Listen – kids are people too

February 10, 2014 at 1:21 pm (Attitudes, Parenting)
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One of the blessings of having a good memory is remembering what it was like to be a kid. I had a great childhood, really – full of love, fun, and Little House on the Prairie with my bestie.

But I also remember some of the frustrations. Most clearly, I remember being frustrated when adults assumed they knew what I had done/was going to say/felt.  I can’t remember any specific instances, but I do remember the feeling of not being heard.  And as I grew up I was determined that my own children should not have this same frustration.

As a mom now, I find this is easier said than done. It is so easy to assume I know what’s going on in my children’s minds; to assume that I know the whole story behind a disagreement between siblings; to assume I know how it feels and the reason why my child is crying when I say ‘no’ to something. But the truth is, I don’t know everything. And so, I make an effort to listen to my children’s explanations and points of view, and I try hard to avoid making assumptions. I don’t do this perfectly, sadly. But I have a story which illustrates so clearly why I am glad I try, and how blessings abound when I succeed.

A couple of years ago Prince and Princess where playing in the lounge. Prince had left some of his toys unused on the table. After a while Princess, sitting on the floor in the middle of a game, needed an extra character, and seeing the unused toys on the table and asked,

“Prince – can I have your penguin?”

Prince look at her uneasily. I pricked up my ears to listen in, wondering if he would take this opportunity to be generous (something he had been struggling with a lot recently).

“Well…” he said, “That’s a very special toy to me. Couldn’t you have one of these instead?” Prince offered her two or three other toys.

I was disappointed. I felt angry, even. He just couldn’t seem to shake this selfishness – he wasn’t even using the toy! But instead of demanding he give her the toy and lecturing him on being kind (which is what I felt like doing), I stopped and thought about how to act. I then asked him a question.

“Prince – why don’t you want Princess to have the penguin? You’re not using it.” I said this simply, not accusationally. I genuinely wanted to know why he wasn’t giving her the penguin. What was stopping him?

Prince looked up at me, slightly teary-eyed. “Well – it’s very special to me. It’s one of my first big-eyed-toys! But…” He hesitated, as if needing my help, “does she want to have it forever?”

Prince and his penguin in their early days.

Prince and his ‘big-eyed’ penguin in their early days.

Suddenly it dawned on me. My prince – my precious, darling, oh-so-literal Prince – heard his sister ask to ‘have’ the toy, and assumed she meant ‘have to keep forever as her own’.

“No, darling,” I explained, “She just wants to use it for this game!”

Prince looked relieved. “Oh!  Okay!” He passed her the penguin immediately.

I was convicted of my anger. Here I was assuming Prince was being selfish, when in actual fact he was being extremely generous. Remember – he chose some of his other own toys to give his sister ‘forever’, as he understood it. I’m so grateful that I chose to ask him to explain his own perspective on the situation. It blessed me, as I saw his generous heart; and it blessed him, as he was not unfairly accused of selfishness.

I think back on this situation often, and use it to remember that kids are people too. They deserve the respect of being listened to and heard. Their understanding, opinions and explanations are not always what we think they will be.

Let’s stop assuming we know it all, and take time to really listen to our children.

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The window to your heart

July 8, 2013 at 4:26 pm (Attitudes, Parenting, Priorities)
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“And consider ships: Though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how large a forest a small fire ignites. And the tongue is a fire.”
James 3:4-6

Words. Many lessons have been written on the power of words. The tongue has been called the strongest muscle in the body, and the Bible speaks of its power in the book of James, likening it to a rudder which can steer the whole course of a ship, or a fire which can cause devastation.

wordsAs a homeschooling Mama my kids hear a lot of my words! We talk about everything from history, to meals, to Lego, to toilet habits… I’ll stop there 😉  Being with my kids more than your average UK parent has made me think carefully about how I speak to them. I have noticed that it is easy to slip into the ‘I’m busy but I’ll nod and say “uh-huh” even though I have no idea what you said’ mode of conversation.  There are plenty of comic strips and Facebook images which joke about this. It seems to be a universal Mom thing. But it’s not funny. Now I know that you and I are busy people. But what do our conversations tell our children about our hearts… and their value?

