Serve and Return with Jesus

My church, Faith Lutheran in Lincoln, Nebraska, is working through a unique family event this summer. Our Pastors are presenting a sermon series on parenting intending to cultivate resilient families. In addition to the sermons, we have special activities during the Sunday school hour designed to give parents opportunities to share their faith with their family. We are also sending home devotion boxes that provide a list of things parents can choose from as they teach the faith to their children. 

Because Pastor Will produces a regular podcast, I suggested we use this technology to serve the purpose of family ministry, too. This episode, called Serve and Return is the first in this series. Please give a listen and if you like it, pass it on.

As Pastor Will mentions in the podcast, it is not our goal to push guilt on to parents by giving a list of things that they should do. Instead, we want parents to see how God’s plan for parenting. God made parents the most influential teachers in the lives of their children. He also designed the brains of children to learn in spite of mistakes because brain development does not depend on perfect parenting. A child’s brain grows through interaction with parents over the course of the day, so a poor interaction, or a missed opportunity, will be balanced out by other experiences. We could say God created a child’s brain to be forgiving.

Serve and return is the name for those small interactions you have with your child each day. You might be giving a direction, correcting a behavior, praising, laughing, or sharing God’s love. Each interaction teaches your child’s brain what is important. The best thing about serve and return is when we weave faith into those experiences. We are telling our children we love them, teaching them how to live a healthy life in this world, AND showing them how God cares for them.

When Your Child Walks Away

Serve and return is an interesting parenting concept. It is how we teach almost anything to our children. We serve information to the child, the child returns it back, and we respond again. It is a process that allows the child to process information, give the new skill a try, and get feedback.

It starts in infancy with coos and smiles that begin a child’s lessons on learning language and human interaction.

It continues through childhood as children are able to engage in conversation. They learn to negotiate, they learn to ask questions, they learn to apply new information and it all centers on that parent . . . child . . parent . . .child  back and forth interaction. We think they are not listening to us, but they are. It is just that learning happens slowly and deliberately and it needs repetition; lots of repetition.

But what about a child, a tweenager, or an adolescent who rebels? What if we have proof they did not listen? What if we have the same conversation over and over again? What if they walk away and refuse to talk? How does serve and return work here?

The beauty of serve and return is that the lessons start early and build one on top of the other. The self-regulation you taught your toddler is still tucked away in your teenager’s brain. The discernment you taught your school-age child is still a part of the confusing tweenager you see before you. Even if you don’t think they are listening, or heeding your words, you still need to keep on serving that communication and love. It does sink in. You will just not always see evidence of the wisdom you have been trying to teach.

It is much like how we are in our relationship with God. He tells us over and over, again that He loves us, that He protects us, that He has our best interests at heart. What we return is not always the trust and reverence God deserves.

Yet, God still keeps on loving us. When your child does not seem to be learning what you are trying to teach – keep on loving – keep on praying – keep on sharing your faith.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. John 10:27-30

Be Available

Technology has changed our world. It may be for the better; it may be for the worse. It is more likely a combination of both. My concern is that technology has also changed the parent/child relationship.

Even a minor change in how parents and children interact will have major, long-reaching consequences. 

CHILDREN NEED US TO BE AVAILABLE

Infants need to learn language very quickly and to do this they need many tiny interactions every day. A coo needs a response from a family member. A cry needs some form of attention. Pointing to an object requires a meeting of the minds. Babies need to have interaction many times a day in order to practice and form theories about communication.

DON’T LET A PHONE GET IN THE WAY OF THESE TINY INTERACTIONS

Older children are learning about emotions, how to understand them and how to use them. They need many interactions with parents, siblings, and peers each day so they can learn this skill little bit by little bit. Children who spend too much time in front of a screen will not develop empathy and will struggle with the kind of thinking skills they need for learning. They may also struggle with peer relationships and with anxiety.

DON’T LET A SCREEN KEEP YOUR CHILD FROM DEVELOPING STRONG SKILLS

Even adolescents need interaction with parents and peers. They are learning about themselves in a new way and learning about important values that will guide their lives and decision processes. Adolescents who spend time with a screen instead of time with family and peers are at much higher risk of depression, suicide, and thoughts of suicide.

DON’T LET A SCREEN PUT YOUR CHILD IN DANGER

• Set personal rules about "phone-in-pocket" when your children are present.

