On Demonstrating Love to Our Children

As we approach Valentine’s Day and see reminders of love everywhere around us, the opportunity arises for us to evaluate how well we are loving others. It is one thing to say that we love someone, but often quite another thing to act in such a way as to show them that our words are true. However, even God Himself is demonstrative with His love: “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) If God, who IS Love, chooses to demonstrate His love, how much more should we, who are not in essence love, do our best to do the same?

The reason that we know and love God is because of His demonstrative love for us. Because we love God, it follows that love for others should flow out of the love that we have for Him. St. Justin Popovich indicated such (and more!) results of loving God when he said, “Love for Christ overflows into love for one’s neighbor, love for truth, love for holiness, for the world, for purity, for everything divine, for everything deathless and eternal… All these forms of love are natural manifestations of love for Christ. Christ is the God-man, and love for Him always means love for God and for man.” And St. Basil the Great encourages us to demonstrate our love, not just for family and friends, but to everyone in his statement, “As God illumines all people equally with the light of the sun, so do those who desire to imitate God let shine an equal ray of love on all people.”

So, how are we doing? Is our love for God overflowing as it should into the lives of those around us? Are we telling others that we love them? Better yet, are we demonstrating our love to them by the way that we treat and interact with them? And how well are we demonstrating our love to all people, not just those we know?

Let us begin by better demonstrating our love to our children. Here are some ideas of ways to go beyond merely telling our children that we love them, showing them with our actions that our words are true:

This mom interviewed her daughters to find out their favorite ways that their parents show them love. We found the resulting list to be creative, fun, and inspiring! http://www.shelivesfree.com/2015/02/huge-list-fun-ideas-love-kids.html

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Loving our children does not have to be expensive or complex. Check out this list of 35 simple ways to love our children: https://amotherfarfromhome.com/love-your-child/

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If you are familiar with Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages,” you know that different people prefer to be loved in different ways. His book suggests these five ways in which people prefer to receive and show love: acts of service, physical touch and closeness, gift giving, words of affirmation, and quality time. This blog post encourages us to figure out which love language(s) are our children’s favorites, and to express our love to them in that way. It includes practical suggestions of ways to show love in each love language.

https://encouragingmomsathome.com/50-ways-to-love-your-child-every-day-using-love-languages/

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Creating memories together as a family is one of the best ways we can show our kids our love. This blog post features advice from a teen on what his parents did that created his best memories: https://www.familiesalive.org/2017/05/30/forcing-family-fun/

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This list of 25 questions to ask our kids will help each of us to learn more about our children. In the process, we will be demonstrating our love for them by expressing interest in their life! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/finance/family-matters/11334865/questions-for-kids.html

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What if, this weekend, we closed our laptops in order to better demonstrate our love for our kids? https://michaelhyatt.com/close-your-laptop.html offers 3 compelling reasons why we should do just that, and what will be gained both personally and in our family when we do it.

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Cuddling our children demonstrates our love for them in a way that they need. And we need it as much as they do! Read more here:

http://amotherfarfromhome.com/9-reasons-must-cuddle-kids-good-society/

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God demonstrates His love for His children in so many ways. One way is that He has filled our world with glimpses of His love. Parents and children who enjoy nature can go out together and look for evidence of God’s love in our world. Here is a slideshow of heart shapes – a small sampling of the love He has tucked into the world for us to find: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/wacky-weekend/hearts-in-nature/ 

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What better way can we demonstrate love to children than to love our spouse? Building a marriage takes effort, and our children learn that by watching us. Here are some simple suggestions of dates to have at home. The date ideas listed here could happen when the children are away with friends/family or when they’ve already gone to bed. Let’s demonstrate love to our kids by setting aside time with our spouse! http://lifeofahomebody.com/10-fun-romantic-stay-home-date-nights/

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Demonstrating our love for our spouse spreads the love to our children. Date nights are one way to work at that process! Here is an idea for date night: at home, at an outdoor table in a park, in a food court, or at a train/bus station, play games together. Need ideas for two-person games? This blog suggests 20 different games that can be played with only two players:
https://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2013/01/two-player-games-to-play-with-your-husband/

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In case you missed it: we wrote this blog about sharing love with others, not just at Valentine’s Day. The ideas in this blog can help our family to demonstrate God’s love to others as an outpouring of our own love for each other: https://orthodoxchristianparenting.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/on-sharing-our-love-beyond-valentines-day

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In case you missed it: we blogged about teaching our children how to love others by deliberately showing kindness to them, even to those we don’t know. It is one thing to demonstrate love to those closest to us, but the ideas in this blog help us to extend love to all around us, not just our family. https://orthodoxchristianparenting.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/try-a-little-kindness/

Several Divine Liturgy Resources for Young Children

We have previously shared the lovely board book “What Do You See at Liturgy?” by Kristina Kallas-Tartara. As we mentioned in that blog post, the book consists of a gentle rhyme paired with pictures of what a child will see when they go to the Divine Liturgy. We continue to recommend this book as a helpful tool to help little ones enter into the service when their attention needs to be redirected.

