18.9.11

Dilemma with Church

We are having a dilemma with church. The name of the dilemma is Asher and Alethea.

Alethea is almost 21 months and is still having major separation anxiety. She won't go in the nursery without major tears. We always tell the nursery workers that she will cry, but that she should be fine in a couple of minutes. If only that were true. Halfway through the singing, the nursery workers came to tell us that she was still crying and very worked up. We thought that maybe we could bring her into the service and quietly sit with her, but as she looked through the storybook Bible we brought, she kept shouting "sun, sun!" every time she saw a picture of the sun, moon or fire. There is a lot of all three in the Bible, in case you didn't know. I was a little shocked myself to see a picture of one of these three items on just about every page. There was the only educational thing I learned from service today.

Asher is three years old and too old to be in the nursery. Our church does have children's church for ages three to six, but we feel like that is too big of a developmental gap. The kids are expected to sit still for long periods of time in children's church, which defeats the purpose of having a separate service for them. For now, we have decided to try to have Asher in the service with us. We feel that it is good for him to learn proper behavior in an adult setting at a young age. He loves the singing and has a good relationship with our pastor, making it comfortable for him to sit and listen. Today we brought an activity bag for him of Bible coloring pages, flash cards, a toy car and his storybook Bible. He was doing pretty well, but then his sister came into the service with us and it was impossible to manage both of them. We just left.

As we exited the doors, we felt defeated. We hadn't even made it to the pastor's sermon. How can you teach your children to sit quietly when there isn't an environment for them to practice just that? How can we be spiritually encouraged if our children don't fit into the places carved out for them during the Sunday service? What is the purpose in going if we are spending all of our time wrangling the children? Both Craig and I felt exhausted and drained after our morning at church. I now understand why many families with young children will take a season away from church. It was downright stressful!

We don't want to stop going, because we want to continue to teach the kids that this is a part of our lives. It is good for Alethea to have time away from us and it is healthy for Asher to learn to sit quietly and behave himself in an adult setting. We want to try to have fellowship with others in our congregation and gain encouragement from the Sunday sermon. I am just having a hard time figuring out how this all works in this season of life.

Are there any suggestions out there?

3 comments:

Making of a Masterpiece said...

I'm so sorry! I know that if it weren't for the nursery, there is no way we would get anything out of service and we'd probably just not go because Gabe never sits still and unless he's asleep, if he's not moving, he's not happy;)

Thankfully, our church has several different age groups for "kids church." Babies, 1-2's, 3-4's, 5-6's, and then I think they do 2nd-5th grade. I'm sorry yours doesn't have that. Sounds like the main issue is the whole separation anxiety thing and for that...I have no advice. We haven't reached that point with Gabe yet and hopefully we won't. Here's to hoping it will get better soon! Love ya!

-Kayla
www.babygabeysmommy.blogspot.com

Becky said...

Our church believes 3 year olds should sit in the service as well. For the first 9 months I wanted to switch churches. Carson is not a quiet player so even if we brought a car or book he would "vroom" loudly or make dinosaur sounds. It took a lot of trips outside for attitude adjustment and a little growing up but he has finally got it. Still not a joy (especially with a 2 hour service) but a stern look is usually enough to quiet him.

Never had 2 at once though! My good friend here has a son that had extreme separation anxiety (cried 'til he puked in nursery). They tried everything but ended up taking turns attending church for several months. Not ideal but it was only a "season" and everyone understood. Around the age of 3 he finally grew out of it (they use a "manta" to help him remember mommy is coming back and it really works... "play, snack, mommy").

Sometimes I think I'll never really hear a sermon again. But we're teaching our children by example and there's always bible studies and sunday school to keep my fed.

Joy B. said...

If it makes you feel any better, your children were not as loud as you probably felt they were. If you ever want to pass one forward, we're more than happy to church sit :-) I used to get passed all over the church when I was little. I'll tell you a story tomorrow about how as an infant I "blessed" some other people in my family's congregation.