I saw a typo and wanted to let you know.
It should be "to be with my husband and me" (to be with my husband; to be with me)
Too many years as a teacher!
Roxanne
Whoops. Thank you Roxanne. 
I am curious about the Dewey method. I LOVE classical education because it just always made sense to me, but I didn't know about this Dewey system. What is the method and why was it advocated? I'm really curious because my daughter begins "formal homeschooling" this year and we are searching for a really good curriculum.
May I ask how you begin to train your children to sit through church? I would really like to bring my kids into church with me especially because my daughter talks about "going to class" and NOT about going to church. We are changing churches soon and I want to keep my kids with me. Do you have any advice how to take a 4 year old and a 3 year old from constant stimulation at church to sitting still?
Really loved this article, makes me think...
Candy - Can you show me the statistics that clearly show that children who are disciplined by their parents stay in the faith but those disciplined by the church leave? I'd love to see this. I'd also love to know the definition of "discipline" in this instance since it can mean many different things to many different people. I don't see where the church staff should be disciplining our children and I know our church certainly does not do that but we have the parents close by and allow them to discipline their own children. Thanks in advance for the info!
Excellent Candy. I'm with you on this one.
My children have always stayed with my Husband and I in Church. Now my children are older they say they have always prefered it that way.
As you pointed out it is up to us as parents to teach our children.
Rose x
Very well thought out and spoken. Thank you for the references. Although we currently don't have children's church we do have nursery and toddler church.
I don't know that most of our parents are ready for this but I do want to share this with my husband and with the children's ministry director. Should our church go in this direction then God will work in their hearts.
My children also always stayed in church with dh and me. I just never had a huge problem with people wanting to take mine to the nursery/children's church or whatever. We just politely said, "No, thank you" to anyone that asked. That seemed to be the end of the issue. I guess I've always been in churches where at least to some extent people respected my rights as a parent.
I don't have a big problem with people coming up to me as well. There's just two people, who ask ~every single week~ and every week, I say "no thank you, my children prefer to be in church with us."
They both are very nice people, and I like them, but I just don't seem to be able to get them to understand that my kids don't go to children's programs. So... I will each of them a copy of today's article, and that should clear it up.
I doubt your helper friends think you are strange that your kiddos don't go to children's events. My guess is that they don't want your little ones to feel left out. That's what I would think if I were to ask someone if her children wanted to go to Children's Church. Don't be too hard on her . She just wants your children to have fun. (Ok, that may be one of the objections in the first place but people generally mean well LOL)
We send our boys to age appropriate Sunday School. We teach class for our middle son. Oldest son is in the class across the hall. Little guy is in nursery IF we know the helpers. After the 40 mins of SS, we all go to church together. We are still in the training phase of sitting so we often stay for the singing and then sneak out before they make too big of a spectacle of themselves (If you've seen the pics on our blog, you can see they're pretty noticiable heehee). Pretty soon they will make a whole service, I am confident!!
Have a great day at church and enjoy your kiddos.
Katie
Thank you so much for clearly showing me this. When we go to church, I get sick to my stomach sometimes having to leave my children in different rooms with the high-tech lessions. For my jr. higher it's just a social event. I don't really feel like it's church at all. Unfortunately, my husband likes this kind of church, so with much prayer I hope God will turn his heart. I pray I don't nag and badger, but just depend on the Lord for my husband.
My children go to an age appropriate SS class and they love it. They are very Bible based and taught classes and in the adult SS classes we often talk about things that pertain to adults that young ears might not need to hear. Then we all got to worship service together. We are a small church and do not have a children's church during the worship hour.
When my children were tiny I often had to take them out for a few minutes to gently discipline them and then I brought them back in and they would sit quietly. You do have to train them to sit quietly, but my youngest, who just turned 5, can tell you what the sermon was about.
I always loved taking my kids into church with me. It was just something that I thought I should do and did from when they were born all the way through! It wasn't from reading anything or with the strong conviction that you have it was just me doing it. I always had problems with people trying to get them to go into sunday school or making complaints to my in-laws about my kids being in church (and they wonder why the congregation is a dying one now? That is obvious they chased all the young people off) The biggest dissapointment was being down the street talking to my Mum-in-law and having a lady come up to us and complain about how noisy by girls had been on Sunday (my daughter who was 5 at the time was so upset because they had been so quite, my youngest had slept the whole way through and my other daughter had sad so quietly and good and to be told off really hurt her feelings)
My girls enjoyed being in church, the loved to stand up on the pew and sing the hymns (well they liked to stand holding the books, looking like they knew what it was all about and humming along)
I can't remember if you answered this the first time that I asked, so please pardon me if I'm redundant!
What do you think of high school aged youth groups for fellowship and worship? Especially if there is not a church service the family can attend going on at the same time (perhaps on a Wednesday night or Sunday night)?