When we speak to our children, we are showing them a little of our heart. Our words are a window. Not just our words, in fact, but our tone of voice, eye-contact, expression, and all those other non-verbal communication attributes. If I am staring at my computer and say the glazed “uh-huh” when Prince comes to tell me about how the latest GUP is the coolest thing, what are my words and actions telling him?Here’s a list off the top of my head:

  • I am selfish
  • I value other interests above him
  • I have no self-control
  • His effort is unimportant
  • He is not interesting to me
  • He is not high on my priority list
  • Computers are a god
  • It’s okay to ignore people

These are pretty shocking messages. Even more scary is the fact that even if I was doing something REALLY important, he is still getting these messages. As I see it, if I don’t want him to get these messages I have two options: 1) Put him first whenever possible: Stop, look at him, smile, appreciate, ask more questions (rather than hoping he hurries up and finishes talking), hug him, praise him. OR 2) if what I am doing is pressing and important: Stop, look at him, explain “I’d love to hear what you’re saying, but I’m just in the middle of something urgent. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, and you can tell me all about it, OK?” Now he knows that he is valued highly, but sometimes other issues need to take priority for a time. (Side note: we should balance this advice with make sure our children learn the importance of not interrupting, that they are not the only thing in the world which matters, etc. But in my experience this is a far less common problem, and what most of us really need to work on is giving the message of love and value.)

The busy mom syndrome is just one example of the way we talk to our children, but here are some other messages that our words & non-verbal signals may be telling our children:

  • I don’t like you
  • I’m impatient
  • I value obedience more than a right heart
  • I am inconsistent
  • You are stupid
  • You are insignificant
  • You should be perfect
  • My desires are more important that yours
  • You don’t deserve love
  • Anger can be expressed without love
  • What you do is not important
  • It’s okay to be rude
  • Self should be valued above others
I want to be my kids' best friend!

I want to be my kids’ best friend!

Again, a shocking list. And again, it’s even more scary when you stop to think that it’s not just the ‘bad’ parents out there giving these kind of messages. It’s us. We need to stop and take a good look at what we say and how we say it when we talk to anyone – but especially our children. We must not assume “they know that I love them”, but rather SHOW this in the way we talk. We must let our kids know that we respect, like, love, and appreciate them. How many kids would choose to be friends with someone who preferred the company of Facebook over them, who lost their temper with them on a daily basis, who expected them to be perfect and never thanked them for a job well done? I sure want to be my children’s best friend. And one step to this I believe is learning to speak to them in love all day long, as a friend, mentor and mother.

Our words are a window into our hearts that our children look through each day. Sometimes this window may not reflect accurately what is inside, but it is still what our children see. And sometimes this window is more accurate than we like to admit.

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Guest Post: Avoiding Frustration

June 10, 2013 at 2:36 pm (Attitudes, Guest Post, Parenting, Teaching)
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Heading Things Off At The Pass
Or…
Ways to help avoid frustration in our children

  1. Pray for your children to have peace, contentment, flexibility, generosity & calm.  That’s a big ask but God is a big God… and it is important for us to do the asking on our children’s behalf.
  2. Emphasise foundational concepts regularly.
  3. Help your children learn perspective by pointing out regularly what is (and isn’t) of first (i.e. eternal) importance.
  4. Set clear, realistic expectations AND make sure they have been heard & understood.  My personal favourite – calling gaily from the kitchen whilst making supper (with the extractor fan on) into the lounge (where someone is playing the piano) that supper is nearly ready and someone must please set the table – is NOT what we are looking for!

    Conquer the entangling web of frustration!

    Conquer the entangling web of frustration!

