Sunday Mornings and Church

Early on in our marriage, my husband and I started going to church every Sunday. It was a tradition that we continued once our children were born. Recently as I was preparing a column about rules and raising children, I asked my son if there were particular rules that he remembered growing up. “Church on Sunday mornings,” he said almost immediately.

Now early on in their lives, church on Sunday mornings was not a difficult thing for my children. In fact, I think they even looked forward to it. Sunday School was obviously the best part of going to church. They were able to play and color and spend time with friends. The church service, on the other hand, was a bit tough.

I remember packing cookies and crayons with paper and even small toys into my purse each Sunday morning. Anything to keep them occupied, especially my son, during the sermon. When my husband was away on a trip, and the three of us headed off to church without him, I had a particular concern. I would often sing with the choir, and having the kids sit by themselves until the anthem was over was a continual worry for me. Tiffany would sit and play or color, but Timmy would often take self-guided tours of the sanctuary—and he typically waited to begin his tour until the choir had begun to sing.

One particular Sunday morning, Timmy decided to explore the altar during the anthem. He even ventured behind the curtains just beyond the altar. I could hear the snickers of the members of the congregation above the morning music, and I grew sick. I prayed that the choir director would up the tempo of the music just a bit so that we would finish more quickly. Finally, when the music had ended, I tried to sneak out of the choir loft without being noticed. I hunched over and practically crawled behind the altar to retrieve my child. I was probably at least a dozen different shades of red as I carried him back to the pew where Tiffany was quietly seated.

But we stuck with our rule. Church every Sunday morning. That is until the kids reached high school. Then we sort of lost our stamina. Waking up two teenagers on a Sunday morning (usually the only morning of the week that they could sleep in) became increasingly difficult. We bargained and agreed on an every other week schedule. They loved youth group and activities like that, anything at the church that didn’t involve an early wake-up call was acceptable, but Sunday morning services were another thing!

I remember listening at one point to an expert on child rearing, and he said to be careful in choosing your battles with rules. Sometimes it was acceptable to bend and at other times it wasn’t. As I got older, and my kids did, too, I realized that this was one of the battles on rules that would be flexible. The flexibility made the entire family much happier and Sunday mornings much more peaceful!

Money in the Jar

Recently I was talking with a friend about raising children and we inevitably discussed the Tiger Mom book and how some Chinese mothers parent. The discussion prompted me to think about some of the rules that my husband and I had implemented in the house when our children were growing up.

My dear son had an issue with using foul language. I think it began when we saw one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies. Within the first five minutes of the film, one of the turtles said, “damn!” My son thought that was pretty awesome and he started saying the word at any opportunity. If I couldn’t find something at the grocery store, or if I dropped something, my son would mimic his turtle hero.

Over the years he picked up other choice words from various sources, and controlling his language became a concern for my husband and me. I had read about reinforcing behavior by removing privileges. So we tried that. We took away video games, outings with friends and other things that we thought our son treasured. Nothing seemed to work.

At about the age of five, my son began to realize the importance of money, and he soon grew to love money! Especially if it was his. Since we had already tried removing other things from his daily routine and they didn’t work, we decided to hit him in the pocket when his language was inappropriate.

Fees were set for various words. A particularly bad word would cost twenty-five cents. Something less offensive might cost a dime. We found an old jar and made the jar the bank for all fines collected. At collection time, my son would hold tightly to his precious coins before he finally released them into the jar. It was painful for him to bid farewell to those friends.

Even my daughter was in on the sentencing. They would be in the playroom playing and I would hear her say, “Timmy, that’s ten cents to the jar!” She would then come to inform me of the fine so as to insure its collection.

Now the real kicker was that he would never reunite with those precious coins that he released so reluctantly into the jar. At the end of each year, we would tally the amount of fines paid. It was then my son’s decision as to which charity the money would be donated. Since the tally date was usually around Christmas, he often opted for Christmas Cash for Kids or the Food Bank. His fines always went to a worthy cause.

The jar stayed in the house, prominently displayed, until my son reached high school. The total amount collected each year began to dwindle. One year, we didn’t even total the fines, we just let them run into the next year. Eventually my son learned his lesson, that is until he went off to a military school where he picked up a sailor’s mouth!