Hi, I'm a new reader and sincerely appreciate the articles I've read so far. We recently (about 6 months ago) made the decision to pull our children from the hyper stimulated children's church and have them sit with us in the main service. I have enjoyed it so much. I love having them there with us.
I was also shocked when my 9 year old told me that one time they were playing a game that involved three different levels of challenges. I only remember two of them which were eating baby food and sticking your bare foot into a bowl of ice water. I can not for the life of me figure out how that is appropriate. I felt so hurt that my church would allow that and so guilty for putting my children through that. Never again. I am so done with letting anyone, other than trusted family and friends, be alone with my children. It's a shame when you can't trust your church.
Thanks for sharing these verses, I'm sure they'll come in handy for many making this decison.
Candy,
Great job on your booklet! Have a great weekend!
Your friend Tricia in Chicago
You say you don't judge or look down on anyone who utilizes childrens' programs but you sure are beating this issue into the ground....trying so hard to prove your right and show how much you know on the issue. That's pride and pride is the epitome of judging/looking down on others.
HTM, I'm surprised at you. What vile words from someone who I thought was a kind person. :-(
Actually, I am following through with my word. I SAID that I was wrirting a booklet, and that I'd publish it when I wrote it. Well, I wrote it, and now it's published on my blog, ~as I said it would be~.
I believe in integrity, and I keep my word.
I am honestly saddened by your sudden hatred. I will be banning you from the comments of this site. The type of commenting you just displayed is not the type I wish to have on my website.
I have always felt uncomfortable sending my daughter to be watched by ANYONE, let a lone a nursery. Thank you so much for this. Seems perhaps it s a God given natural instinct. 
To the person who asked about h.s. programs I'd just like to add my experience. I have a child who is "pre-teen" and am taking him out of his Wednesday night "class" because the teacher is asking of them things I think are not at all healthy or productive. For example, many Wednesday nights are filled with soda, pizza, banana splits, potato chips, all in an effort to reach them where they're at. But my children aren't in school or out with friends on the street eating garbage so what she's actually doing is having him do things beneath his standard and he feels social pressure (especially from her) to participate. This month they are doing a "Rock-a-thon" where the kids sit in rocking chairs and rock ALL NIGHT LONG (7 p.m. - 7 a.m.) and if they fall asleep on the rocker they are squirted in the face with water. All that to raise money for a missions trip to Cuba. What are we telling our kids about how to raise funds for a good cause?!?!?! When he told her his mom and dad didn't think it was a good idea and he wouldn't be able to come, her response was "that's very unfortunate! "What?!?! I think it's very unfortunate that the best they can come up with to "teach" my child is rotting his teeth with horrible food (and yes, they somehow tie the crappy food in with a lesson about Jesus!). I seriously felt like asking if they would like to pay his dental bills. How is it healthy to have a 12 year old stay up till morning light? You would *think* church would be the last place I would have to worry about adults being a bad influence on my little ones, especially because the children assume since these people are "Christian" that they are looking out for his best interest and mommy and daddy are being too strict!
Sorry to sound so frustrated, but I see this time and again, the older the children get the more of the worldy junk they shove down their impressionable throats.
Oh, this was so well written, Candy. Thank you for taking the time to both explain this!
I hope that you will cover at some point some of the ways that you have trained your children, especially boys, to sit still and participate in church. I know that doing this might leave you wide open for ridicule from fools, but I for one would be so blessed to know how you are accomplishing this.
Do you find that using special toys for Sundays is appropriate or do you have them take notes in a special journal or something?
You are such a blessing to me and to so many others. Thank you and may God bless your endeavors.
Hi Candy,
Love your blog and frequent it often as a lurker. I dont have a blog of my own but someday Ill figure it out. Our church is a non-denominational Bible teaching church. In other words the Pastor chooses a book of the bible and we study it chapeter by chapter verse by verse (theres a term for this but it leaves my mind at the moment) and although I agree with you abouthaving the children with me during service, our church prefers that we send them to their own class for two reasons: they dont want a potential new believer to be distracted by a cute little baby and also because our pastor often refers to topics too mature for little ears. So what can I do if the pastor is going to speak about things that my 8 year old son is not ready to hear or better yet Im not ready for him to hear about .
Well as a teenager with all of that junk shoved down my impressionable throat, I turned out just fine
Candy, I'd really love your opinion on the situation
Candy,
I just want to thank you for standing up for your Christ lead convictions. We can all be encouraged as Christian mothers seeking for God's wisdom in rearing our little ones. I really believe that point about them being more likely to go on in service for the Lord. I came out of a church that had Sunday School, Children's church, Christian school and the majority of those coming from that church don't even attend church. What does that say? God bless you!
Dawn
The church we used to attend had the teens and preteens stay at the church all night where they were locked in. Then they were to fast all night and all the next day. Then that evening they got to have a pizza party. I was always apalled at this.
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