  5. Give a warning before you want your children to change what they are doing.  E.g. when they are about to need to tidy up/go out/come for a meal/come inside/stop playing. My children are more often happier with having to stop playing if they can finish a ‘last chapter’ of their game; it lets them get to a suitable stopping point, which is more satisfying than stopping in the middle of an exciting bit.
  6. Early Intervention Plan.  Distract your child from potential/early frustration & come up with alternative courses of action.
    – E.g. If a child is looking lost for something to do/someone to play with, offer them a menu of options to choose from including, if at all possible, some things with you.
    – E.g. If a sibling has done something a child did not want/like, suggest ways the child can be gracious to their sibling – and make that sound like an appealing thing to do so they can be just like Jesus – then offer the aforementioned menu of options for things to do (possibly including doing something nice for the sibling)
  7. Ask YOUR CHILDREN to tell YOU what the right thing to do/say is.  This is a ‘double scoop ice-cream’ type approach:
    – Scoop one: you can avoid them getting frustrated with being corrected/told what to do.  This is especially helpful if a) you are a long-winded communicator, like me and/or b) they are a child that needs frequent guidance…some children do.
    – Scoop two: you are training them in the discipline of making right choices themselves. Obviously, if they are floundering, help them out – otherwise you start off a new cause for frustration, which is not quite the idea!!
  8. Ask questions, rather than jumping to conclusions.  If you think the situation they are in might be likely to trigger frustration in your child or if you spot their warning signs, asking discreet questions might either dispel your concerns or activate your early intervention plan, rather than you having to help them recover from a meltdown later.
  9. Patiently explain misunderstandings.  Often, when you are in the habit of asking questions, you will discover that there is a lack of understanding in your child. Explain things patiently and calmly, without laughing at the child or putting them down (which is more easily done than you would think – especially if they express themselves in a super-cute way – and can lead to insecurity in some children).

Isn’t it wonderful how when you write these things down they sound so easy and straightforward!  Since drafting this I have been busy trying to remember to put these ideas into practice myself…today was a better day because of it…

What are your ideas on how to head things off at the pass to help your children avoid frustration?

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Ten ways to pray with your children

August 28, 2012 at 10:47 am (Christian life, Prayer, Ten things)
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Having an active prayer life, and inspiring one in my children, is something I desire as a mother. I need daily help to teach my children the ways of the Lord, and I want them to know that they do not have to rely their own strength – God wants to help them. I like to keep prayer times fresh, natural and organic.  We use a combination of routines and unique ideas in our prayer life. Here are ten ideas for ways and times to include prayer in each day, with and for our children:

  1. Pray before meals.  This a traditional time to pray, and it provides a regular reminder for us to thank God for His blessings.
  2. Have a ‘circle’ prayer.  Named the ‘circle’ prayer at our house, this is simply a way to pray where one person opens the prayer and each then takes a turn saying what they are thankful for, or what they are requesting of God. It goes around a few times and then someone closes it.
  3. Pray before bed.  Another traditional prayer time, which I think is very helpful in creating a peaceful, loving, positive routine. In our family we each have a turn to pray (or sometime do the circle prayer), and my husband and I try to include prayer for the spiritual growth of our children at this time, as well as requests for peaceful sleep and sweet dreams.
  4. Pray when a need becomes known.  Sometimes we get a call or message with an urgent request for prayer. At these times it is good stop what we are doing, call the family together and pray.
  5. Learn the Lord’s prayer.  While this is not something we have done (yet), Jesus provided us a sample prayer which we would to well to acquaint our children with.
  6. Pray when they are scared.  Whether it is bad dreams in the middle of the night, or stage-fright before performing to an audience, we should pray with our children whenever they are scared, teaching them that God both comforts and strengthens us in times of need.
  7. Use a prayer list.  Whether you keep a list on the fridge, in the lounge or on the back of the toilet room door (as my parents did when I was growing up), keeping a list of ‘prayer fodder’ around helps us and our children to remember to pray for “all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18).
  8. Pray alone.  As I have mentioned in a previous post, spending a personal time with God praying for your children is nourishing to the soul, and I could not get by without this time to ask God for His grace, wisdom and Spirit to be poured out on me and my children as we teach and learn together.
  9. The ‘Three Things’ prayer. Quite often during our daily Bible time the kids and I do a ‘three things’ prayer. We each choose one thing to be thankful for, one thing to pray for ourselves (with a spiritual emphasis) and one thing to pray for someone else.
  10. Pray when the impulse arises.  Princess has been an inspiration to me on this last point. Quite often when we are in the middle of doing something she will pipe up and say, “We should have a prayer!”. Yesterday we were out for a walk at a local National Trust property, enjoying the beauty surrounding us and the special time together as we all walked hand in hand. During this walk she gave this sweet-voiced suggestion, and so as we walked we said a circle prayer of thanks for the lovely time we were having. I hope she never loses the desire to pray spontaneously, and that it infects all she knows with a love for talking to God.