Recently, it came to our attention that Kristina has written a second beautiful board book for young children, and that she has created other useful resources as well. The second book she has written is called “What Can I Do at Liturgy?” It carefully walks a child through the liturgy, emphasizing the things that they can do. Too often, children experience the “can’ts” in church. It is easy for us adults to slip into “can’t” mode when shepherding young ones through the Liturgy. We say things like, “No, you can’t run around right now; You can’t go out for a fifth drink of water; You can’t make siren noises as you pretend to put out the fires you see;” etc. This book offers us the opportunity to find and encourage the “cans.” Every page is full of pictures and suggestions of all that children CAN do (and SHOULD do) during the Liturgy. From lighting a candle to signing themselves with the cross to communing to looking at icons to singing, praying, and sharing. This book is packed full of suggestions of things that the children can do in the liturgy! Here is an example: one spread shows a series of Orthodox children, each doing part of the sign of the cross. They’re ordered sequentially, and using a hand that young readers will mirror to correctly make the sign of the cross. (What a brilliant idea, to use the left hands of the children in the photos so that the readers will naturally mirror it and use their right hand!) We highly recommend this beautiful and useful book to any parent, godparent, or Sunday Church School teacher who is helping young children to more fully participate in the divine services.

The author has another fine resource which we recently discovered. She used the photos that were taken to create her two charming books to create an Orthodox “memory” game! The durable “chunky” photo cards can be utilized in a variety of ways. Parents and teachers can employ the cards for vocabulary review, to play a matching game, or to play a number of other games. Directions for 6 different games and 4 fun classroom activities are included with the card set. This little set of cards will be used again and again by families and Sunday Church School teachers. They offer a fun way to learn, and are yet another way to “bring home the faith” with children.

And last, but not least, Kristina Kallas-Tartara has a blog called “Raising Orthodox Christians”. Its byline is “Helping Children Experience the Orthodox Faith”. On this site, you will find activities, lessons, recipes, and more. Parents and teachers will find ideas for educating their children and students at this site, and may want to follow the blog so as not to miss new resources that she posts! Check out her blog site here: https://raisingorthodoxchristians.com/

We hope that you find these resources helpful. What other Liturgy resources for small children do you recommend to the community?

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If you missed the blog post introducing “What Do You See at Liturgy?”, find it here: https://orthodoxchristianparenting.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/a-handful-of-helpful-books-for-children/
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Find Kristina Kallas-Tartara’s book “What do You See at Liturgy?” here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/196402444/what-do-you-see-at-liturgy-orthodox .

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Kristina Tartara’s book “What Can I Do at Divine Liturgy?” is available here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/466843238/what-can-i-do-at-divine-liturgy-orthodox

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In case you missed it, a few years ago we shared some thoughts on how important it is for children to be part of the Divine Liturgy in this blog post: https://orthodoxchristianparenting.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/the-work-of-the-people-includes-children/
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In case you missed it, this blog post offers ideas of ways to help children participate in the Divine Liturgy: https://orthodoxchristianparenting.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/on-helping-children-to-participate-in-the-divine-liturgy/

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To purchase the Orthodox Matching Game, visit: https://www.etsy.com/listing/476655247/my-orthodox-matching-game

 

On Winter Fun and Learning

It is winter in the northern hemisphere. At least for some of us, that means it is very cold outside! In an effort to lift our chilled spirits, we have done some research and found a few websites that we hope will be helpful to the community. Keep reading to find some links that offer ideas for winter fun with the family and others that will help us to learn more about snowy weather. We also are including a few ideas of ways that snow can challenge us spiritually (beyond the inevitable plea, “Lord, help me survive being cooped up with all of these family members!”). May this winter be a memorable one, as we parents embrace the season and help our family to enjoy our time together; to continue to learn about the world in which we live; and to further our growth in the Kingdom of Heaven!

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Opportunities for winter learning: Learn how snowflakes form. With younger children, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M48RfaWcWA. With older children, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOfkukhb1Os.

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Opportunities for winter learning: There are so many winter/snow/ice-related science experiments at these websites! Pick one or more and explore it together! http://lemonlimeadventures.com/must-try-winter-science-experiments-for-kids/ (Many of these do not require actual snow.)

https://igamemom.com/fun-snow-science-for-kids/ (These require snow.)

https://igamemom.com/winter-science-activities-for-kids/ (200 winter science activities for those of us whose children really love science!)

