Samuel Clarkson wrote a book called The Church at Home: A Plea for Family Religion (available for free @ Google Books) circa 1860.
I wrote a post called Do As I Say, Not As I Do a couple of days ago with a quote from the author of this book. Clarkson has some great things to say about what he called “family religion” or what we would refer to as the spiritual formation of our families today.
Clarkson lays out a plea for wise interaction with the Sunday morning sermon at church:
A while back, Doug Fields witnessed a parent “smack their kid when he messed up.” This caused him to reflect on how he would have engaged her in a conversation had he had the chance.
I think we’ve all been in this situation before. We witness someone do something and we wish we could either intervene or have an imaginary conversation with them. Here is what Doug thought:
I’ve been reading a couple of books from the late 1800′s lately. They have offered me an interesting historical perspective on family dynamics.
One common, historical fallacy that I have learned thus far is that things “back in the day” were not rosy or perfect by any means and the very things that are deficient today are the things that were deficient back then. Things just haven’t just gotten worse over time, they haven’t even gotten better… they are just continually bad.
HT Digital Kids Initiative
via Common Sense Media
source YouTube
Who would have thought that the majority of teenagers want to communicate face-to-face instead of through technology?
I wonder if technology has provided a greater sense of communication and connection with friends when the opportunity to be face-to-face is not available via texting or Facebook?
What do you think this research might indicate?
HT Radical Parenting
source Ericsson ConsumerLab
report hugin.info
I forget about these stories until Amanda tells me: “You should write about ______.” Then I’ll go: “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”
Here is one of those stories:
The situation: We were flying from Minneapolis, MN to Spokane, WA on an evening direct flight and Sari was a baby; probably around 6-7 months-old.
Back story: We had seemingly done the right thing as parents and had not started or fostered the habit of Sari sleeping in bed with us. She did great sleeping by herself in her crib at night. In fact, that’s what she preferred. Sari’s bedtime was around 9pm (after the 3 naps she had during the day).
Back to the situation: The flight was @ 9pm and would last just under 3 hours.
The problem: There are no cribs on a plane! Sari sleeps great in a crib, but there were no places to lay Sari down comfortably, so she let EVERYONE on the airplane know that she wasn’t thrilled with this situation. Amanda and I were trying desperately to contain Sari and soothe her and appease her and help her… but there was nothing doing… Sari was having none of this sleeping in Mom or Dad’s arms or on our laps.
10 minutes. Screaming. 25 minutes. Still screaming. 45 minutes. Super embarrassed and more screaming.
This girls had some lungs. And in a long metal tube, cruising at 30,000 feet, with people who desperately want to sleep and a little reprieve, Sari was granting no one any such wishes.
I can’t tell you how desperate we were and how frustrated. We tried every trick in the book. The flight attendants tried. We all failed. We were all at a loss on how to help soothe this troubled little baby and her obvious discomfort (and everyone else’s!!).
1 hour. Still screaming. 1:15. Is this ever going to end?
Enter the Saint: About an hour and a half into the flight, I’ve got Sari in my arms at the rear of the plane. I’m rocking back and forth in continued desperation to soothe young Sari. But I’m stressed and frustrated to the hilt!
Sitting in the back row, all by herself, was an older woman. If it’s okay that I say this: she was plump and squishy. That’s how I remember her.
She looked at me with extreme pity, then raised her hands in a gesture that meant: “Here, give her to me.”
A couple of thoughts ran through my head in a split second:
I handed Sari to this woman and sat down in the aisle seat (she was in the window seat). Sari propped herself on this woman’s chest on all fours and her eyes were locked on to mine as if to say: “What do you think you’re doing?” But she wasn’t crying!!
The woman was running her hand from her head to her bottom, over and over again. This saint looked over at me and said: “I’m a Grandma. And we don’t care what other people think!”
The resolution: Within minutes Sari’s eyes were closed and she FINALLY relaxed, as did everyone else on the plane. For the next hour, Sari slept on this wonderful angel God had sent our way, while I slept two seats away.
I wish I would have got her name or phone number or Twitter handle or something because she saved our sanity that night on the plane. We will never forget, though, the compassion this woman exhibited to a desperate young couple with a child that was so stressed and worked up.
We are not the perfect family nor the perfect parents by any means. I’m a recovering control freak. I’ve even lost my temper a few times (okay, more than a few times). I won’t mention what my wife is not perfect at… because that’s not my job! My kids tend to get hyper (because of their Dad sometimes) and not listen very well.
However, we think we do a few things right. I think we do a pretty good job (although there is always room for improvement) leading our children spiritually. We take this responsibility very seriously, as all parents should.
Here are some of our family’s spiritual practices that we engage in together:
Any practices your family engages in that you would add to this list? Sound off in the comments below!
Jonathan McKee has an interesting resource he’s working on called: “R U Listening?”
About “R U Listening?”:
We are asking thousands of teenagers across North America, “What advice would you give to your parents if you knew they would actually listen?” The responses are amazing… if you really listen. Listen in right here each week, where you’ll hear a teenage perspective and responses from parenting authors and speakers. R U Listening?
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/thesource4parents
HT Life in Student Ministry
source YouTube
A little over a month ago, my wife and I sat down to create and agree to a set of boundaries around our use of technology.
Basically it was her telling me to get off my phone and pay attention to our family! While I tried to justify my actions because I mainly read articles on my phone (in other words I could understand her frustration if I was playing games all the time), she was right.
I want my two daughters to know their father as someone who will pay attention to them instead of stare at a brilliantly lit glass square that emits light, text and graphics all the time.
So here are our “technology boundaries”:
During weekdays, we cannot read, look, or interact with our phones after the girls wake up in the morning (usually around 7am for us) and before the girls go to bed (usually around 8pm for us). Yep, when the girls are awake, the goal is to pay attention to them. This doesn’t mean we can’t take a phone call, or look something up real quick. But it does mean that we set the tech device down (this includes laptop computers) and play with our children.
On the weekends, we allow ourselves around one hour of pursuing, reading, interacting, emailing, etc. per day. This can happen all at once or interspersed throughout the day. The intent is to give more leeway to read leisurely, while still being attentive to our family.
So far, this has been a great discipline for me. I definitely goof off with my girls a whole lot more than I did, which is good. However, I have not been able to keep up with the amount of reading I used to do on blogs and such. My Google Reader unread count is growing daily and I’m unable to keep up.
Oh well… blogs lose, but my kids win!
A great related article: Jesus Stole My Daddy…
So what about you? Are technology devices running your life or are you running it? Do your kids suffer from your inattention because technology takes your attention?
Sound off in the comments below!
