#572. Getting kids ready for Sunday School.
Jul 2nd by JonI don’t want to brag, but if getting kids ready for church in the morning was an Olympic sport, I would own a million gold medals.
If it were the Grammy’s, I wouldn’t have to rush the stage like ODB from the Wu Tang Clan to grab the mic from Shawn Colvin and yell, “Wu Tang is for the children,” because I’d already be up there accepting an award.
If it were the Oscars, I’d have a veritable army of bald headed golden men marching across my mantle.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, “I’m good at getting my kids ready for Sunday School.”
I wasn’t always though. I used to fumble my way through the morning, duplicating efforts with my wife, putting on shoes backwards and creating pony tails that jutted out from odd angles off the side of my daughters’ heads like lighthouses made of hair.
But can you blame me?
For some reason, every kid on the planet is wired to go crazy on Sunday morning. They might have been beacons of joy and helpfulness and flexibility all week, but come Sunday morning they turn into slippery little spider monkeys who are determined to make you late to church.
So what’s my secret? How did I become a ninja of Sunday School getting readiness?
Simple, I mastered these 5 steps:
1. The Pre-Game
You know Sunday is coming. It’s been in the same spot on the calendar for as long as you’ve been alive, so don’t act surprised when your head pops off that pillow and you think, “Oh no, I have to get the kids ready today.” Pre-game the night before. Lay out bowls and clothes and shoes. Make sippy cups the night before. (I can’t wait to retire the words “sippy cup” and “tinkle” from my vocabulary.) Prepare before the day actually arrives so that you’re ready for the storm.
2. Sell it to your kids
One of your biggest jobs as a parent is to play the role of studio audience or laugh track. In the same way that a studio audience will laugh on cue to let viewers at home know it’s time to find a particular scene in a show funny, your job is to back up whatever your husband or wife says with raucous enthusiasm. Here’s what it looks like in my house:
My wife: “L.E. and McRae, aren’t you excited about Sunday School?”
Me (Immediately after she says that): “Yay Sunday School! You’ll get to see all your friends and have goldfish and make a craft. Yay!”
Before they have a chance to even think about putting up a wall of resistance I piggyback what my wife has said, adding details, amping up the excitement, laughing on cue if that’s what the moment requires.
3. Hustle them to the bathroom like a SWAT team.
I can’t prove this, but I think my children have entered into a silent pact with each other to see who can use the bathroom the least amount of times in any given week. Roughly 72% of my creativity/energy at home is expended trying to convince them to use the bathroom. So, to avoid this “no bathroom liberation front” my wife and I try to shuffle our kids to the bathroom as soon as they wake up. Before they can give each other a secret handshake or a head nod and remind each other “viva la revolucion” we’ve grabbed them right out of bed like a SWAT team and marched them into the bathroom.
4. Distract them with stories.
It took me years to learn this, but if I want to get my kids to do anything, and this is for those rare times when they are refusing to instantly follow my Godly, fatherly advice as the leader of the house, I’ll tell them a story. It usually involves an animal. And the plot unfolds as they acquiesce to what I need them to do. For instance, “And do you know what your grandfather did with that bullfrog when he brought it home? Go ahead and take another bite of Cheerios and I’ll tell you.”
5. Use a series of aerobic moves to get them dressed.
Is it lying if you tell your kids that you want to see how high they can raise their hands in the air just so that you can slip a dress over their head? Is it lying if you made getting on tights a jumping contest in which you bounce them on the couch as high as you can all the while pulling the tights up? Is it lying if you make putting on shoes a fun race? I hope not, because otherwise, I’m a wicked huge liar.
On most Sundays my wife and I are the first couple to drop our kids off at Sunday School when the classrooms open. Then we go sit in the sanctuary for 20 minutes and have a “mini date.” After all, they play Coldplay songs through the loudspeakers before church starts, we sometimes have a coffee with us and we get to have 20 unadulterated minutes of hang out time. It’s the little things.
How about you?
Do you have any tricks you use to get your kids ready for Sunday School?
Any horror stories you want to share?
Comments
Shoes — why not put the shoes in the car the night before as part of the pre-game…
an abundantly nice post.
Praise the Lord for Saturday night church, which felt weird for us for, oh….let's say about 2 weeks before we realized it was the best thing EVER. After spending a muggy Saturday creating a combination "slip 'n slide / bike ramp", my 2 boys are happy to slow down for a little air conditioned goldfish cracker eating on Saturday night.
And may I say, thank the Lord for casual Mega-churches where my boys can show up in mis-matched mud-splattered shoes and cargo shorts and no-one blinks an eye. Back in my day (always have wanted to say that) I slept on pink foam hair curlers on Saturday night and woke up at 5am Sunday morning to buff my shiny white shoes and iron my ruffly dress.
I posted on this here:
http://jamsco.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/getting-to-church-one-time/
And remember – if you get everybody there on time, but they are all angry, you've still failed.
We usually leave the kids home while we go to church. But don't freak out. We always make sure to leave them a note to tell them where we're going and when we'll be back. Next to the note we leave a sleeve of Saltines and 2 cups of water.
My child wakes up at 6 a.m–every single morning. We have 2 hours and 45 minutes to get him dressed and fed before leaving the house! With an early riser–getting to church on time isn't usually an issue. However, leaving in time to stop for coffee for the sleep deprived parents is another thing all together.
With 3 and 5 year olds get moving in the a.m., we dress our 7- and 17-month olds the night before. We figured we can compromise fashion for comfort on the little ones.
But with syrup and milk and the occassional blow-out…it's a gamble, really.
Genius!
We sing in the choir, so we leave our 18-month old in the care of the nursery for the better part of 2 and a half hours. She loves it when I take her to play with her "friends."