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Dear God

July 19, 2012 at 10:16 am (Christian life, Parenting, Prayer, Priorities, Teaching)
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As each day of my motherhood journey passes, I am more and more convicted of the need for prayer, in two key ways.

1)  Fervent, deep prayer.  Daily – or at least, regularly – we need to set aside time to go into our room, close the door, and pray to our Father who is unseen. There is no way that any of us are capable enough to raise, teach and fulfill children on our own. We may have gifts, talents, commitment and love, but we are still not enough. I don’t say this to tear us down; I don’t want to submit to false humility or self-deprecation. I just want us to be honest – and the honest truth is no matter how good we are, we are not perfect. We will fail as a parent – and often! The truth is, we need to appeal to a power greater than ourselves to raise our children up in faith. We need to beg God to fill them up with His Spirit, to strengthen their souls, to draw them to Himself, to lead them in His paths, to teach them His truths and to instill in them a life-long love and passion for Him, and an unconditional love for all others.

Not only is this deep prayer an intercession to God on behalf of our children, but it is also rejuvenating and nourishing for our own souls. Spending time with God is like drinking a fantastically healthy fruit and veg smoothie – only better! It builds us up and strengthens us to resist Satan’s attempts to bring us down. Spending time in deep prayer is the best motivation I have found for helping me put into practice the ideals and ideas I have for my children.

The prayer jar, and a faithfully answered prayer 🙂

2)  Sprinkling prayers throughout the day.  It is important to include prayer throughout the day for both our own and our children’s sake. In our house, we try to pray in lots of different ways: together at our Bible snuggle time, stop what we are doing to pray if we hear of a specific need, pray at meal time, and pray at bedtime. Paul, in the book of 1 Thessalonians, says we should pray ‘continually’. I think what he means is that we should have a prayerful mindset. Prayer should be a first reaction to both good and bad situations. Thanking God and asking for His help should be second nature as we go about our daily activities.

There are also many creative ways of adding prayer into your daily life. I particularly like this idea as a way to help our children remember to pray for others. Another idea that we use is the ‘prayer jar’. Anyone can write a prayer or ‘letter’ to God, and put it into the jar. It is fun to look at them again later and see how faithfully God has answered the prayers we have prayed.

What ideas to you have to keep prayer a central part of your and your children’s lives?

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Above all else

June 8, 2012 at 2:42 pm (Christian life, Parenting)
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“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.”
Colossians 3:12-14

As I go through my journey as a mother, seeking to “write on the door posts” in the lives on my children, I find countless important life lessons I need to teach them. When they were babies my responsibility lay in showing them care and love, and providing them with a stable family life. As they grew I began to teach them how to interact with others. As they get older still I explain to them the value of sharing, the importance of humility, how to forgive and be forgiven. In any one day I might take opportunities to teach everything from how to put their shirts on the right way around, to the meaning of faith.

With so many things to teach my children, it can sometimes be easy to lose focus of what is most important. In Colossians 3 Paul lists many things that are valuable for us to strive for – tender mercies, kindness, forgiveness. But he highlights that there is one thing that has greater value than all the others: love.

Above all, we must teach our children to love.

Love, Jesus tells us, is the fulfillment of the law. Love sums up the law and prophets. Love covers over a multitude of sins. The greatest commandments are to love God with everything we have, and to love others as we love ourselves. If I could teach only one thing to my children, it would be to love God with their whole hearts, souls and minds, because all good things flow from this.

Day to day it can be difficult to keep this priority in mind. Satan, I am sure, takes every opportunity to place distractions in our way and make us see them as so pressing and important that we forget to teach the our children about love. As a homeschooling mother I feel the pressure of the world to provide a good education for my children. Education and careers are extraordinarily highly valued in our society. Whilst I agree it is valuable to be well educated and able to earn a living, it is not the epitome of success. True success lies in love; in accepting the love of God, and returning it to Him and to others.

May we all, as parents, teach our children the ultimate lesson of love – above all else.

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Courage and resolve

May 2, 2012 at 2:41 pm (Christian life, Parenting, Priorities)
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Last night I finally got to watch a movie I have been looking forward to for many months – Courageous. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it! I won’t give the story away, but the general theme is that families need fathers who are committed to being strong, courageous, spiritual leaders in their homes – a principle that I couldn’t agree with more! Although Courageous is specifically aimed at inspiring fathers to live out their best potential, I found this film encouraged me in this way as a mother, too.

