Teaching Reverence from Birth: “Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me”
by Claudia Goodman
Have you ever watched a child break loose during sacrament meeting and race across the stand? He chuckles gleefully, somehow sensing that he has triumphed over the panting, red-faced parent who is hot on his trail. Do you recall a sacrament meeting that was so noisy you couldn’t hear the speakers? Is it difficult for you to focus on the sacrament because there are so many unruly children distracting you?
While it’s true that some children are simply easier to manage than others, it is also true that some families seem to have a better success ratio in getting their children to sit quietly during sacrament meeting. Is there a magic formula to teach children reverence? Probably not, but there are several things that help significantly-although we hasten to add that none of them works all the time. However, nearly all parents can find success by faithfully applying the key ingredient: consistent effort over time. In addition, the following techniques have proved very helpful to us and also to many other families.
#1. Make It More Pleasant to Be in Church than out of Church.
I was a young mother trying to figure out how to keep a very active child quiet through sacrament meeting. Thirteen-month-old Shawn didn’t sit still for a minute, and I was on the stake relief society board, struggling to visit a different ward each Sunday. In reality, I either listened to the meeting standing at the back of the hall or from the foyer. I had already tried all the tricks I knew-Cheerios, crackers, favorite toys, new surprises, quiet books, lap games, etc. But nothing ever worked, and the situation was getting worse and worse. Besides, now he had it all figured out. If he cried hard enough, he would get to go out to the foyer where there was a lot more room to run and play-and even make noise.
This particular Sunday as I struggled to hold onto him and quiet his cries enough to remain at the back of the chapel, a new idea lit up my mind. Of course! It was all so simple and clear! How could I have missed the clues? Right now being out of church was a lot more appealing than being in church. All I had to do was reverse the situation so that being in church was a lot more fun than being out of church.
I carried my screaming child past the foyer where he longed to play, and headed down the hallway. After several tries, I finally found an empty classroom. I wasn’t sure if a thirteen-month-old child who only knew how to say “Da-Da” and “Ma-Ma” could understand me, but I decided it was worth a try. I turned out the light (there was a window, so it wasn’t really dark) and stacked all the chairs in a corner. There was absolutely nothing to do in the whole room-no chalk for the chalkboard, no waste basket to dump, etc. I made sure anything interesting was out of reach.
I got Shawn’s attention and spoke cheerfully, “Shawn, it’s sacrament meeting right now. Heavenly Father has asked us to be in church, and I really want to hear the speaker. If you would like to come with me, you can sit on the bench by me, or I will hold you on my lap and love you. You can even look at a book quietly if you like. We can enjoy the meeting together. If you don’t want to come, you can stay here, but I’m going back to the meeting, because I don’t want to miss it. Would you like to come with me?”
Of course Shawn didn’t want to come, so very pleasantly I set him down in the middle of the floor, smiled at him, closed the door and left. Actually I didn’t go very far. I stayed and held onto the door handle from the outside where he couldn’t see me, because I knew he would try to open it and run out. But for all he knew, I was back in sacrament meeting and he was stuck there. He cried hard for a little while, struggled in vain to open the door, and then cried some more.
The moment he stopped crying, I casually walked back into the room. “Would you like to go back to sacrament meeting with me?” I asked him. He didn’t say anything, so I picked him up and headed back toward the meeting. After ten steps, he started to cry, so I took him back to the room and said respectfully, “Oh, I guess you’d rather stay in this room. I’ll see you later. I’m going back to church.” I left him and waited outside the door until he settled down again.
By the third try, church was starting to look pretty appealing. Being all alone in an empty room wasn’t much fun. He quieted down, and we walked back into the chapel and found our seats. He was quiet for the rest of the meeting (since it was almost over by then)!
The next week Shawn did pretty well for a while, but finally his energy got the better of him, and he made enough noise to be taken out. I repeated the process from the week before. This time it only took twice, but soon after we returned to the chapel, he began whining-not loud enough to be taken out, but enough to annoy me and those immediately around us. I gently reminded him that he needed to be quiet, but the whining didn’t stop. Finally I took him back to the room. I realized that it was critical for me to stick to the standards I expected and not let him see how far he could push me. Pretty soon there would be nothing left, and we would be back to ground zero.
On the third week, I only had to take Shawn out once, and as soon as I walked out of the empty classroom, he was quiet. He had already had enough. Now the pattern was set, and from then on he sat through all of sacrament meeting quietly, with only minor reinforcement on rare occasions. It was a blessing for me to be able to listen to the speakers without bobbing in and out of the meeting like a cork on a sea of emotion. And it was a blessing for Shawn, because he didn’t have to retest to find the limits again and again. He knew exactly where they were. As more children joined our family, we used this technique on each one of them with great success. People often wondered how our children learned to sit so quietly at church or even at programs and concerts. Of all the techniques we ever tried, this one has consistently worked the best for us.
