Category: Manners

Fun Holiday Dinner Conversation Starters for Kids

Holiday meals and gatherings can add an interesting dynamic to any family. Suddenly large groups of family members are spending time together who may not normally see each other for a variety of reasons. Children can be shy around people they don’t know well in general and if your kids spend a lot of time online, making conversation may not be one of their strongest skills.

It’s not just the kids though. Sometimes adults become very stilted and awkward around children. Or they ask embarrassing questions or feel a family gathering is a great time to give a personal critique of everything about your child they find unfortunate. Throw in a few random discussions about politics and family hot topics and things can go wrong very quickly.

Thankfully, there is something fun you can do to encourage healthy conversations when everyone gets together. Place conversation starters in front of every place setting. Each person should have unique questions in front of them. These are open ended questions designed to get people opening up in fun ways and telling stories. You can find free printable conversation starter cards online, but add a few of your own. Make sure to include a few that encourage the Christians in your family to share their faith stories. Questions like, “Tell about a time you saw God working in your life” or “tell about a time you realized God was smarter and wiser than you” can provide some interesting faith stories.

If you have people in your family who have rejected God, place questions in front of their plate that are more subtle about pointing them to God, like “name three things for which you are grateful” or “what is your favorite way to help others”. Their answers might let others get a peak into how to better minister to them.

If you know a family member has a particularly good story to share, you can give them a set up question that will hopefully lead to the story, like “tell about your funniest encounter with someone famous” or “tell about the time an older relative had an interesting encounter with the mailman”.

Have fun with it. You can take turns with everybody listening to the same stories or divide the table into smaller conversational groups. If you do smaller groups, bring everyone into the same conversation during dessert and have everyone share the most interesting or funniest thing they learned.

This year minimize awkward and boring conversations. Have some fun and bond as a family by learning more about each other.

10 Fun Gratitude Activities for Your Family

Did you know the Bible tells us to give thanks 73 times? That’s a lot of repetition of a relatively simple command. In addition, the words thanks and thanksgiving appear in another hundred or so verses. Obviously our gratitude is important to God. He wants us to be grateful because it helps align our spirit with His. Arrogance, selfishness and other unchristian character traits are more difficult when one stays in a spirit of humble gratitude. Likewise, service, generosity and faith sharing are easier when you are grateful for the gifts God has given you.

Our world doesn’t encourage gratitude. Oh, we may hear people talk about it from time to time, but it’s really not a priority. Which is interesting. Even from a secular point of view, gratitude has been shown to have all sorts of benefits to physical and mental health.

Just like many of us have gotten into the habit of being ungrateful, we need to help our families develop the habit of gratitude. Thankfully, there are some fun things you can do to put your family in a gratitude mindset. Here are some of our favorites.

  1. Gratitude tablecloth. Find a plastic tablecloth light enough to write on clearly. Place padding underneath it so markers don’t bleed through to your table. Every time your family sits down to dinner (also a great Thanksgiving idea for extended family to join in), have everyone take a marker and write something new for which they are thankful. How long does it take to fill up the tablecloth? To keep from repeating, review previous entries before allowing anyone to write something new. This also serves as a reminder of how much your family has been given by God.
  2. Thanks jar or centerpiece. This is another idea that works well year around or at Thanksgiving. Find a pretty jar or bowl. Place beside it blank slips of paper and pens. Encourage everyone to write something on a slip for which they are grateful. You can make it a regular thing or just remind them when something happens to write a gratitude slip for it. Periodically, read all of the slips in the bowl and pray to God thanking Him for those blessings.
  3. Sidewalk thanks. If you live on a street with a sidewalk, take some chalk and write “Please tell us something for which you are thankful”. Be sure to write a few things yourself to get it started. Then leave a couple of sticks of chalk where people can see them, but not step on them and get hurt. You may even want to put a little container for them in the grass so people will return the chalk where it’s safe.
  4. Thank you treats. Make some muffins or cookies or other treats and bag them up with a short note of thanks. How many people can you thank with them? Can you focus on people who may normally be unseen by others, but should be thanked for everything they do?
  5. Thanks in many languages. This is a way to make saying thanks more interesting, because it can encourage more conversation if you thank someone in Czech! It also can be a way to think about those in the mission field who are often making sacrifices to serve others and teach them about Jesus.
  6. Thanks by color. This is a great way to teach young children how to thank God for His blessings in prayer. Cut out little slips of different colors of paper. Place them all in a little container. Encourage your children to take turns choosing a color and thanking God for something that is the same color as their slip of paper.
  7. Gratitude art journal. For those with young or artistic children, buy a journal that is meant for sketching. Place pencils and crayons beside it and put it where everyone will see it during the day. Encourage everyone to draw either something for which they are grateful or a depiction of their day and everything in it for which they are grateful.
  8. Pinterest thanks. Search for “volunteer thank you’s” and you will get tons of ideas you can use to create little thank you surprises for people.
  9. World record thanks. Challenge each other to see how many people you can thank in one day. It will be hard to keep count, but at the end of the day, celebrate by sharing some of the thank you stories and the reactions you got from people.
  10. Leftover candy thanks. If you are reading this close to Thanksgiving, you likely still have too much candy in your house. Get creative and tape a little punny thank you note to a piece and give it to someone. (ex. Reese’s – There are so many Reese-ons we are thankful for you!)