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Opportunities for winter learning: Inflate a plastic zipper bag “snowman face” using only snow/finely chopped ice and alka seltzer tablets! https://sciencekiddo.com/snow-science/ offers directions, and also explains why it inflates, so you can guide the discussion of “why does it do that?”

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Opportunities for winter learning: looking for wintry books to read together? (As always, we recommend that you read these before sharing them with your children, so that you can screen them according to what will be helpful to your family.)

Here are some snow-themed picture books: http://paulaspreschoolandkindergarten.blogspot.com/2017/01/12-awesome-books-about-snow.html

Here you’ll find a few wintry chapter book suggestions: https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/winter-chapter-books/

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Opportunities for winter games: these sites offer ideas of snowy games to play outdoors: https://www.familyeducation.com/fun/outdoor-activities/top-10-wintertime-neighborhood-games

https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/winter-olympics-inspired-winter-games-for-kids

http://www.kidactivities.net/category/games-winter-outside.aspx

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Opportunities for winter games: If the weather is too cold or there’s too much precipitation to play outside, consider trying one (or five) of these fun indoor activities. https://www.momooze.com/indoor-activities-winter/

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Opportunities for winter games: Create your own indoor snowballs to use for snowball fights or other indoor snowball games.
Wads of white tissue paper make great indoor “snowballs.”

Grab fuzzy white yarn, golf practice balls, and a crochet hook to wrap some realistic “snowballs.” (see http://www.sewcando.com/2014/12/tutorial-time-make-indoor-snowball.html)

Create pompom “snowballs” from thick white yarn: http://aparentingproduction.com/2016/01/craft-for-kids-diy-indoor-snowballs.html

Once you have a stash of indoor snowballs, use them to play some fun games. Here are a few suggestions: https://confidencemeetsparenting.com/indoor-snowball-activities/

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: Find a huge variety here: http://www.kidactivities.net/category/Seasonal-Winter-ArtsCrafts.aspx

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: Create your own squishable, buildable “snow” to play with indoors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZbjrYcNpPs

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: If you don’t have snow, or just want to decorate with a snowy flair, here are templates for pretty paper snowflakes cut from folded paper: https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/how-to-make-paper-snowflakes/

https://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/cut-snowflake-video-tutorial-free-templates.html

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: Create some sock snowmen for decoration or for play: https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/no-sew-sock-snowman-craft/

Or build this ping-pong-ball “snowman” that doubles as a nightlight: http://www.willowday.net/2017/12/snowman-nightlight-ornament/

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: Remember “pet rocks?” Here’s a wintry take on that: create your own “pet snowball” as suggested here: http://thepurplepug.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-snow-bro-tute-pet-snowballs.html

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: Finger paint some snowmen using your thumb and a smaller finger. When the paint is dry, draw on the facial features, stick arms, hats, etc. Challenge your family with these questions: How many of funny snowmen can you create? 

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Opportunities for winter arts/crafts: Invite friends over for a snowman party just for fun, using some of the food and craft ideas here: https://happyhooligans.ca/25-snowman-crafts-activities-treats/

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Opportunities for wintertime faith-expansion:

This blogger invites parents to make a snowflake cross to remind them to find Christ in the midst of the “snow storms” of life, especially in the context of parenting!

https://raisingorthodoxchristians.com/2017/12/07/finding-christ-amidst-the-snowstorms-of-life/#more-158161

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Opportunities for wintertime faith-expansion: If wintertime gets you down, ponder these words from St. Ambrose of Optina: “In nature we see that there are not always pleasant springs and fruitful summers, and sometimes autumn is rainy and winter cold and snowy, and there is flooding and wind and storms, and moreover the crops fail and there are famine, troubles, sicknesses and many other misfortunes. All of this is beneficial so that man might learn through prudence, patience and humility. For the most part, in times of plenty he forgets himself, but in times of various sorrows he becomes more attentive to his salvation.” Choose to allow the wintry struggles to remind your soul to be more attentive.

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Opportunities for wintertime faith-expansion: Talk together as a family about this verse: “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). How white IS snow? Most often, it appears to be super white, especially when the sun shines on it. However, in reality, the snow consists of translucent ice crystals, all reflecting the light. Since they reflect all of the light (every color in the light spectrum), they appear to be white. If we live lives of repentance and virtue, as Christians should, our hearts will be clean and our consciences clear. Then we will reflect the Light of Christ, radiating His purity to all. (Read the science behind snow’s “whiteness” here: https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/question524.htm) Talk together about how to live in such a way that Christ can be reflected more fully in your family’s life.