• Set family rules that limit screen time and promote family talking times (car, dinner table, times of waiting, etc.)

• And have those important conversations with your teens about putting face to face relationships before screen time. 

WHEN IN DOUBT; PUT THE SCREEN DOWN

There is always time to learn about technology. NOW is the time to be a family!

Talking with Goats

This is one of the cutest clips I have seen in a while. Watching this adorable baby and goat almost makes you think they are actually communicating. 

Almost, but, no.

I have begun using this clip in presentations when I talk about what children need in terms of relationship building and how that is impacted by technology. Children need real time with real people, anything else is like talking to a goat.

Developmental psychologist use the term "serve and return" when they talk about infant learning. A child coos at mom and gets a coo and some interaction in return. This back and forth is a primary point of learning and is essential to healthy development. Children need to talk with, complain to, argue with, and even learn to tease, parents in this dance of conversation. 

God built us to learn from each other and it all starts with interaction.

When we spend time on technology in the presence of  our children we are giving several negative messages:

1. I am busy.
2. I am unavailable to you.
3. What I am doing is more important.

Children don't  need your attention every second. They can certainly survive a necessary phone call or an adult conversation. However, children need  to know  that you are available. They need you to model healthy behavior such as "humans before technology." And, children need the frequent and incidental interaction that is significantly reduced when humans are looking at screens.

A lack of interaction can create a sense of scarcity. When we experience a scarcity of something we really need, we tend to focus on that need. If children are not interacting, everyday with their parents, in small seemingly insignificant ways, they might feel this sense of scarcity. What will they do to replace that interaction? They might turn to technology to feed that need.

But relationships with technology is like serve and return with a goat. It is interesting for a while, but it does not substitute for human -- especially family -- interaction.

By all means, show your children the blessings of technology, but when you are with your children, put the phone down. Establish some tech free times during your family day so every family member is encouraged to interact with each other. This interaction, even the smallest interaction, even the less than satisfactory interactions, and especially the interactions that you would never want to post on social media, are more important than we can imagine.


 

Parenting: Serve and Return

The church where I work is being patient with me and trying a new experiment for summer Sunday school. I have lessons in bags and families stop by, pick a bag and take it to a room to complete the activities with their children.

Each bag contains a Bible story and verse to memorize. Art activities, games, puzzles, and discussion questions give the families some choices that allow them to custom design the lesson for their children.

I sit in the entrance area for our Family Summer Sunday School and check families in and out. During that time I hear voices coming from the classrooms and what I hear warms my heart.

Curiosity abounds as bags are opened and Bible stories are read. There is laughter as activities are attempted and retried. Today one child smiled a mile wide as he told me he loved the finger traps. Another child kept at the marble paint activity until the blue and red made purple. Some families finish in 20 minutes and others have to be gently shooed out at the end of the hour. 

My favorite bits of conversation are something developmental psychologists call "serve and return." It is the interaction between parent and child. Serve and return begins in infancy when parents melt in front of their newborns to instinctively indulge in baby talk. Mom talks to baby and baby responds encouraging Mom to initiate more conversation. This continues as the child grows. A toddler asks Dad an obvious question and Dad responds serving a question of his own. To the casual observer the conversations barely seem useful, but for the child’s developing brain this type of interaction is pure gold. It allows them to test new information as they absorb information by learning patterns.

Babies are essentially born into an alien world. They know nothing, cannot speak the language, and are on a steep learning curve to get things figured out. Serve and return is a process that wires the child's brain creating and organizing important neural pathways that become the basis for all learning. Each child's brain must figure out its world and the serve and return process gives essential information allowing sense to be made of everyday happenings.

In addition to academic benefits, this process teaches language, social skills, and stress coping strategies. Furthermore, serve and return builds trust as children learn over and over again that their parent's response is dependable. The ability to trust is essential to learning as well as emotional health. There is a lot happening in this game of verbal tennis.

The best thing about the Family Summer Sunday School brand of serve and return is that it happens in the context of faith learning. Through the blessing and power of the Spirit, these parents are building the brains of their children with the bricks and mortar of faith.That faith will be a part of all future learning. 

That's pretty powerful stuff.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you  also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. 

Ephesians 2: 19-22, ESV