Using Grocery Stores to Teach Kids Empathy

Using Grocery Stores to Teach Kids Empathy - Parenting Like HannahWhen I was single, I lived in neighborhoods which were beginning to gentrify. My jobs were in more upscale areas, and I often went to the grocery store in the upscale area near my office. Other times, I shopped in a grocery store of the same chain, but in my neighborhood – which was still primarily a poor area of town.

Over time I began to notice something interesting. Although both stores had the advertised specials and many of the same foods, there was a noticeable difference in some of the items they chose to carry in large quantities and the extra sale items. Unfortunately, in the cases of the gentrifying neighborhoods, extra sales were often on junk food while in pricier areas more exotic fruits, vegetables and leaner cuts of meat were more often on sale.

I learned a lot from noticing these differences in the grocery stores. Not just about how the stores chose to do business, but I also got to know other customers, workers and learned about some foods I might have passed by in the tiny corner in which they were placed in the more upscale store. In the gentrifying store, these same items were available in large, inexpensive quantities and there were many helpful people to teach me how to choose and prepare the items so I could enjoy them.

Over the years, we have learned one of the best places to go when you are on vacation – particularly in another region or country- is the local grocery store. You and your children can learn a lot by being observant as you walk around the aisles. Here are some of my favorites:

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Kids, Weather and God

Kids, Weather and God - Parenting Like HannahAtlanta is weather obsessed. Television programming is scuttled multiple times a year for our local stations to give us minute by minute weather updates for hours on end. Whether it is snow, a tornado or a hurricane, we watch the skies and our televisions carefully to be prepared for whatever happens.

Did you know it is easy to combine teaching your child the Bible and helping them learn about subjects like weather at the same time? It can be a lot of fun and increase their Bible knowledge and faith while helping them expand their intellectual knowledge. Weather is a particularly fun subject to use with this kind of learning.

Look online (Check our companion site www.teachonereachone.org) or get some books from your local library on weather and weather experiments. One of the most fun things you can do is build some basic weather tracking instruments, learn about clouds and other weather predictors and then see if your kids can predict the weather better than your local forecaster. (As we all know the chances are pretty great they can on most days!)

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Christian Kids and Role Models

Christian Kids and Role Models - Parenting Like HannahA trip to Monticello as a young girl led me to years of fascination with Thomas Jefferson. In the elementary education version of his life, Jefferson was a hero. A man who not only penned the Declaration of Independence, became President of the United States and greatly increased the size of our country, but also was well read, an inventor and travelled to places I dreamed of seeing. I wrote many a paper in my school years about his life.

As an adult, I had access to more of the story of the life of Thomas Jefferson. While he did indeed do many wonderful things, he had many personal issues. From uncontrolled spending and debt to hidden affairs to writing his own version of the Bible omitting any parts he didn’t like (and I won’t even discuss how a graduate of WIlliam and Mary could start UVa!), Jefferson was not the most godly example of how to live your life.

That’s the problem with human role models. In the end, they are still human and sinful. Many a person has had their faith shattered because their faith in a person was destroyed when their hidden (or not so hidden) sins came to life. Yet as a parent, you want to point your child to people who have made godly decisions in today’s world. It helps our kids understand how to put biblical concepts into practice in their lives. So how do you give your child the positive aspects of having role models without exposing them to situations which could later shake their faith?

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Knitting Service Project for Kids and Teens

Knitting Service Projects for Kids and Teens - Parenting Like HannahKnitting is a great craft to teach young people. A simple knit stitch is easy to learn and the double needles make it easier to create stitches of consistent tension. If you watch for sales or yard sales, it is easy to pick up knitting needles and yarn for very little money. With or without adding a purl stitch to the knitting knowledge of the kids and teens you are teaching, they can do several service projects to help those who are homeless, do not have housing and clothing that keep them adequately warm, or a host of other things.

The simplest of course is the knit stitch scarf. Binding on 16 or twenty stitches and then doing five or six feet of knit rows before binding off, allows a young person to practice knitting and see quick results. The scarf can be donated to homeless shelters or assuming it is legal in your town, wrapped around a pole or bench in an area where homeless or poor people may notice it. Make sure to attach a note explaining the scarf was made for anyone who needed it and add a scripture or words of encouragement (check local ordinances for legality of leaving abandoned scarves around town and don’t include any personal identifying information!).

The wonderful thing about knitting is that once your students become more confident in their craft, it creates a warm familial environment for chit-chatting as they knit. This gives you a comfortable time and place to encourage your students to open up to you about their struggles, successes and problems. It also gives you ample time to respond with godly advice, which somehow doesn’t seem as threatening when given over clacking knitting needles.

If you don’t know how to knit, but want to work with a group of young people, ask around. Many women are more than happy to share their knowledge for free with newbies. In fact, I finally learned to knit by attending a mother-daughter knitting club a neighbor had in her house once  a week for one summer.

Once your students become more advanced, there are tons of free patterns online that can have them knitting blankets for foster children, wash cloths for soup kitchens, caps for preemies and much more. There are even multiple sites requesting knitted donations of various things to be used in serving others.

God has gifted us in many ways. Even though your students may never become master knitters, they can use the knowledge they have to serve others. Who knows, they may even learn some godly advice while they are knitting with you – and that’s always a good thing.

 

Parent-In-Training

Parent-In-Training - Parenting Like HannahOver the years, I have worked for several companies. In each case, my first days and sometimes weeks of employment involved some sort of training. One of the companies went to great expense, flying us thousands of miles away and housing and feeding us for a week while we completed their training program. Why was it worth thousands of dollars to that company to train us thoroughly? Because they had learned, well-trained employees were much more effective than those who picked it up by the seat-of-their-pants or used their instincts to learn their job.

Ironically, one of the most difficult jobs in the world has no mandatory training. Even Christian parents, whose job of parenting is even more difficult in many ways, may rarely if ever have any parenting training available to them. Yet very few people are concerned. The common train of thought is either “do what your parents did”,  “do the exact opposite of your parents” or my personal favorite “trust your instincts”.

Granted all of those philosophies may have some validity to them at times. Most parents use all three at some point in their parenting. The problem with those philosophies though, is they promote reactive parenting. Reactive parenting comes with a special set of problems:

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