#2. Eliminate food and toys.
Of all our twelve children, I never had one that would sit quietly in an infant seat and look around. Each one had to constantly be doing something or be on the move. Hence, with our first child I very quickly began packing as if for a vacation just to get through sacrament meeting. I raked my brain trying to find things to amuse him-little containers of finger foods, all his favorite toys (since one thing only kept his attention for a minute or two), new objects, books, homemade quiet books, and so on. I was so burdened down with things to take to church that I could hardly carry my child!
Then I watched as one toy after another systematically landed on the floor and Shawn screamed. I was left with a huge clutter to clean up, while my antics to amuse Shawn were probably a lot more entertaining to the people around me than to him. Besides, nothing was ever good enough. The only thing he was interested in was seeing what else I had in my suitcase-sized diaper bag.
In desperation one Sunday I decided that since Shawn wasn’t happy with anything I brought to amuse him, I wouldn’t bring anything. To my amazement, he was much better behaved than ever before! Because there wasn’t anything else to do, he started focusing more on the meeting or on just amusing himself.
After trying several modifications with several children at different ages, here is our recommendation: Don’t take any toys or food to sacrament meeting. Your children may get bored when they are young, but they get even more bored with the same old toys or books. Even letting older children draw in church seems to prevent them from learning why they are really there and distracts them from the spirit of the meeting. Soon they are whispering and playing games or arguing over paper and pencils with each other.
We only found two exceptions: (1) A child from about six to eighteen months really can’t understand what is going on and needs something to do. At that point I would usually take two or three small toys that I could carry in one hand and maybe one little book-to be used for that child only. The other children were not allowed to play with them. After about eighteen months, the child no longer really needed the toys. (2) If a baby truly needed to eat during sacrament meeting time, I would take him out to feed him. There was no eating in the chapel, and the period of time a baby can’t wait till the end of the meeting is not more than a few months at most. Eliminating the food and toys truly helps the whole family to focus more on the spirit of the meeting.
#3. Set limits and stick to them.
Children function so much better when they know what is expected of them and where the boundaries are. If they don’t know, they will try you until they find them. And if you don’t know yourself, neither will they, so it’s a constant guessing game.
One thing we discovered is that if you sit near the front of the chapel, children do much better. They can see what is going on, and it is quieter, which helps them to be more reverent. It also gives your whole family the mindset that you actually can handle yourselves near the front. You don’t have to hang out on the back row so that your children can misbehave it they want to. However, the very front row is an open invitation to do summersaults-or run! After one try, we always avoided it.
Our little baby Shawn is now a father with three children of his own. He and Amy never allow their children to get off the bench, which keeps them sitting quietly and not chasing back and forth between parents, etc. This rule has worked very well for them. Our second daughter Melissa and her husband Slate find that because their children are very active, it is more effective for them to allow their children to walk between mother and father, but no further. The aisles are absolutely out. The main thing is to set your own limits and then stick to them-religiously. If you don’t, you’ll be resetting them again and again.
#4. Practice at Home.
Reverence, like most things in life, has to be learned. Children love to pretend, so for family home evening, or even for playtime, let them role play how to walk into the chapel, how to sit quietly, how to act during the sacrament, etc. Be sure to praise them for their efforts and give them a good reputation to live up to. It’s amazing how fast children learn.
A member of Melissa’s stake presidency, Pres. Kim Jensen, said they picked a reverence child for each family home evening. That child got to sit on the piano bench until he moved, and no one else in the family could move until he did. Sometimes the children could only sit still for a minute or two, but gradually the time increased to several minutes. The most important thing was that they were learning the concept of reverence. At the end they all got a treat for sitting still. What a great idea for reinforcing reverence! As you work with your children, you’ll come with additional activities that work for you.
#5. Set the example.
As in every other aspect of rearing children, the most powerful teaching tool of all is example. If your children are noisy, take a look at your own behavior. Try to arrive a few minutes early to sacrament meeting. I finally figured out that I had to plan to leave at least a half hour earlier than we really needed to in order to get there on time. I still don’t know why it took a half hour to get everyone in the car, but somehow it did! If you arrive early, you are not rushed and uptight. Make the extra effort to visit with friends outside the chapel so that you can sit quietly and listen to the prelude music before the meeting begins.
One of the most important ways you can worship during sacrament meeting is to sing the hymns. Get out the hymnbook and encourage your children to join you. You don’t have to be able to sing well to worship-just sing!