Never underestimate the influence fathers have on their children.

Raising children is one of the greatest and most daunting tasks I have ever undertaken. When I stop to think about the influence I have on my children it can be scary – especially when I think about all the time I have failed as a mother. As parents we need to take our role seriously – more seriously than we take our jobs, our hobbies and our friends. Specifically, we need to take the spiritual guidance of our children with the utmost commitment and care.

It is not always easy to follow through on a commitment to being the best parent we can for our kids. There is a spiritual war, and we are in it. Satan knows that if he gets our kids, he will have a good chance of getting many more souls in the future too. There is no doubt that as a Christian parent we will face opposition and attacks in all kinds of forms. It may be obvious, such as physical persecution, but it is probably more likely we will be attacked in more subtle ways. Maybe you find your time being filled with things of lesser importance so that you forget to make regular opportunities to read the Bible with your kids. Maybe you are affected with excessive tiredness, causing you to snap too easily when you should be responding with grace. Maybe you struggle with your marriage, and the effects filter down to your children. There are endless ways you might be attacked, and that is why we need to have courage and resolve. We must take on the fight with the power of God, and determine to overcome all obstacles through ‘Him who strengthens us’ – for this sake of our children’s souls.

A Godly heritage is a blessing we strive to pass on to our children.

The line that stood out to me more than any other in the movie last night was, “I don’t want to be a ‘good-enough’ father.” When we don’t take parenting seriously, we are in danger of thinking that good-enough is good enough. But I think if we settle for good-enough, we are taking a risky road. Instead of nonchalantly accepting that ‘we will never be perfect, so we should be happy with good enough’, let us renew our courage every day and resolve to stand up and give our children the best that we’ve got. After all, God gave us our children. How can we offer Him any less than our very best efforts to raise them in His good and perfect ways?

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Of men and muscles

April 27, 2012 at 11:39 am (Parenting, Teaching)
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For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:8

Every night I watch my brother and husband work out in our lounge. This started about two weeks ago, due to their desire to flatten their tummies and grow their muscles, and they are pretty faithful to do it every evening. Sometimes they even cajole me into joining them, but I have to admit I prefer to just watch… 🙂

We live in a world where health and fitness is seen as somewhat of a god. People join gyms, buy protein shakes from health food shops and sign up to all kinds exercise classes. Children are taught about the value of regular exercise, cigarettes are legally obliged to come with huge health warnings, and mothers are given information on post-partum ways to work out as soon as possible after giving birth.

Now there is nothing wrong with being healthy – if you’ve read my previous posts you will know that I myself am concerned with helping my family to stay healthy by eating the best kinds of food we can afford. Being healthy is great – but it’s value is a limited-time offer. You see, we can be the healthiest, fittest person on earth, who never gets sick and avoids cancer, diabetes and heart attacks. But in the end, health is only valuable for this life. When you die, health and fitness won’t be an issue! Godliness, however, has eternal value.

Prince takes every opportunity to strengthen his physical muscles. Do we take every opportunity to strengthen our kids’ spiritual muscles?

As parents, we need to keep this truth in mind as we train up our kids. It’s easy to spend hours of time researching how to give your kids the best nutrition for their growing bodies. It’s easy to spend money and time enrolling them into sports and gymnastics, knowing that you are supporting their physical well-being. But more than all that we need to be seeking after ways to regularly feed them spiritually nutritional food, and find ways to encourage them to exercise godliness.

One of the reasons people seek after health is to avoid getting sick. They don’t want to go down with the flu or risk a heart attack by clogging up their arteries with grease. In the same way, we need to exercise godliness so that we can avoid falling into sin. We should be aiming for peak spiritual fitness – for ourselves and our kids. We need to give our families the best spiritual nourishment available to strengthen their souls, so that they will be able to resist the harshest of temptations.

My little boy loves to compare his muscles to Daddy’s muscles. He take joy in seeing how strong he is, and even takes it upon himself to exercise in the hopes of getting stronger as quick as possible! My hope is that I can teach him to have the same kind of passion for developing spiritual muscles, because this will last him for eternity.

