The Parenting for Faith podcast

Anna shares some ideas from Kendra Adachi's book The Lazy Genius Way about order and chaos. She asks how those different days and moments give us opportunities to create windows of how we connect with God for our children. Rachel answers a question about handling and processing emotion with God, and particularly some ideas that might help for children on the autistic spectrum. She interviews a couple of dad friends, Mark Hewitt and Adam Price, on how they've talked to their kids about forgiveness and helped them to understand what it means for them.

Rachel, Anna and Becky share what's new and coming up for you this year. A few links of some things we mention: The Comfort in the Darkness audiobook - audible.co.uk/pd/Comfort-in-the-Darkness-Audiobook/B08QNJQG8T The new babies and toddlers book, coming out on 19 Feb - brfonline.org.uk/products/babies-and-toddlers Nurturing Babies and Toddlers’ Spiritual Lives Training Morning - brfonline.org.uk/products/nurturing-babies-and-toddlers-spiritual-lives-training-morning The Cliff College certificate in Parenting for Faith cliffcollege.ac.uk/courses/cliff-college-online/parenting-faith-online Our free Facebook live events for parents and carers (called Bedtime Drinks) and for children's, youth and family leaders (called Lunch with Rachel) - parentingforfaith.org/upcoming-events#facebooklive Parenting as a Church Leader Training Evenings in March - brfonline.org.uk/products/parenting-as-a-church-leader-day-march-2021

Rachel starts off by reviewing 2020 and thinking about how we can chat to our kids about this year and how to process it. We chat to Annie Willmot about how to explain your role in church to small children. This was recorded pre-pandemic - neither Annie or Anna have been at in person services recently! We also chat to Jennifer Fellows about the experience of being a child and your parent coming to faith - what that feels like and how the parent can help guide and support their child through that transition.

Rachel explores how we can have really interesting conversations at this time of year prompted by the Christmas films, characters and ideas that we see. Warning: this section involves some discussion of Father Christmas which you may not want children to listen to. She answers a question about whether or not it is important to share a historically accurate version of the Christmas story. In the wildcard section, Anna shares how a missing Pilates instructor got her thinking about how to be brave and share and offer the little that we know and our own experiences to help others. This is one from the archives that was recorded pre-pandemic (I know, hard to remember such a time!). She hasn't been at any in-person exercise classes lately and some of the suggestions for story sharing will need to be adapted so that you're sticking to current regulations. She mentions the Inspire session from the Kitchen Table Project kitchentable.org.uk/inspire/ and the triumph of the try video from our website parentingforfaith.org/post/triumph-try.

Today's episode starts by exploring how to approach Christmas if money is very tight this year. What spiritual and creative opportunities does that bring as we think about giving gifts and making the most of the season? Our question this week is about how to handle a situation where you disagree with your child's school's approach or stance on something. In the wildcard section, Anna interviews Helena Whitwell, a Christian doula, on how to connect with God during pregnancy and childbirth and more generally on how we can use guided prayer to help us connect with God. Helena runs free guided prayer zoom sessions for pregnant women and the next one is this Thursday 17 December. For details email doula.helena@gmail.com. To sign up for our babies and toddlers' training morning, which Helena will be speaking at, head to brfonline.org.uk/babiestoddlerstraining.

Rachel kicks off by asking what's the Christmas story got to do with our recent experience of COVID and lockdown. She answers a question about how to help a twelve-year-old who's missing the mountain top moments of summer camps and events. In the wildcard section, Anna Hawken interviews Jared More from Riding Lights about their Christmas play, The Selfish Giant. Find out more at ridinglights.org/the-selfish-giant/

Rachel starts off by looking at what to do when we don't like behaviour that we see in our child. Maybe they are being controlling, aggressive or making other children feel small. How do we take this as an opportunity to help them learn and grow? Our question today comes from a babysitter who (with the family's permission) wants to help the children she babysits for to meet and know God. Rachel explores how we can spiritually input into children who aren't our own. She references telling the whole story (more on this at parentingforfaith.org/post/whole-gospel-showing-kids) and exploring questions together (more on this at parentingforfaith.org/post/questions). In our wildcard section, Anna interviews Lucy Rycroft from The Hope-filled family and Cath Sales from Hope and Ginger about the joys and challenges of being a godparent and their new godparent prayer journal. Available at hopeandginger.com/collections/journals/products/godparent-prayer-journal

This week, Anna reflects on the decluttering, throwing out and moving things around that happens with moving house and asks how we might apply this to our spiritual lives and our connection with God too. Rachel answers a question about what to do when we pray for God to make something better and the prayer isn't immediately answered in the way that we expect. In our wildcard section, Simon Parry from Allstar Kids Club, shares about living by faith as a family and how to frame and share with our kids about our finances.

This is a podcast version of the Facebook live session which looked at how we can prepare our preteens and teens for a different Christmas this year.

This is a podcast version of the Facebook live session which looked at how we can prepare our 5 - 11s for a different Christmas this year.