Lowering your voice to a whisper will usually invite a child to do likewise. Sometimes whispering brief explanations to a child can also be very effective, such as, “Sister Brown is talking about prayer. She is Nathan’s mother.” Or “It’s time for the sacrament. Let’s fold our arms.” Quiet comments can help a child figure out what is going on in sacrament meeting and teach him to enjoy it and stay focused.
#6. Make the Sacrament a Sacred Time of Worship.
As a young child I was taught that during the sacrament we should be reverent and think of Jesus. That sounded like a good idea to me. So I looked around at everyone in the congregation to find out how to do it. What did I see? Mothers scowling at their disruptive children. Babies crying. Fathers playing with children or dozing. Children amusing themselves with toys, drawing pictures, giggling or arguing with each other. Teenagers laughing together. People looking around at others to notice the latest hairstyles and clothing. The bishop busy writing notes on a paper. But no one visibly thinking about the Savior.
“Oh, well,” I concluded in my young mind, “I’m sure it’s important to think about Jesus during the sacrament, but it’s just too hard. No one can really do it.” I was always quiet during the sacrament, but I never really thought I could ponder about Jesus the whole time.
It wasn’t until I attended a BYU singles ward with no babies, that I found the Savior during the sacrament. With no outside distractions and total silence I was free to focus on Him, and on several occasions the tears flowed freely. I learned to truly feast on His love during the sacrament service.
There are some simple ways we can help our children feel the sacredness of the sacrament. First, we can take time to meditate ourselves. I find it helpful to close my eyes to shut out distractions. Next, defer all questions until after the sacrament. If a child whispers something to you, whisper back, “I’ll tell you (or help you) right after the sacrament,” and take your focus off the child and back to meditating by closing your eyes or looking away. Even using the bathroom can usually wait a few extra minutes. Finally, make sure all playthings are put away. As you treat the sacrament with the reverence it deserves, your children will see how important it is to you and eventually try to follow your example.
#7. Don’t Expect Perfection.
Even after you get your children into good patterns, life has a way of throwing curve balls. When I was the nursery leader, I had a child who was very disruptive, always hitting and shoving and taking toys away from the other children. It took me several weeks and countless time out periods to teach him how to behave, but once he learned, he was one of the best children in the nursery. All went well for a year and a half. Then one Sunday for no apparent reason, he began his aggressive behavior all over again. After several warnings, I took him out and headed down the hall. “Do you know where we are going?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Time out,” he said with his eyes lowered.
I found an empty classroom and was about to lecture him on how to behave in the nursery and leave him to think about it, when suddenly I had the impulse to sit and hold him on my lap. I hugged him tight for a few minutes without saying anything. Finally he looked up at me and said, “I miss my mommy.” Big tears started down his cheeks. Further questioning revealed that his parents were away on a trip, and even though he was staying with a wonderful family, things just weren’t the same for him.
Sometimes we underestimate how very difficult change is for young children. Something as simple as an earache, relatives visiting, staying up a little late the night before, or a birthday party can throw their entire world for a loop.
There have been Sundays (not too many, but a few) when one of my children was sick, tired, hungry, or just out of sorts. It was not a day to require the usual behavior, so I simply took him out in the foyer and let him get down and play quietly. Requiring him to sit reverently all the way through church was not realistic that day. It’s okay for all of us to take breaks occasionally. Even parents need them sometimes. Then we can go back to the training refreshed and eager to try again. And with each attempt, we stretch a little further, and the child does a little better. Eventually we all get there.
#8. Finally, Never Underestimate the Sensitivity of a Child
We need to remember that often children are more sensitive to the spirit than we are. Reverence comes so naturally to them if we just provide the opportunities. Many years ago I was teaching the three-year-olds a lesson about planting seeds, or what foods Heavenly Father put on the earth for us, or something like that. I don’t really remember. Somehow we started talking about the Savior, and immediately a hush filled the room. I sat in awe as the children taught me more about Him than I can ever describe. “… even babes did open their mouths and utter marvelous things; and the things which they did utter were forbidden that there should not any man write them.” (3 Nephi 26:16) Every time I read that scripture, I think of the time when I learned with my heart so much from those precious little ones.
“Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me… “
Even if children cannot always understand our explanations of how to be reverent, they surely feel His presence, even more readily than we do. The Savior said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 19:14) Inviting our children to partake of the Lord’s spirit at sacrament meeting is a wonderful place to start. Perhaps we merely need to reawaken the love they already have for Him, tucked away carefully inside. And someday, as our reverence for the Lord and for His house increases, we, too, will rejoice in His presence-hand in hand with our little ones.
2002 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