Have fun with it, but focus your family on gratitude. You may be surprised at the new blessings that come from being grateful for the ones you already have.

How to Raise a Generous Child

Talk to any ministry or non-profit and they will tell you they are concerned about the future. Why? Because they are noticing more and more that all of their volunteers and donors are over the age of fifty. They realize our culture inside and outside of the church environment no longer values service and generosity. There are lots of cultural reasons for that, but as Christians, we aren’t given an option to let professionals or the government serve others for us. The commands are frequent and clear. Each Christian is expected to serve others and give generously. Personally.

So what are some things you can do to raise kids with servant and generous hearts? Here are some of our favorites.

  1. Set a great example. What do your kids see as they watch you? What do they hear as you speak? Are you more concerned with getting new things for yourself or helping others with the things you already have? Do they see you regularly donating to collections at church for various items? Do they hear you and your spouse discuss how you can increase your contribution to church and other ministries? Or do they hear you complain when a ministry asks for money? Do they listen as you try to figure out ways to cut your contributions to church so you have more money for yourself? Hopefully they watch you spend time every week serving others and giving? Kids do what they know, so your example is key.
  2. Find ways to include them in your service and giving. Have them go with you and help at their level when you serve. Encourage them to find ways they can personally cut back so your family has more money to contribute to a need. Give them extra little jobs so they can earn money to donate themselves. The younger they start serving and giving, the more it is likely to become a natural part of who they are at their very core.
  3. Tell them empathy stories. Help create an empathetic heart by making sure they know what life is like for those you may be serving. The best of course, is to let them hear the stories of their lives from the people themselves. You can also build empathy by reading books written for children about life in different situations. Share your own experiences or those of people you know when appropriate. Service disconnected from the people being served can at times become judgmental and even condescending. Make sure your children understand the full story behind why people need help in age appropriate ways.
  4. Talk about people in the Bible who served others or gave generously. Tell them the story of Abraham and his three visitors. Or Jesus and his ministry. Or the generosity of the early church. Read to them about the widow and her generous donation and the Good Samaritan. Don’t forget to teach them God’s commands on the topic. Encourage them to memorize key verses and revisit them regularly.
  5. Encourage independent efforts at giving and service. Some children are just naturally generous. They just need praise and encouragement to stay the way they are. Other kids are a little more oblivious or even a bit selfish. They need a little nudging to even notice needs – much less respond to them. Instead of telling them what to do, ask them questions to help them decide on their own what the person needs and how they can help. Make sure to let them know you noticed and appreciated their efforts when they do act in generous ways or serve someone else.
  6. Expose them to other generous people who serve others constantly with their time, talents and money. Invite someone over for dinner who goes on mission trips and encourage them to tell your family what it’s like. Or someone who is deeply involved in ministry to a particular group of people and ask them to tell your children about the issues, their efforts to help and the victories and challenges in their ministry. (Note: These interactions are sometimes even more meaningful if the person isn’t a paid minister, but someone who does it on a volunteer basis.)
  7. Give them an allowance and encourage them to give a portion of it back to God. There are lots of creative ways to start children in the habit of giving a portion of their income back to God. It’s more difficult with online giving, but most churches still have a donation box in the foyer. Make sure your kids go every week and put in their money. As teens, help them set up a bank account and teach them how to set up automatic contributions to your congregation.

Raising a generous child doesn’t happen by accident. But with a little intentionality and extra effort, your children can grow up to be the givers God wants them to be.

Fun Family Kindness Challenge

It always makes me a little sad when I am kind to a worker in a retail store or restaurant and they thank me like I’ve just given them a million dollars. Their reaction tells me it may have been a very long time since a customer treated them with just the very basics of kindness.

Let’s get real. Most of us have little margin in our lives. We don’t get enough sleep or exercise and we don’t eat as nutritiously as we should. So when a retail worker doesn’t move as quickly as we want them to or there is the slightest little issue, we snap. Ah, you may say…. but the person wasn’t doing their job properly or was rude to me. Yet, Jesus said we are to love even our enemies and treat them with kindness, too.

For Christian parents, our rudeness has another problem attached. Our kids are watching everything we do. They are soaking it in like little sponges. If they see you routinely being unkind to retail workers or bad drivers, they are going to be rude to those who annoy them in their lives. Soon it becomes a really bad habit for your entire family. A bad habit that draws no one to God and is a poor reflection of God’s image.

