Yesterday I started looking over the lesson for next week, Jesus Christ is the Son of Heavenly Father. The manual suggests to start the lesson by having someone's daddy come in and talk about how much he loves his child. I'm a little worried about this idea because I think if one person's Dad comes in the others will expect theirs to come too. I'm also a little worried that when that Dad leaves, his child will fall apart.
I was trying to think of an alternate opener and thought it could be fun if I got pictures of the kids' Dads through email requests, printed them out, and hung them on the wall. I would then start the lesson by letting the kids come up to pick out their daddy and say what they like about him. I was starting to get into the idea but then I remembered that one child in my class has a single mother. Her dad isn't in her life at all.
I feel like I want this child more than anyone else to know that she has her Heavenly Father who loves her. I really don't want her to feel left out. To avoid that, I'm thinking I maybe need to skip all the earthly daddy stuff, but that would make teaching Heavenly Father's relationship to the other kids really difficult. Does anyone have ideas? Advice?
5 comments:
Maybe you could include both mothers and fathers of all the kids and go the "Heavenly Father loves us like our parents love us" route. Same idea, just a minor change.
What about a picture of Grandpa...that's a daddy person and might teach the same sort of message. This person loves and cares for you, watches over you and always wants what is best for you...
I found on my mission that teaching people about God as our father was often problematic, even for adults.
I agree that a focus on parents and/or grandparents might be better than a focus on just fathers. In many ways God is like an earthly father, but in many ways he's not like one at all (he doesn't yell at us or have fights with our mom or mess up in the way mortals do.)
I just think it's awesome that you put so much thought into the lessons you teach these kids.
I agree with Chelsea, you have some amazing, and obviously, well thought out ideas for your nursery kids.
In our primary of 25+ kids, only about 6 have both parents around, so we are constantly adjusting for this reason.
Altering the photos to include other guardians the children may have is an great idea.
You could go with the Bishop...he's the father of the ward and he also has his own children. But I think there is an entire lesson on him, so maybe you don't want to use him up now.
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