Parenting Through Easter and Passover: Survival Strategies

This is the week of Easter and Passover. Families all over will be celebrating with family and friends. Although it is a meaningful and joyful time of year, it can also be a stressful time, especially for parents and children.

My own children are anticipating the next few days with a mixture of dread and excitement. We attend Holy Week services in the days leading up to Easter. Believe it or not, those services can be tedious and demanding for children, particularly because they are solemn. For parents who celebrate Passover, there are days of preparation and celebration that can bring children to the brink of their patience as well.

But we celebrate our family traditions because they are important to pass along from one generation to the next. Parents are, first and foremost, teachers. And so we ask more of them at this time of year than we ordinarily would.

For Christians, the prize at the end of the race is always Easter. It is a day of celebration, family dinners, egg hunts, and candy candy candy. For our family, Easter Sunday can be just as much, if not more demanding than any other part of the week. It is a full day, to say the least.

My goals during this week are twofold:

1.) To teach my children carefully about why we celebrate the way we do, and

2.) To keep them whole and cared-for in the process.

It can be a tough balance to strike, especially because my children range in age from 3-8. What our 8 year old is ready for, his little sister may not be. So, I start the juggling act.

Here are a few strategies for surviving the week:

Be Selective - Parents and children may not be able to participate in everything this week. Evaluate what your children might be able to handle and do one or two of those activities. If they won't sit through a 2-hour church service, make private time to pray at home. Find ways to honor your family's traditions that might be more age-appropriate.

Talk about expectations - Lay out your plan for the week with your children so they know what to expect. Let them know what relatives might be coming into town or who you may be planning to visit. Tell them in advance what kind of behavior you expect. If they know ahead of time, it will be easier to parent them through it.

Teach Before the Moment - Read children's books about the meaning of Easter or Passover. Find an activity to do each day, from simple crafts to special prayers, that will help your children understand the deeper meaning of your family's celebration. Children learn a lot from repetition, so the sooner you start to talk about what these holidays mean, the more able you will be to answer the questions your children are bound to have. Teaching in advance will make the celebration more meaningful for all of you.

Keep Perspective - Even though you are busy cleaning and making special recipes, decorating your home, and welcoming guests from out of town, your children have needs that will not go away. Do your best, despite everything, to keep that in mind. Taking time to involve them and let them know that they are loved can make all the difference. It can keep both of you from having a 'meltdown' further on down the road.

Watch the Big Three: They are, of course, diet, sleep, and exercise. Keeping your family healthy through the holidays means doing your best to keep some sort of schedule. When you know church services will run late, prepare by taking naps. If you know there will be a candy-fest at Grandma's, prepare by feeding your children nutritious snacks packed with protein, like nuts or cheese. Making time for 30 minutes of vigorous exercise outside in the sunshine can make it easier to ask them to sit still when you need to.

Let Love Guide You: At the holidays or any stressful time, it can be easy to lose sight of the reason you celebrate. At the core of our holiday traditions is Love. It is the reason we gather with family and friends. It is even the reason behind our faith traditions. Focus on that Love and don't lose sight of it. Even when the jello doesn't set. Even when your daughter toilet papers the bathroom 5 minutes before Aunt Gertrude arrives. Even when your nephew makes confetti out of the matzo. Take a deep breath and do your best to react with love and patience.

I know you can do it.

Have a safe and Happy Easter and a Blessed Passover.

- Midwest Mom


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Midwest Moms will return after Easter, on Monday, April 13.

It's Time To Reach Out

People in the news talk about unemployment numbers as though they were just numbers. They're not. They're people without jobs.

My husband works for an automotive supplier, and last week he came home every day talking about who was heading home for the last time.

I didn't let on, but I dreaded the conversation we would have every evening. Early in the week, he told me a few people were "let go" with a sense of half-relief. "They usually make all the cuts in one day," he said. But the next day there were more cuts and more and more. By the end of the week, we found ourselves talking about financial strategy.

It was and is nerve-wracking.

