite resources for Training Children in Character:

  1. Godly preaching and seminars will help encourage you using God’s Word to listen and tweak or overhaul those weak spots in your parenting. They also help you see those areas you should continue in doing right. When we were new parents a free parenting seminar offered in our church by a local pastor over a weekend sparked our hearts for knowing we needed to have a godly aim in training our children. We enjoyed it so much we bought the CDs from our church bookstore and we still listen to them. (White CDs on book).
  2. The Child Training Bible helps us use God’s Word in preventing and dealing with problems. You can see one of the cards from the set sitting on the Bible. A friend sent this to us and we love it! It can be used as a more organized system of tabbing your Bible with color-coded tabs that match the colors on the card, but we prefer to keep the cards in the front of a Bible that stays on our bookshelf. The usefulness of this tool is easy access to Bible verses when you need them in a teaching moment. The card pictured covers the topics of: anger, complaining, defiance, discouraged, disobedience, fear, and fighting. It can easily be used as “preventative” devotional type teaching as much as it helps when you need to address a heart issue in parenting counseling. The cost is $9 (plus shipping) is a great deal for the time it saves you from individually looking up verses from a concordance.
  3. Bible-based Parenting Books by Christian people can be as good as direct one-on-one parental counseling because you can refer to them again and again. You have to be wise concerning advice often evaluating the spiritual background of the author, it is best to find authors who share the same Biblical beliefs as you do. The book God has directed me to pick up again, Raising Real Men by Hal and Melanie Young (book on the far bottom left of the photo). Their conservative viewpoint of helping parents build up boys to be masculine defenders who protect women and become godly leaders is helping me focus on our 11 year old and 10 year old sons’ needs. You can find their book at their website. *Note: Most of their Biblical references do not come from the KJV Bible and I use my Bible to read the verses.
  4. Reading the book of Proverbs is a regular way of helping children see and understand God’s view of the wise, simple, and scorners. Some people suggest reading a proverb a day to help gain wisdom. For our children we may only read 1-6 verses at a time and describe them in depth. S.M. Davis former pastor and creator of Solving Family Problems preached regular family revivals at our former church and we picked up a copy of the Picture Proverbs Deluxe DVD set he produces (DVD set seen on left middle of photo). On the DVD you view narrated slides of each Proverb complete with sound effects and many Biblical story pictures that can help the children learn a real application of the proverb being taught. He suggests watching one proverb a day with your family and looking up the Bible stories together as a family. There are some other free resources on his website that can be a blessing to you.
  5. Doorposts Resources are excellent for training children. In the photo you can view the Go to the Ant Chart and their book called “Plants Grown Up” which is a project book for helping sons grow into men. We also use their If-Then Chart in our home for rules and direct consequences. Go to the Ant Chart quickly refers you to common character problems that come up when children are supposed to be working and decide to come up with excuses or laziness. Just bring your child to the chart and point to the character issue and ask them to answer the question and then see a section of scripture that instructs them to do right. Plants Grown Up and its’ companion book for girls, Polished Cornerstones, contain projects on specific types of character to build on including memorizing scripture and community and home service. The topics include: virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity each with sub-topics to practically apply them. *Note: Not all of her resources are from the KJV Bible you have to do the job of checking the references. We have adjusted our charts to have a piece of paper cover the verses and have them written in KJV.
  6. Institute in Basic Life Principles Character Booklets are resources to use for family Bible time, individual study, or referencing when you see your child needs growth in an area. We currently have the first 6 booklets which cover: attentiveness, obedience, gratefulness, truthfulness, orderliness, and diligence. Each book highlights a specific animal God created and how its personal characteristics display the character trait being taught. My favorite part of each book is how it highlights how Jesus displayed the character trait when He lived on the earth. Then, each book teaches “how” you are truthful to different authorities in your life, your parents, your boss, civil authorities, etc. If you really want to go all out and make the character teaching really fun they have calendars, collector cards, coloring books, posters and hardback copies of the book sets.

What we have found is these character building resources really help us counsel our children in Biblical answers for character and sin problems. Many times our use of these resources is preventative, we believe in teaching before expecting specific behaviors. They are also corrective helping guides as we show the children when they have done wrong and help them see the problem from God’s perspective.

We also firmly believe the aim is to help our children train the heart to love God and understand His Word, have a good relationship with Him, and learn to reconcile with others they have sinned against. We spend a hefty amount of time counseling, more than I ever expected, coming back to the Word over and over again (betimes) to reinforce our expectations have a root in God’s truths.

The biggest and best part of character training and having good resources is seeing the investment come out of our children into their every day living. When they respond or do right in a temptation circumstance it is a blessing. Honestly it has also helped us be more consistent as parents and grow in our faith, helping us to be faithful and try to avoid hypocrisy as our parenting is open before all their eyes.

I pray and hope if you are focusing on building the inward person of your child you will remember to encourage them and instruct them to salvation in Christ. Unsaved children will struggle in character issues because the Holy Spirit is not naturally guiding them. Keep encouraging them to see their heart problems are sin related and they need the help of the Saviour.

