Church......

Dun Dun Dun!!!!
I know, I know......why do we have to talk about kids and the "C" word.

When we lived in Idaho, there was this couple that had……..I want to say 5 kids. Not sure, but enough that you would THINK they would have their hands full at church. The kids were all really young and the oldest was like 8.

Peter and I were always shocked to see them in church because these kids would just…….sit there!!! No screaming, no teasing, no hitting. They just sat there and looked like they were actually listening. (Meanwhile, Peter and I are trying desperately to get our kids to stop throwing toys at the people in front of us or going to the bathroom a million times in a one hour period of time)

We asked them one time how they did it. I will now share with you how it was done. ( I know you are all on the edge of your seats waiting for me to give you the number to the magician who will magically change your child into a church loving, quiet sitting vegetable)
I am embarrassed to say that after almost TWO years of receiving this information from them, we are actually going to start doing the same thing with our kids.

They said that they told their children that they could either sit 60 minutes in church or they would come home and sit 60 minutes AFTER church.
So basically, if one of the children did not behave in church, that child would come home AFTER church and sit 60 minutes on the couch.
NOT FUN!!!!

They said that after a couple of times of sitting on the couch for 60 minutes after church, their kids started choosing to behave in church. (who would have thought?!!)

Since our kids are a BIT smaller then their kids were (but not much smaller) we have also decided to dedicate all of our Family Home Evening nights for the next couple of months on practicing “how we behave and talk in church” with our kids.
(And we have explained to each of them that they too will sit 60 minutes if they do not sit well in church)

I also REALLY enjoyed taking notes in church.......back in the day when I didn’t have kids to take care of. So with Tyler, I have started to have him listen to what the speakers are saying and then write down one of the words he hears the speaker say. When he getst done with that word, we do another and another. This has kept him pretty occupied the two times I have done this with him.

So I will let you know how our new “plan of action” turns out.
We will have to see if that family in Idaho was really able to get their kids to be reverent with this method, or if the reverence was just genetic. :)