Today, the President came out and said that the economy may worsen before it gets better. That may be true, but I can feel my hair going grey and those pesky worry lines on my forehead getting deeper. When I opened this morning's news paper, I saw that John Deere announced they're cutting jobs in Iowa. Caterpillar is cutting jobs in Illinois. I won't even talk about Michigan. The evening news held announcements of job cuts at Home Depot, Nextel, Spring, Pfizer. Every state is being hit -- hard.

During the past year, we have trimmed our household budget down to bare bones, or so I thought before last week. Now, when I think about how we could survive job loss, if that were to happen, I know that we could have to cut much more. All over this country, men and women are having to make choices about whether to buy food or keep warm, whether to get a doctor's care or fix the car, whether to pay their house payment or their credit card bill. There is no doubt about it; we are in a rough place as a country.

The question is, what do we do about it?

During times like these, when I feel my sense of worry deepen, just about the only way I can find comfort is by reaching out. Last week, we went through all our clothing to donate warm snowsuits, jackets, sweaters, and boots to our local family clothing ministry. My boys are participating in a food drive through school to help keep our local food pantry stocked. We have set aside furniture to donate to the YWCA shelter for abused women. I know it's not much, but it is something.

When I think about how bad the economy is and how bad it may become, I think about how our grandparents' generation made it through the depression. I think about how my own parents made it through tough economic times, even with 6 children.

They made it through by counting on each other.

People make the difference in difficult times. Neighbors help to fix a car. Sisters help to share food or babysit. Friends offer a shoulder to cry on or a listening ear. Strangers donate food or clothing or transportation to the doctor.

And so I tell myself, no matter how worried I am about the future, I have a loving family. I have caring neighbors. I have friends at church and school. I have faith.

I take a deep breath and despite my worry I tell myself, We will be okay.

And then I look around to see who I can help. Please, I truly hope you do, too. In our lifetime, there has never been a more important time to pitch in.

Maybe if we all do, these troubled times might become a little bit easier.

- Midwest Mom

Teaching Children to Take Action

No one knows how children will turn out; a great tree often springs from a tender plant.
-- Norwegian proverb

My husband and I are politically aware adults -- we read the news and talk about justice issues in the world on a daily basis. We are keenly aware that our actions can have a positive effect on our community, if we choose to make activism a priority. We can have a broader effect, if we choose, by sharing our ideas or contributing to causes.

I have always talked to my children, most often in terms of our faith but also, recently, in terms of our duty as American citizens, about why my husband and I believe what we do.

Alleviating poverty is one of the first priorities on our "activist list". For us, it is important to feed hungry people and provide clothing to those who do not have it, not because we are wealthy, but because we can.

As a Christian Parent, I understand that teaching my children about the world -- about justice and injustice and about the highs and lows of life -- is a key aspect of of parenting, if I want my children to become mature, understanding adults. How do I do it? I get them involved.

When my oldest was 3 years old, he worked with me at a local food pantry once a week. He couldn't do much, just put cans or fruit into grocery bags. But he helped me work at the desk and talk to the clients who came in for food. He played and laughed with them.

When I drop clothing off at our local ministry for families in need, my children accompany me. We talk about why we give and who will be wearing their jackets and dresses and shoes. At the end of last year, I was told by my friend at the ministry that they served 637 children in our area last year. That's a lot of children who need help. I share that information with my kids so that they know there are children who are cold tonight, but they also know that there is something we can do to help make them warmer.

My children's preschool has a mitten tree every winter. I would always let my children choose colors for scarves and hats that I would knit for the tree. The act of making something carefully, of taking the time to create something warm and beautiful was not lost on my children. They have each commented on the labor and time; they have been sources of conversation about gratitude and "why" that have, I hope, led each of us to greater understanding.

Every parent has a way of looking at the world and seeing the ways it could be made better. I am keenly aware that there is more I can do. I am committed to challenging myself to make more of a difference if I can. Perhaps now is the time to reach farther than our local community.

As a part of Bloggers Unite!, I am dedicating a portion of this post to Refugee awareness. There is a crisis in our world right now. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Darfur, and anywhere there is conflict, there are good people who must flee to keep their families safe. For some, including children, citizenship rights can be taken away, resulting in "statelessness" where they do not have a homeland to return to. Others can be repatriated, but need help with food, clothing, and housing.