When and if they are saved remember the Christian life is a step-by-step process. Children will excel in many areas and fall back, they will react to life each differently and sometimes forget your instruction. Faithfulness in training and counseling will help you. Our sin and Christian life as parents can also have a profound effect in their attitude and success in character growth. Guard your heart and keep it tender as you teach others for yourself.

May the Lord bless you and help you in your parenting and guide you to the resources that will best fit your family.

(No affiliate links or anything throughout this post, just great helps and information for YOU!)

Q&A: Personal Space for Kids, Father’s Day, & KJV Devotionals

Today we have a great variety of questions for you to read, perhaps some of these questions will help you come up with some solutions to questions that you might have but have never asked. The first question and answer tackles what you can do when someone violates your child’s personal space. We have personally had this happen to us in our ministry as well and I love the answer the ministry wife provided. Father’s Day is around the corner and these ladies have some great ideas for what type of gifts they are going to give out this year. Do you ever wonder if there is King James devotionals for you and your family to read together? Several women gave some great answers of resources I had never heard of before. And what do you give to a shut-in that is not food related? Read all the answers below!

Q & A 1

Q: “We consistently have a church member who violates my children’s personal space. They do not seem to be a threat in any way but they just do not seem to know they don’t want them in their face, etc. I know it makes our children uncomfortable and I see them avoiding this person when they speak to them and now in general. Is there something I should/could say to the person? or should I just leave it up to the kids to allow them to have as much or as little to do with them as possible?”

A: We have a man in our church that likes to hug. That normally wouldn’t be an issue but he hugs and holds on, keeping you hostage to his grip. He makes me and my kids very uncomfortable. Others in the church don’t have an issue with it. We just had a talk with our children and instructed them to keep an eye for him so that when he starts to approach they can position themselves in such a way as to not allow him the opportunity to grab them. If that’s not possible, they’re to leave and avoid the situation altogether. If he manages to get to them without them noticing they are to pull away and put their hand out to shake his hand. Surprisingly, it’s worked really well. I think he got the picture pretty quickly and now refrains from even trying. My opinion is, when it comes to my children I’ll do/say whatever is necessary to make them feel safe and protected. If they’re uncomfortable it’s my responsibility as a parent to deal with it, not them. I will say too, our congregation likes to hug…a lot! I don’t like it at all. I don’t mind hugging, I just don’t think it needs to take place in the church. Especially when you have people of the opposite sex doing it, no matter the age. I know there have been times that visitors have come and have felt very uncomfortable by it. I wish we had a no-hug policy and stuck to strictly hand shaking.

Q: “Can you give me some of your creative Father’s Day ideas for gifts as well as special things you do in the church service for the men on Father’s Day?”

    • “Coffee cups always went over well for us or gift certificates for coffee.”
    • “We have done ties, tools, pocket knives, and flashlights.”
    • “We’re giving a hammer with the phrase “Love building memories with you” on it in vinyl.”
    • “A nice collection of steaks to be grilled. A win for everyone!”
    • “I’m thinking about making them a large snickers cupcakes and putting it in a box. This is our first Father’s Day for our church.”
    • “We’ve done several good ones: a bottle of Dad’s root beer, a Payday candy bar (everyone deserves an extra payday), cheap but nice socks rolled up into balls that we threw out from the pulpit to the men standing, like baseballs, they loved it!”

Q: “I want to give a gift to some elderly women in our church, some are shut-in’s and others have had their children precede them in death. Is there a practical and heartfelt gift that I could give them that is not food related?”

  • A small flower arrangement, something to brighten their day.
  • “I guess it’s technically food, but I’ve given flavored tea bags as gifts with a nice card and they seem to go over really well. Classy, no fuss.”

Q: “I’m looking for a good King James Version (KJV) family devotional or children’s devotional, do you have any suggestions of good material that you have personally used?”

  • “Arch Books has good Bible stories, Leading Little Ones to God, 95 Animals of the Bible, Noel (story about a lion from Bill Rice), Super (story about a dog from Bill Rice), Cowboy Boots in Darkest Africa, Thrilling Western Stories vol. 1 and 2 from Bill Rice. We also have a The Picture Bible and that has Bible stories in illustrated/ cartoon form and has follow-up Bible questions. We also have done devotions that don’t have KJV verses and just read them in KJV.” (Find the Bill Rice books for kids here.)
  • “Call to Glory or Mercy and Truth are great!”
  • “If your child is old enough to read, the Glow in the Dark Jr. Devotional is excellent. My son uses it & LOVES it!”
  • “We use Call to Glory, Call to Glory Kids, & Glow in the Dark Jr. Devotionals.”
  • “Not a devotional, but we have a Child Training Bible that has specific topics you can go over, I ordered a kit bought a Bible and set it up. It took some time to put together but I enjoyed it and now it is very useful to show the kids out of the Bible why something is not okay.”

*Note this article does not contain affiliate links. The links have been provided to help you find these resources quickly and easily.