Just don't ever send mommy to take her to the nursery. I did once and we almost got away with it.
haha, I'm a PK (pastor's kid) of a somewhat small church! I can wake up five minutes before church and, BOOM, I'm there with my cup of coffee and I'm ready for antything.
I have no problem finding the shoes. The socks are a whole other matter. The seams in the toe of the socks are killers.
"But they don't FEEL good, Mom!"
After readjusting the sock seams one-billion-catrillion times, I've been known to say, through clenched teeth, "Forget it! Just grab your flip-flops and head to the car!"
So when is the first annual awards ceremony for this??? I could REALLY use the challenge
My husband would be vying for the gold- he's a rockstar when it comes to getting them ready. I'm Deacon of Children's Ministry… we have 5 kids 9 and under. We lead worship once a month. We live at the church. SS is still the HARDEST thing to get ready for. I LOVED the "sell it to your kids." I teach parents about this all of the time- it's all in the way you present it!
Not to be the nit picker although I'm sure to be labeled one but… you forgot to pump the kids up that they'll learn about Jesus along with the goldfish and seeing their friends… and also… they pump coldplay into your church? really? coldplay?
as happens sometimes when i read too many comments… i want to tell people to stop judging (comment yes, judge no) , but it sounds judgmental… so i'll leave it at this…
really? don't get self-righteous… just buy some extra flip flops and stick them in the car in the event you are unable to locate the sunday school sandal. the pavement is hot, esp. here in texas. does that sound judgy?
ugh. i hope not. now i need to go locate all of my backup flipflops for my 4 kids…
to jon and all the parents out there: im sorry. i was a terror to get out of the door to sunday school as a child.
nevermind the kids. what about the pets? our dog buster saves all of his "bust out the front door at the least convenient time energy" for sunday morning. so here we are finally out of the door and there goes buster, leaving us flustered on the front lawn and yelling at each other. It's a great prep time for worship.
My husband is a very talented – out-the-door-getter – but for himself only. He will literally get up 15 minutes before we walk out the door, and be showered, dressed, and coffee-in-hand, wondering why the two babies and I aren't ready after 3 hours awake (darn that 6am "peepee" call!). But my pre-game includes the full outfits SHOES INCLUDED waiting on the dining room table! Myself too! It's one really good shortcut. Clothing doesn't happen until after food – and often the newest edition doesn't get clothed until 5 minutes before leaving the house. I've also perfected the :car make up routine: because I can never get two seconds to myself on a Sunday morning.
I'm a PK and we were also having to be at church an hour or two early for set up … my mother woke at unearthly hours, and dressed/coifed would wear her apron like a first defense shield the rest of the morning… Smart woman!
My husband was the pastor and already at church one Sunday. All I could do was laugh when it was my turn to get the kids in the car and go. My 6 year old got into one of her defiant moods and screamed over and over as I carried her kicking to the car. . ."I don't want to go to church!" I am hoping the neighbors got a laugh out of the preachers family. Got to keep my sense of humor!
For those of you with the shoe issue: my sister has a small bin next to the door used to hold shoes. My 4 yr old niece leaves a trail of shoes all over the place, but at the end of the day, they all go back in the bin. Then when they need to go out the door, they can always manage to find something to wear.
Sonofmine
Waumba Land isn't copyright of NorthPoint.
hmm
My husband is Minister of Music and deserts me early every Sunday to go it alone with the kids – all five of them. We've arrived at church more than once with no shoes. The first time, I freaked out appropriately, and then realized this was my pride kicking in. Now, I remember that I'm on holy ground, so no shoes? No problem!
Also, I'd like to see a post about kids being left at church. This happened to me several times growing up. My dad lost every bit of his religion when he had to turn around and come get one of us. I'm still traumatized. So much so that my husband and I always do a head count before either of us leaves on Sundays.
Evenshine: God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Just as God telling Noah to build an ark doesn't mean everyone is supposed to be in the ship-building business, neither should you assume everyone is commanded to have kids. Adam and Even have done a pretty decent job of "filling the earth and subdo"ing it. Its overpopulated and beat down enough already!
Being married without kids for over a decade by choice, I was able to do so much more in ministry and impact so many more lives for eternity than had I been at home wiping noses (which I now am due to an oops, which everyone assumes was an answer to prayer – it probably was, just not my prayers! LOL)
Lea: adopted kids should not be blamed for their parents' failed marriages! Yes adoption tends to bring a harder parenting road due to attachment difficulties but stress doesn't cause divorce; only selfish parents cause divorce. Also who says God's will is found passively? God's will was for Canaan to fall to Israel but God still sent them to march. And to suggest God's will is to let parentless children suffer alone, often malnourished and neglected…wow. Not the God I serve!
(side note: I was on the path to adoption – licensed for 2 weeks – when we became pregnant with our oops. Yup we got a lot of those "it always happens when you stop trying" comments. Ha! It happened because we forgot the birth control on our vacation!)
Funny… By the time I get my kids ready for church, I NEED CHURCH… I have officially gotten angry and yelled and fought and thought mean thoughts and wanted to "kill" my kids all before 9am… I will definately take these thoughts into consideration.. Maybe I can go to church one Sunday without being stressed and angry…. LOVE the advice…
I have three kids and managed to solve this problem quite easily. I tell them what time to be ready. If they choose not to be ready they come to church just as they are. The only potential issue with this strategy is that you have to have enough self confidence to not believe that you are a bad parent because your child is in their PJ's and their hair looks like a colony of mice live in it. Ahh… it's what's in the heart that matters. (Also a little, secret note on their back delaring that 'I did not dress this child' may help.)