As parents, we may not be able to save the world, but we can educate ourselves on the real struggles of millions across the world. As difficult as it may be, we can talk to our children about the reality of the refugee crisis, not in horrifying detail, but in truth. We can talk about what we learn. We can listen. We can act.

Teaching children to take action means that we must be willing to confront difficult realities as parents. No one is going to solve all the injustice in the world at once. And parents and families often feel that our plates are full. But, we can choose to focus on small ways to affect larger problems. When we do that, we give our children another tool in their toolbox, another type of perspective, an opportunity for compassion.

Our children will need those tools, perspective and compassion. As they grow into adults, they can be caretakers for their world, just as we are of ours. When parents teach action, even in a small way, we have the chance for our lessons to be far-reaching. So, whether we work as helpers in our towns, our churches, and our neighborhoods or whether we reach beyond the local to take on something much larger, the activism we teach can have much broader effects than we even realize -- like ripples in a pond.

I would encourage you to start with your own children by even choosing one issue to take on as a family. Will it be helping a neighbor, building a home for someone who has nowhere to live, feeding the hungry? You choose. But be sure to make the choice -- and start teaching.

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How can we act right now to help refugees? One way is to support organizations like Refugees United. It is an organization that provides a forum -- a way for refugees to communicate and find their relatives. It is free and confidential and focused on giving refugees and their family the means to take action themselves. It can help parents find their children or wives find their husbands. Refugees United is one example of what can happen when caring people unite to solve large problems. Overcoming the communication obstacle in refugee communities brings families one step closer to becoming whole.

-Midwest Mom

How do you help kids deal with fear?

We are a news-watching and news-reading family. Between the recent earthquakes in China and tornadoes and flooding here in the Midwest, I am finding that the news is creating a whole new category of fear among my children. Of course, we turn off the television if they are showing graphic images of destruction, and we do not parade such stories in front of our little ones. But they are not living in a vacuum. They know these things are happening. And often, they find out details I would not have shared with them.

One such case happened when my 7-year-old was sitting in the seat opposite mine at the breakfast table the other day. He began reading the headlines on the back of my newspaper. He said aloud, "Four children killed as Tornado hits Iowa Boy Scout Camp." I immediately put down the paper to a barrage of questions from my children. At the root of it all was disbelief, "How could this happen?!?"

For that question, I'm afraid I don't have a good enough answer.

Since they inadvertently learned about schools collapsing in China and Boy Scouts being swept away by tornadoes, my children have developed a strong fear of the forces of the earth. When we have severe weather, especially thunderstorms, they call out for us in the night. It is something we haven't dealt with in this way since our oldest was 2 years old. Granted, we've had some real boomers in the past month. But the fear that has emerged in our children is much stronger than we could have anticipated.

Recently, there were strong storms involving hail and torrential rain. They happened during the day, while my husband was at work. As we kept an eye on the weather channel, with the sound turned low, the children worried about Daddy. "We know we have a safe basement to go to, but what about Daddy?" I told them to pray for God to take care of Daddy and assured them that God knows us and cares for us. I was amazed at the fervent prayer that commenced and continued until the storm had eased.

I think what may be happening is that my children, especially the older ones, are beginning to understand what we adults know, but keep buried deep -- that in the eyes of the world, we are really quite small. We may be masters of our own universe, but that only applies to those few things we can control.

"I cannot control the weather." I often say, when called upon to make it less hot or less rainy or warmer or to make it snow.

In the aftermath of a disaster, I repeat the words of Mr. Rogers. "Look for the helpers." I firmly believe that God always sends helpers, and that we must be ready and paying attention, so that when it is our turn to be the helpers, we are ready.

A relinquishing of control, a turning to a power larger than ourselves, and a dedication to find and to be the hands of help when people are in need do not begin to explain why tragic things happen. But they are a start, and I hope they will be enough to see my children through.

For right now, though, I will just try to be ready when the sky looks stormy and they call out for me in the night.

Midwest Mom

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To share your family's stories on dealing with fear, click on "comments" below this article. I would love to hear from you.

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