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A joyful heart

April 26, 2012 at 11:32 am (Attitudes, Parenting, Teaching)
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A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22

The life of a child is like a swing – they seem to go from having the best of fun to total disaster in one quick swoop! One of the challenges as a parent is helping them learn to moderate this roller-coaster of emotions, identify what the important things of life are, and make the choice to have a positive outlook.

My prince is going through a time of particular challenge in this area at the moment. It seems as soon as something doesn’t go the way he would like he reacts as if his world has just come crashing down. I don’t say this in jest – in actual fact it is something I find hard to deal with. It is tough to balance understanding that little things are important to children, with teaching them to respond well to disappointment.

In hopes of encouraging both myself and others, here are seven ideas for dealing with the emotional downs in our children’s lives:

  • A joyful heart is GOOD!

    We love the Steve Green ‘Hide ’em in Your Heart‘ Scriptures songs. One that we often use when one of our kids is feeling down is ‘A Joyful Heart is Good Medicine’. This reminds children that being joyful can work like medicine, making us feel better.

  • Make it a habit to talk about what the most important things in life are – not just when the kids are upset, but also when they are enjoying something. Reinforcing this over and over will – hopefully! – help them learn to let the little things go and keep their minds on the big picture.
  • One of the top ten children’s movies from yesterday’s post was ‘Veggie Tales: Madame Blueberry‘. This teaches the motto that “a thankful heart is a happy heart”. We use this phrase (and accompanying song) from Madame Blueberry to help the kids remember to find things to be thankful for in every situation, and show them how this makes them happy.
  • Take time to acknowledge and understand that things can seem important to children even if they are not important to us adults. Reinforce the idea that sad emotions are okay – but that we must learn to deal with them in the best ways. By making our children feel heard and understood, we will help them to move on towards joy.
  • Something we invented is a ‘blessings walk’ – or a blessings drive, blessings lunch, or whatever else we happen to be doing at the time. When a child is tempted to be sad about something they don’t have, we take turns naming blessings in our lives and pretty soon the discontent disappears.
  • Model appropriate emotions yourself. Kids learn to imitate what the see, so as parents one of our greatest teaching tools is our own behaviour. They say actions speak louder than words, but I think what speaks loudest is actions matching up with words. When we model appropriate ways to deal with disappointment, and a heart focussed on the things that truly matter, our kids will be able to see the good fruit in our lives and be more likely to follow suit.
  • Teach the concept of choosing our emotions. Even as adults this can be tough, as we often think we are at the mercy of our feelings. Training our kids from young that we have a choice about how we feel will set them up for a more positive future.

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To TV or not to TV

April 25, 2012 at 6:09 pm (Parenting, Teaching)
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Different people have differing views on how much TV time to allow their kids – ranging from none at all to unlimited amounts. It’s one of those issues that each family has to work out for themselves. I wouldn’t like to say our decision is the only correct opinion, but – at least for now – it is what we feel is right for our children.

Two God-given blessings.

Our family have taken the approach of allowing what we consider to be a middle ground ‘reasonable’ amount of TV time. We have reached this decision because, in our experience, banning any TV altogether can result in binge watching when they do eventually get the opportunity to watch. We also feel that to allow an unlimited amount is in contradiction with the idea of moderation, and can cause kids to develop a dependency or addiction to TV to be entertained. The way our decision works out practically is that our kids usually watch anywhere between none and three programs a day.

One of the earliest decisions we made was to not have a TV licence. We feel that there is such a lot of unsuitable advertising and program choices on TV which are very difficult to avoid when TV is available in the house in this way. Rather, we stick almost exclusively to DVDs, with the occasional use of “catch-up” TV for particular programs. A bonus of this is that it also works out cheaper 🙂  (Please check the TV licencing laws in your own area if you are thinking of taking this option.)

Here are my top ten favourite programs that my kids watch:

  • Veggie Tales: Pistachio
  • Veggie Tales: Jonah
  • Veggie Tales: Madam Blueberry
  • Veggie Tales: Sweetpea Beauty
  • Veggie Tales: Little Jo
  • Veggie Tales: Gideon
  • Word World
  • Sesame Street
  • The March of the Penguins
  • Octonauts

Whatever your stance on TV for your children, make sure it is made carefully and prayerfully.

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