children
Ukraine’s sleepless children
A failed high school science experiment increased my empathy for those who can’t sleep.
Parenting on a planet in pain
How do I teach my children to care for an ailing world?
Talking to white kids about what whiteness means
Three children’s books to help start the conversation
The best judges of my theology are the littlest ones
The questions that plunge me into a cloud of unknowing most often come from my Sunday school students.
Children’s books for tough conversations
We asked 11 writers to tell us about a book that opens up space for adults and children to discuss important questions.
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Teaching children about racism
Anyone who cries “it’s not fair!” is old enough to learn about racial inequality.
A teenage killer’s brain
You can never fully know your child’s interior life. You cannot know the measure of sadness or rage that may be unfolding within them.
Children at the grave: Making space for grief
For career day at my daughter's school, I brought pictures of some of the things pastors do. The students were mostly interested in the funerals.
The Hungry Mind, by Susan Engel
Wonder is an essential disposition for Christian discipleship. According to Susan Engel, children learn to wonder by asking questions and receiving answers.
reviewed by Karen-Marie Yust
Let the children serve
On a shelf in our church library you can find a “Reading Guide” made by a fourth grader. It lists the types of books appropriate for different age groups and advises: “Remember--Kids (8-12) when you start the Bible, go at your own pace. It's a long book!”
On Laurel Street
A hundred times I warned my kids about that stretch of road. A dozen times I inquired about streetlights, or reflectors, or anything in that tunnel.
by Brian Doyle
Stories of my childhood
All I remember from The Magic Stones is the image of a young man, some stones and blocks, and an experiment revealing the most perfect shape.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was the book of my youth. I didn’t grow up poor in Depression-era Alabama, but I identified with Scout as I read it several times in my teens. My childhood was a middle-class family in the integrated Bronx, but Scout and I shared a house full of books and a lawyer-father blessed with a firm, centering integrity. Later, studying journalism at NYU in the 1980s, I heard that if you wanted to learn what good writing was, read Mockingbird every year.
Pastoring, parenting, and privacy
I recently read The Circle, Dave Egger’s dystopian novel about a benevolent Internet company that eerily creeps into every aspect of our lives, taking it over, one smiley emoticon at a time. Think about it like this: a company encompasses Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and then it begins to partner with the government.
Companion to strangers: Building bonds in sorrow and love
After the funeral, I was ready to help the boy's family find a church home closer to where they lived. Instead, they stayed with us.
Adoption is not a "second-best option"
National Organization for Marriage board chair John C. Eastman recently called adoption a “second-best option” for children. He was speaking to the Associated Press about Chief Justice John Robert’s position on the rights of same-sex couples: “Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts’ family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option.”
The comment reveals less about adoptive families than about Eastman’s willingness to jettison religious tradition for political gain.
Whose children?
Today’s Gospel lesson, though not a traditional baptismal text, embodies the spirit of the sacrament: the ones bringing the children to Jesus are not necessarily parents; they are “people” moved to care for these little ones. This choice of language leads us to ask, if the adults bringing the children to Jesus are not their parents, then who are they? Why do these men and women stand up to the disciples for the sake of children that are not biologically theirs?