Why not have a family challenge to break bad habits and add some kindness to the world (kindness can have a ripple effect too). Gather your kids together and read a few verses like Luke 6:35 and Ephesians 4:32. Ask your children why they believe God wants us to be kind to others. Look at 1 Corinthians 13 and start making a list of ways to show kindness to others. Then add to the list concrete things like giving sincere compliments (preferably on character traits and not just appearance) or helping someone carry things.

Write each idea on a little slip of paper, fold them all and place them in a container. Every day for the period of your family kindness challenge, someone draws the slip of paper for the day. While hopefully your family is more focused on doing all of the things you listed, the act on the slip drawn is the special focus for the day. Everyone should go out of their way to do whatever it says as many times as possible during the day.

That evening at dinner (or before bed) have everyone share their experiences with the kindness act of the day. How hard was it to do? How often were they able to do it during the day? Could they do it so many times they lost count? How did people respond? (Not everyone will respond to kindness with kindness or gratitude. The response should not keep us from continuing to be kind to that person.) Don’t forget that family members should be kind to each other as well, so make sure you encourage them to be kind to each other each day.

How long your Family Kindness Challenge lasts is up to you. If you have enough ideas and keep it going for long enough, however, you may find that kindness has become natural for your entire family.

Fun Ways to Teach Your Kids About Respect

In many ways, a healthy parent/child relationship is built on respect. If children don’t respect their parents, they may rebel against every request or obey only to avoid consequences. (Parents need to show a different type of respect to their children, but that’s a conversation for another time.) For your children to have a healthy relationship with God, they have to show respect to Him. Did you know, the original Hebrew and Greek words for worship are basically defined as showing humble respect to God? If your children don’t respect God, not only are they likely to rebel against His commands, they won’t even be able to worship Him!

Unfortunately, our culture has weakened what the word “respect” means. To most people, respect means being polite or perhaps showing a slight humility towards – as one might slightly nod one’s head rather than bowing or curtsying to royalty. The biblical meaning is much stronger. Respect towards God is to honor Him and value Him highly. To fear Him (yes, in spite of what you may have been taught, fearing God is a biblical principle) in a way that indicates a deep respect. Respect in the Bible includes obeying God’s commands – even ones that are confusing or with which we disagree – and paying attention to what He says. Having a true, biblical respect for God means your children feel that respect to their core. They don’t just metaphorically salute God or bow and then go about their lives focused on what they want rather than what God wants.

Before doing fun things to explore the idea of respect with your children, it’s important that you discuss the biblical meaning and standard for respect and what is the current definition for most people in the world. They may not thoroughly grasp the difference until you do some of the activities, but it’s a topic you should revisit periodically throughout their lives.

Once you’ve introduced the topic of respect, here are some fun things you can do to explore it in more depth.

  1. Check out some children’s books and read them together. There are children’s books about respect, but also look for books involving royalty or people in power over others. What are the various ways people showed respect towards those in power? Find books on customs in other cultures and see if you can find anything about how children might show respect to parents, older people, teachers, etc. You may want to keep a running list or compare and contrast time periods and cultures.
  2. Have a spot of tea. A part of showing respect is good manners – even if it is not the total definition of the word for our purposes. What is more fun than having a tea party or going to a tea room or “fancy” restaurant where they can practice their manners? Just remember to talk about how good manners can still be a hiding place for a disrespectful heart.
  3. Draw it out. Give your kids each a large sheet of paper. Have them divide it in half. On one side, they can draw or right words, attitudes and actions that are respectful, and on the other side things that are disrespectful. If they illustrate something they think you are doing that they believe is disrespectful, seriously reflect on their thoughts. You may need to apologize and make some changes yourself.
  4. Cookies for cops (or other authority figures). This activity can be with teachers, first responders, politicians, judges – even church elders… anyone who might have some sort of authority over your children. Work with your children to make them some cookies and thank you drawings or cards. Call ahead to find a good time to drop by and deliver your goodies, but also have a conversation with them. In what ways do people act towards them that make them feel respected? Disrespected? Why do they think respect from others makes it easier to do their job?
  5. R..E..S…P…E…C…T. You know the song. Encourage your children to take a familiar tune in the public domain (no copyrights, so most nursery songs) and write their own respect song or rap. You can even make a music video of the finished song.
  6. Have a heart. As mentioned early, respectful words and actions can hide an extremely rebellious and disrespectful heart. Have your children cut out a large heart. On it, they should draw or write the things they believe are part of having a respectful heart towards God. After discussing their drawings, have them flip the heart on the other side and draw or write the words or actions someone who respects God will exhibit. Encourage them to reflect on their hearts regularly.

Teaching your children to respect others is great. Teaching them to have a respectful heart towards God is crucial. Taking the time to help your children learn about respect can make living the Christian life much easier for them.