Keeping Faith Fun!

My last post was how to keep our own faith live rocking as parents.  After all you can't give what you don't have and our kiddos need us to share our faith with them. Today let's talk about how to keep kids active in their faith as well. What are some ways we can encourage them to have fun learning and living their faith?

This is definetely not the complete list but over the next couple of days I will share a few things that I do in my house:

The first is TV: Yes TV has become portrayed as the evil monster that will consume our children. Is this true? I think it can be, depending on what their little eyes are watching. They not only listen to what they hear but begin to include it in their daily vocabulary and interactions with others.
When we moved into our house 4 years ago an amazing thing happened. I used to be the biggest DVR junky ever! Especially after having my first child and being a stay at home mom. I was DVRing 20-30 shows per week and watching them. When we moved their was a big cable TV controversy in our town and the cable company said it would take them nearly 6 weeks to connect our cable. For a moment I thought I might die! What do you mean I have to live without cable for 6 whole weeks? I am pregnant how will I survive? It turns out I DID survive and we realized that we didn't really need cable anymore. So we called the cable company and canceled. It felt a bit liberating. I was no longer slave to "Grey's Anatomy" and all of the other shows that I felt compelled to watch weekly. It gave me a lot more time to read, pray and spend time with my kids. I feel this decision has changed my family! The only thing I miss these days is a bit of College football but we all make sacrifices right?

In our house the only children's programming that we have is PBS, which is full of good quality education. I am pretty sure Ella is reading at four years old because of  "Word World" and "Super Why"  and not from my fancy teaching skills. :) They have also learned so much about science, animals and nature thanks to "Sid the Science Kid".
The best thing is our house is not filled with garbage all of the time! I don't have to worry about the characters treating their parents with attitude or fawning over some rock star. All of the characters have good moral values. We are not able to watch children's programming 24 hours per day and there are NO toy commercials!! Did you know young children are the number one advertising marketing group in America? Sell it to the kids and the parents HAVE to buy it. My kids have no idea what cool toys are these days and I like it that way!!

Ella did ask me a question recently. "She said I know PBS has good shows for kids but how come they never tell anybody about God or Jesus?" I didn't really have an answer for this question. It is hard to explain to a four-year-old that not everyone believes in God and that some people are actually offended by him. So that brings me to our other show that is full of good Christian education and values.
The other show that my kids watch a lot of is "Veggie Tales"! If you haven't seen it you are really missing out!!!!!  The characters are all witty, talking vegetables, that teach bible stories and other moral issues. They cover a lot of the old testament stories. I have to admit that when I first starting learning about the bible I learned it all from Veggie Tales. I would read the stories and picture Larry the Cucumber hopping around in my mind. They sing songs and tell the stories in ways that the kids can understand. There is also just the right amount of adult intelligent humor that is NEVER inappropriate like other children's shows. Kids love it! Parents love it! We are all learning and becoming better Christians. What is not to love? So you are probably wondering, "What channel does Veggie Tales come on?" The sad answer is it doesn't. NBC was airing it on Saturday morning cartoons for a short period but it was canceled. I buy them from Family Christian for $5 or check them out for free at the library.