I wrote this piece for my church newsletter back in 2013, but I think it remains relevant, so I wanted to share it here.  As always, your feedback and comments are welcome.

If you have ever looked in the back pew during the service, you’ll often see two females. One is sitting quietly and listening. Sometimes she sings, sometimes she doesn’t. In general, she is fairly well behaved. The other female? Not so much. She fidgets a lot, and when she gets bored, (what? Who gets BORED in church?) she often starts antagonizing the other girl. She pulls the other girl’s hair, whispers, makes jokes, talks incessantly and sometimes jabs the other girl in the arm and side — repeatedly. Eventually, one of three things happen:

1. The well-behaved girl moves away from the troublemaker — sometime she completely escapes by crossing over to another pew.
2. She gets annoyed and starts jabbing back, and sometimes pulling hair, too.
3. She leans over and reminds me that “You are the mother and I am the child. Now BEHAVE!”

If you have a pre-teen child or even a teenager, sometimes the worst behavior is the rolling of the eyes and the overt dismissal of your existence. If you have ever had a small child, especially a toddler, you know that their behavior can be a completely different adventure.

Kids and church can be complicated. There are typically two camps on children in church, with varying beliefs and expectations. Some feel children belong in the sanctuary of church every week, with their parents, learning and modeling their parents’ behavior by active engagement. Others feel that wrestling a toddler into clothes, then into the car seat, and then into the church doors is three successive victories to be celebrated and consequently that it’s best not to push one’s luck, making the nursery in church close enough to the sanctuary on any given Sunday.

The good news is that when you’re the parent, you get to make that judgment call, and our church has tried, for many Sundays, to have a nursery attendant available. The idea is to make the best of both worlds available to our families with young children. There are many long and lonely Sundays where our nursery attendant had the opportunity to work on homework and read a good book because no children ever showed up. Often, that is great news, because that means you can usually find our congregation’s little lambs in church with their families.

But what happens when the kids in church don’t behave as well as parents and other parishioners would like? In the aftermath of an experience from several months ago, I can tell you what happened. A bevy of phone calls, emails, handwritten notes and play-by—play accounts were relayed to me. I heard the story from about a half— dozen people, including one frazzled parent of the toddler involved. Hearing so many versions brought a few points sharply into focus.

First, most of what I heard was genuine concern and consternation. Overwhelmed parents were maxed on their coping skills. Onlookers were primarily worried about the kid’s safety. Several expressed concern that it looked like a toddler tugging on an altar hanging was going to pull heavy tabletop items on himself and be injured. No one other than the parents interceded, but a visitor later approached a parent of the toddler to tell her that members of the church were just too polite to tell her that her child was out of control. The parent, obviously, was mortified.

How can we, as members of a congregation, help our young parents in the future? This is the question I posed to her and I also ask it of you. She said she is receptive to suggestions and always welcomes the support. So, I ask you, as a member of a church community, how can you help? More importantly, how WILL you help? I am sure it will be with love, support, and encouragement, rather than criticism and condemnation. Please get to know the families in your church, especially those with young children. Get down on the kids’ level and learn their names.  Help the parents when they are overwhelmed, outnumbered or exhausted from non-stop parenting. What worked for your family when your kids were little? Would you be willing to sit next to a family with young children and page through a picture book during the service? Do you have a no-fail, “keeps ‘em quiet every time,” toy that you can suggest? What about a kiddie corral at the back of the church where the kids can play quietly but still be part of the worship experience? When I was at a different church a week prior, I noticed that they had several rocking chairs at the back of the sanctuary to help soothe fussy kids who needed some cuddling.

I am confident that your church would welcome dialogue in a discussion of how to make families, especially those with young children, feel welcome in your congregation.

Luke 9:46—48

⁴⁶ An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. ⁴⁷ Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. ⁴⁸ Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all, he is the greatest.”

It does, in my opinion, take a Village to raise a child, after all.