The Rise and Fall of the Quiet Bag
*what I am about to post may be controversial. That's not my intention; for this post I am not intending to pass judgment on any other person's methods. I am simply stating what has and has not worked for us. Please take this as such, and please don't bash me in the comments section. Thank you! :)*
Ah, Sunday church training. The transition every church kid must master; too big for the nursery, yet not quite able to sit through an entire service at church. Noah has been at this (I was going to insert "delightful", but realized I'd be lying) stage for a few months with varying degrees of success.
We began training him with a Quiet Bag, which is just that; a Bag full of stuff to keep a kid Quiet. Bible story books, an Etch-a-Sketch, a coloring book, an activity book, a bag of crayons. He was then required to be still and quiet during the church service so as not to be a distraction to others.
Only it didn't work.
I'm sure other children would do well with this system, but Noah has not shown ANY improvement over the last 5 months and has, in fact, gotten worse. Mine is a child who cannot sit still to save his life, and who simply must talk. He lives to talk. I have often commented that if Noah is awake, he's talking. And moving.
And so a typical evening church service, equipped with a Quiet Bag, would go something like this:
Rifling through the bag to determine what he wanted first.
Opening an activity book.
Whispering as loud as he can, "Mommy! What does this page say?"
"Look, Mommy! I colored that train in and I stayed in the lines!"
Deciding he wants something else, shoves the activity book into my lap like a hot potato, whispering "HERE!" (see this post) and slips down off his chair, which scoots across the floor a few inches, making a loud noise.
Rifles through said Quiet Bag some more (which I am now beginning to doubt the name of).
Pulls out Etch-A-Sketch.
Begins to spin knobs, then 3 seconds later wants to erase it, and so shakes the thing as hard as he can, hitting me with it in the process. That will leave a bruise.
Deposits Etch-A-Sketch into my lap, and whispers even louder than before, "Are we almost done?"
Now, I have not begun to address in this summary any disciplinary problems, which are myriad. The whispering after being told not to. The pulling away when I try to tap his arm to get his attention. The fussing when we have had to take something away. The marching out-of-doors to handle any of the above.
And now I ask you, after sitting through a church service like that, tell me, what did the pastor speak about?
Take your time.
Ummm, yeah. Exactly. I don't know either.
And that's very, very sad. Because let's say through some miracle that the poor people seated around us managed to listen to the message (I'm so sorry, folks!); at the very least, Josh, myself, and Noah came away with Absolutely Nothing except a boatload of frustration.
And that needs to change.
We have known for a few weeks that what we were doing was Not Working. Josh pointed out to me that in the current setup, I have become for Noah a t.v. of sorts. "Oh, you don't want Distraction #1? Well, then, that's easy; change the channel and see what's behind Distraction #2!" He pointed out (and I had already observed) that over the past few months, the Quiet Bag has expanded as I've realized the need to add more distractions to it. It was spiraling out of control.
We enjoyed very much a short visit from a longtime family friend on Wednesday night. She had the privilege (curse?) of sitting right in front of Noah during the service, and she observed (heard? felt?) our problem. I told her afterwards what we were doing, and asked her advice, and she said she never embraced the Quiet Bag idea for all of the above reasons. It doesn't (in my opinion) teach the skill of sitting patiently and attentively through church. It has taught Noah that he can be quiet as long as he's sufficiently distracted. No distractions, or not exciting enough distractions, no quiet. Among other things.
And so we embark on a new plan:
The past two mornings, Noah and I have had "church practice." I set up 2 chairs in our office. He is allowed to hold a Bible (pictureless) and a small notebook with a pencil, just like Mommy and Daddy. We have turned on one of Pastor's sermons (ironically the ones I have missed due to the above issues or nursery duty) and sat, listening. Yesterday I set the timer for 10 minutes, today we did 15. There is no talking about anything. There is no getting out of our seats for any reason. We just sit and listen.
Surprisingly, Noah has caught on to this, as if it suddenly makes sense. I have given him the background reasons for why we are doing this (which are too lengthy to post right now; I feel like I've already written a book!) and he gets it. I'm hoping to increase the amount of time by 5 minutes per day, unless we hit a period of time which is particularly difficult, and in that case we will stay at that level until he can handle it. So far, at home, he's done phenomenal! Now, I'm very curious to see how this will translate when we do this For Real in an actual church service. For now, though, we're practicing at home where there is less at stake. For all I know, we'll endure massive failure at this too, but I sure hope not. For Noah, I think this is the ticket...
I'll let you know how it goes!! :)
Ah, Sunday church training. The transition every church kid must master; too big for the nursery, yet not quite able to sit through an entire service at church. Noah has been at this (I was going to insert "delightful", but realized I'd be lying) stage for a few months with varying degrees of success.
