My children take risks, and that’s all right with me. Risky play, or what we lovingly call danger play in our house, is an incredibly important part of childhood. While it can be difficult for a parent to watch, the thrill of it allows children to feel excited by their accomplishments and challenged by the…
One day, a strange box appears in the forest, a box that is “big enough for someone or something to fit inside. Big enough to hide in.” Bear, Fox, Squirrel, Hare, and Owl are curious about the two eye-like openings in the box, how the box got there, and when it arrived. When the box…
Beautifully designed and illustrated, this journal is a lovely means to encourage and teach children to talk to God and grow in their relationship with him. Author Molly Hodgin explains, “The journal you hold in your hands isn’t just a notebook or diary. It’s not a school assignment you have to do for a grade….
Full of the zeal of a Grade-9er, I rushed into my science classroom. “Hey, Mr. Pollet, do you. . . ‘’ Mr. interrupted brusquely: “Curt, watch your mouth. No ‘hay’ around here. Straw is cheaper. Grass is free. Now try it again.” “Excuse me, Sir, could I tell you something about our fishing trip.” I…
In the spring, my daughter Georgia gave birth to a beautiful eight-pound baby girl named Enid. While still in hospital, tests were run following up on abnormalities seen on in-utero ultrasounds. We, Enid’s family, were bewildered when she was diagnosed with congenital Cytomegalovirus (CMV). We had never heard of it. “Don’t google it,” the pediatrician…
“Clearly as a funnel cloud touching down on the flat prairie horizon, I can see what is coming next. Toddlers control the weather, and it is time to take over.” Teresa Wong, “Tantrum Series” I happened to read these words in the essay collection Good Mom on Paper just a few days after encountering Drew…
Once upon a time, back in the days of St. Arthur of Smithers, a class of very, very young scholars decided to put some duck eggs in an incubator. When the days were accomplished when the shells should be delivered of the ducklings, alas, two eggs did not hatch. Three days later, the scholars consigned…
At first, it felt a bit surreal. After two years of pandemic restrictions, Christian summer camping was finally returning to normal. One of the highlights of each summer for me is serving for a week as chaplain at Camp Douglas, the Presbyterian camp on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. After checking in at Horseshoe Bay ferry…
Some call it the witching hour. That lost piece of time, like a forgotten tune, tucked between pages of homework, serving supper and filling the tub, the space between unpacking the dishwasher and packing school lunches, brushing little teeth and saying prayers and quickly washing clothes because your oldest son has run out of pants…
I “taught” (using the word loosely) Joy Jam at Jubilee Fellowship church recently to a roomful of third and fourth graders bumpily becoming fuller images of God, a.k.a, naughty boys. “Roomful” in this case is four, plus one imported first grader, for the longest 43 minutes of my life.
In the previous issue of Christian Courier, fellow columnist Lloyd Rang wrote a piece entitled “Why ‘Back to the Basics’ is a Really Bad Idea” (Dec. 10, 2018). If I understood him correctly, his main argument is that that it’s foolish to provide our children with an education based on nostalgia for a by-gone era, before the advent of computers, artificial intelligence (AI) and other so-called smart technologies. He stated that, “if you learn a skill today, that skill is out of date within three years” and “basic math, or science, or language skills aren’t what we need” in the world of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
How do we grow gritty children, how do we turn them into people who can withstand pain and disappointment and failure? How do we develop in them character and set them up with lives of unshakable hope?
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