Discussion prompt:
Everything about our faith needs to be entrusted to our children. It has come to my attention that there are some differing opinions about when and how to talk to our children about the wonderful truths of Easter. Here are some opinions. Please respond to this blog with opinions for all of us to benefit from.
1) The death and resurrection of Christ is paramount to our faith and thus should be shown, taught and explained to our children at the earliest possible time, with no filtering at all. Children should be made to understand his sacrifice in totality.
2) The death and resurrection of Christ is paramount to our faith and thus should be shown, taught and explained to our children at the earliest possible time, but the graphic nature of the story should be toned down and it should be made "kid friendly" so that it doesn't scare them.
3) The death and resurrection of Christ is paramount to our faith, but is too graphic of an idea for young children and should be avoided till they are older. Also, making it "kid friendly" miss-communicates the true suffering of Christ and cheapens his sacrifice by making it "pretty" and so it should only be communicated when it can be safely communicated in total truth.
lesser ideas to discuss:
4) The Easter bunny and eggs are to be avoided since they are "secular"
5) The Easter bunny and eggs are harmless cultural icons and can be used along side christian ideals.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The cross to toddlers?
Posted by HomeBuilding Team at 3:55 PM
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6 comments:
I wonder sometimes if here in our cushy lives in 21st century America we shelter our kids from some harsh realities maybe too much. We definitely don't want our kids to experience it first hand, but it is real.
I don't think there is an absolute right or wrong answer on this, but may Christ give us wisdom as we talk to our kids.
Regarding the Easter Bunny...I wouldn't miss it at all if we didn't have it, but I think it can be OK if done with perspective of the true story.
-casey
one other thought...
I think how I share the Story with my kids will depend more on what they can understand instead of protecting them from the violent nature of the story. I mean, you can lay it all out but it doesn't do much good if they aren't really able to conceptualize it. So one approach would be to explain it in stages that they can understand.
-casey
My two year old Sunday school teacher was against sharing the cross at this age and said all they need to know at this point is Jesus loves us. So that is my background and Lydia has asked us to turn off 'scary' stuff on the tv before.
I know all kids are different and we all trust His wisdom to share what and when, I just was wondering about different people's opinions.
i think it's more of a developmental question. what can they understand? i have told owen countless times that jesus DIED on the cross for us. he's seen pictures of jesus on the cross (no blood or anything) and he doesn't seem to mind. he doesnt know what dead/died means. his mind doesn't grasp that concept.
here's a link from hospice that explains when children understand death. some understand the finality of death until after age 10.
http://www.hospicenet.org/html/understand.html
summary:
age 0-3 dont understand death
age 3-6 think death is reversible
age 6-9 begin to understand but not the finality of it
age 9-13 now they get it
so, in my opinion, it's not really an issue...
I have a story from last night that relates:
Judah got a book from his grandpa yesterday that is a kid's "Bible". It has 100 stories from the bible told in easy to digest kid format. His favorite is a story about how Jesus dies on the cross and Mary is crying because she is sad. I read it to him like 3times yesterday myself, not sure how many times Kathryn did.
I'm always looking for a natural way to teach him the gospel through life experience that he can actually grasp, and last night he was wanting to read that story again at bed time, but he disobeyed me in the process regarding brushing teeth. After a tearful time out, we brushed teeth and read the story.
The story itself talks about the cross and Jesus dying, but then I commented on it and tried to explain that Jesus dying on the cross was like the biggest and longest time out ever. But he didn't do anything wrong...Jesus had that time out because Judah disobeyed daddy, and because daddy disobeyed God, etc, etc. But because Jesus went through that time out God can forgive us for disobeying, just like I forgive Judah for disbeying after he does a time out.
I know he was listneing but not sure the level of understanding. anyway, not saying its the best but I found myself in the situation last night and that is how I handled it.
i think that was a great way to handle it casey!
i spoke w/ keiths mom who is a longtime toddler sunday school teacher and is currently working on her children's ministry degree. i asked her why sunday school teachers water down the Easter story? was it because it was scary? would it desensitize them? she said one of the primary goals of a ss teacher is to explain the lesson to the children in a way they can understand it and also to never have to unteach something. she said the kids are not capable of grasping the concept of death on a cross, so they leave it out. she said if they were to teach it they dont know what parts of the story stand out to the children and they may remember something wrong. so, they make it really simple and teach "easter is a happy time" at 2 years old. that is literally the lifeway story of easter. its happy! which it is, but they dont give any details. each year the kids are given another piece of the story until eventually the truth unfolds. she said this is their way of making sure its developmentally appropriate w/out ever having to backtrack and unteach something. i asked her what owen would learn this sunday and she said she was pretty sure the literature had nothing to do with easter. weird huh?
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