We began training him with a Quiet Bag, which is just that; a Bag full of stuff to keep a kid Quiet. Bible story books, an Etch-a-Sketch, a coloring book, an activity book, a bag of crayons. He was then required to be still and quiet during the church service so as not to be a distraction to others.
Only it didn't work.
I'm sure other children would do well with this system, but Noah has not shown ANY improvement over the last 5 months and has, in fact, gotten worse. Mine is a child who cannot sit still to save his life, and who simply must talk. He lives to talk. I have often commented that if Noah is awake, he's talking. And moving.
And so a typical evening church service, equipped with a Quiet Bag, would go something like this:
Rifling through the bag to determine what he wanted first.
Opening an activity book.
Whispering as loud as he can, "Mommy! What does this page say?"
"Look, Mommy! I colored that train in and I stayed in the lines!"
Deciding he wants something else, shoves the activity book into my lap like a hot potato, whispering "HERE!" (see this post) and slips down off his chair, which scoots across the floor a few inches, making a loud noise.
Rifles through said Quiet Bag some more (which I am now beginning to doubt the name of).
Pulls out Etch-A-Sketch.
Begins to spin knobs, then 3 seconds later wants to erase it, and so shakes the thing as hard as he can, hitting me with it in the process. That will leave a bruise.
Deposits Etch-A-Sketch into my lap, and whispers even louder than before, "Are we almost done?"
Now, I have not begun to address in this summary any disciplinary problems, which are myriad. The whispering after being told not to. The pulling away when I try to tap his arm to get his attention. The fussing when we have had to take something away. The marching out-of-doors to handle any of the above.
And now I ask you, after sitting through a church service like that, tell me, what did the pastor speak about?
Take your time.
Ummm, yeah. Exactly. I don't know either.
And that's very, very sad. Because let's say through some miracle that the poor people seated around us managed to listen to the message (I'm so sorry, folks!); at the very least, Josh, myself, and Noah came away with Absolutely Nothing except a boatload of frustration.
And that needs to change.
We have known for a few weeks that what we were doing was Not Working. Josh pointed out to me that in the current setup, I have become for Noah a t.v. of sorts. "Oh, you don't want Distraction #1? Well, then, that's easy; change the channel and see what's behind Distraction #2!" He pointed out (and I had already observed) that over the past few months, the Quiet Bag has expanded as I've realized the need to add more distractions to it. It was spiraling out of control.
We enjoyed very much a short visit from a longtime family friend on Wednesday night. She had the privilege (curse?) of sitting right in front of Noah during the service, and she observed (heard? felt?) our problem. I told her afterwards what we were doing, and asked her advice, and she said she never embraced the Quiet Bag idea for all of the above reasons. It doesn't (in my opinion) teach the skill of sitting patiently and attentively through church. It has taught Noah that he can be quiet as long as he's sufficiently distracted. No distractions, or not exciting enough distractions, no quiet. Among other things.
And so we embark on a new plan:
The past two mornings, Noah and I have had "church practice." I set up 2 chairs in our office. He is allowed to hold a Bible (pictureless) and a small notebook with a pencil, just like Mommy and Daddy. We have turned on one of Pastor's sermons (ironically the ones I have missed due to the above issues or nursery duty) and sat, listening. Yesterday I set the timer for 10 minutes, today we did 15. There is no talking about anything. There is no getting out of our seats for any reason. We just sit and listen.
Surprisingly, Noah has caught on to this, as if it suddenly makes sense. I have given him the background reasons for why we are doing this (which are too lengthy to post right now; I feel like I've already written a book!) and he gets it. I'm hoping to increase the amount of time by 5 minutes per day, unless we hit a period of time which is particularly difficult, and in that case we will stay at that level until he can handle it. So far, at home, he's done phenomenal! Now, I'm very curious to see how this will translate when we do this For Real in an actual church service. For now, though, we're practicing at home where there is less at stake. For all I know, we'll endure massive failure at this too, but I sure hope not. For Noah, I think this is the ticket...
I'll let you know how it goes!! :)
Comments
I have often wondered about the "quiet bag" concept. It seems to encourage a child to "tune-out" of a service instead of taking an active interest. Your analogy of such distractions to a TV is spot-on.
I believe young children can absorb more than we often give them credit for. I remember certain ideas or statements from the pastor's message having a profound impact on my thinking as even a 4 and 5 year old child. Training children to attend to adults is cultivating "good ground" (Matt. 13:23). I love how you are "practicing church" everyday... what a GREAT idea!