Autumn Colors Theme Night!

Theme night for Awana tomorrow is Autumn colors.  Remind the kids to wear reds and oranges and yellows and greens and maybe even some leaf patterns & other autumn patterns.

Bad Attitudes Are Automatic Responses

Attitudes can be good or bad and are inherently interwoven into everything we do. They often rest just below the surface and are sometimes difficult to read or understand in adults, let alone our children. Billions of dollars are spent each year to create or change attitudes in you toward certain products or activities. Furthermore, attitudes are highly contagious. As a parent, you know that children can develop a whole outlook on life based on the latest TV show or by spending time with a particular friend. Attitudes affect how we view life and respond to it.

Attitudes are a way of thinking about certain aspects of life. They actually have a purpose: to prepackage a response based on a history of other experiences similar to the current one. Attitudes help people understand the world and make sense of the things around them. They are necessary shortcuts and provide consistency and clarity for knowing how to respond to repeated events and situations. Without attitudes, you would have to reevaluate each person, food, and entertainment choice over and over again, making life unbearably complicated. Instead, your attitude prepares your posture and gives you a pattern of responses every time you see a familiar trigger.

One helpful way to address bad attitudes is to stop using the word "attitude." In many families it's overused and is just a trigger for conflict. You might use the words "automatic response" instead. "Bill, I’ve noticed that whenever I try to give you an instruction you have an automatic response of resistance." Or, "Tanya, it seems that you have an automatic response toward homework. We need to talk about that."

Helping children deal with bad attitudes is not easy and requires insight from parents into the hearts of their kids.

For more ideas about helping children with attitudes, read chapter 6 in Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character In You and Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

ATTENTION PARENTS!! We Need Your Help!

Remind your kids to get sponsors for their 25 day fast for BGMC!  We begin on Sunday and go through Thanksgiving!  If your kids don’t drink soda, that’s fine.  Have them fast some other treat that they take in regularly for those 25 days and ask people to sponsor them per day.  If your child REALLY struggles or doesn’t fully understand why we do this, get friends and family to sponsor them by the HOUR and only do it for a day or a week.  Feel free to adapt this fundraiser to your child.  In fact, if you let me know in advance what your child is fasting (within reason), and if they bring in at least $50 through sponsors, I will do my best to purchase that item (in a small amount) for them at the end of the 25 days and give it to them instead of a soda.  For instance, if your child fasts cookies for the 25 days, I will buy them a big cookie or a small pack of cookies as their reward!  But please let me know soon.  Those who do the soda will receive a free can of soda at the end, of course.  Awards will be given out at our big Family Thanksgiving service on November 27^th or the following Sunday.

(For the record, we have only raised a little over $100.00 this year and our year ends with the school year!  We really need the kids to step up to these challenges if we’re going to have any chance of making our goal of $1000.00.  If just 10 of our kids got 4 sponsors for $1 a day over the 25 days we would reach our goal with just this one fundraiser!  Encourage them to put a little work into it.  It’s important to teach our kids to work for something greater than themselves and to sacrifice for others.)

Light up the Darkness Theme Night Tomorrow Night at Awana Clubs!

Tomorrow night is Awana Clubs again and this week our theme requires a flashlight per kid and for more fun, neon, glow-in-the-dark clothes/trim/accessories!  Glow sticks work great for this night!  Make a head band out of them and bracelets and ear rings, etc.  While the world celebrates death, fear, and darkness, let’s celebrate life, love and light! 

The Value of Training

Every day you're training your children to become healthy responsible adults. Is it okay to get up and walk away in the middle of a meal? Is it acceptable to leave the table without helping to clean it up? Is it all right to eat without saying thank you to the one who prepared the meal? How will kids learn what's appropriate if you don't train them?

Unfortunately, as parents we get upset when our children need lots of correction or when they can't seem to change right away. It is true that some problems our children have take longer to overcome than others. Our response as parents is important, though. Our exasperation can damage the relationship. Firmness is important but the harshness can do more harm than good.

Kids make mistakes. Whether the errors are deliberate or accidental, children need a godly way to think in order to get back on track. Identify an issue you wish would change in one of your children. It might be arguing whenever you give an instruction or complaining when life doesn't go just right. Break the problem down and think of the alternatives you wish your child could do or think.

Talk about proper alternatives and look for positive ways to influence your child to maturity. You may have to use consequences to motivate change but don't neglect the potential of teaching new patterns of thinking, developing new skills, and giving children a vision for doing what's right.

Most of all, be patient. Training takes time and implies lots of work. You're a coach and your child is in training. Give your kids a vision for living life on a different level and they will grow into some great relating patterns.

For more ideas about working with a heart-based approach to parenting, consider Parenting is Heart Work by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

THIS SUNDAY!

Jesus is coming back!  The Bible tells us if we are watching, we will see signs of His returning.  We call that the rapture of the Church.  After the Rapture, Jesus will come to earth to rule as King for 1,000 years.  Satan will be bound, and there will be peace on earth at last.  But once the 1,000 years are complete, Satan will be loosed and will again deceive many people.  This will be Satan’s last battle against God and God’s people.

When the last battle has been won, those who do not have their names written in the Book of Life will be judged.  Those whose names are in the Book of Life will live forever with God.  Everyone on earth has the power to choose at which destination they want to end up.

This Sunday we wrap up our focus on the 16 Fundamental Truths through our Route 66 series and will make sure every child who shows up for Kids Church this Sunday is given the opportunity for salvation so that he or she can be ready for Jesus’ return and watch for Him in anticipation rather than fear!