Ministry with Children

Bullying resources

I pay attention to anything and everything that danah boyd does, as I think her scholarship is excellent and ground-breaking. Lately she's been working with the new Lady Gaga foundation (Born This Way) to develop a set of resources on bullying. They've got five research papers, and a number of other very useful pieces up there already.

Young children and "techno toys"

There's a fascinating piece in the Guardian today that writes of the ways in which very young children -- toddlers, for instance -- engage with electronic devices. In and amongst the typical fears raised about children not getting enough physical learning, were some trenchant observations. For instance:

As you remove the reality," Huggins says, "they just make it up." Freeman says: "I'm always amused by how entertaining my two find playing creatively with cardboard boxes – still wins hands down over a few minutes with the iPhone." As for learning to count, as Wooldridge says, "Your child can push buttons all they want, but without your involvement they're not going to go beyond that."

The point is that kids watch adults, and want to do what they do:

There's no doubt that small children love pressing buttons, looking at bright flashing lights and listening to funny noises, partly for the same reasons that adults do – like rats, we can't help responding to sensory stimuli – but also precisely because adults do. A child will see how rapt her parents are by a mobile phone or computer screen, and imitate their behaviour: these things are clearly interesting, because Mum and Dad can't keep away from them.

I think the piece is a good reminder that we need to "apprentice" our kids into all sorts of practices. Engaging electronic devices is one small piece of that, but far more important are the ways in which we communicate with each other, and the patterns by which we engage silence, not to mention conflict.

Parenting advice for managing tech

Here's a nice short piece with good basic advice for parenting kids in a digital age. The five suggestions Soren Gordhamer makes are: (1) technology no longer has boundaries, (2) know when to cut it off, (3) the difference between preference and addiction, (4) focus on technology that truly connects us to our kids, and (5) model the balance. Read the article for the annotations, but these are great basic things to keep in mind.

Children, media and race

Fascinating new study just released by Northwestern University on "children, media and race" (free pdf).

Teens and the culture of "celebritization"

danah boyd has another excellent and thought-provoking essay up about the intersection of adolescence and the attention economy:

Teens’ desire for attention is not new. Teens have always looked for attention and validation from others – parents, peers, and high-status individuals. And just as many in business argue that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, there are plenty of teens who believe that there’s no such thing as bad attention. The notion of an “attention whore” predates the internet. Likewise, the notion that a child might “act out” is recognized as being a call for attention. And it’s important to highlight that the gendered aspects of these tropes are reinforced online.

So what happens when a teen who is predisposed to seeking attention gets access to the tools of the attention economy? Needless to say, we see both exciting and horrifying events play out. We see teens like Tavi Gevinson propel her interest in fashion into a full-blown career before the age of 14. And we see countless teens replicating the trainwreck activities of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and other celebrities. When teens leverage social media to propel themselves into the spotlight, they fully (and with reckless abandon) engage in a set of practices that Terri Senft and Alice Marwick talk about as micro-celebrity. They work to manage their impressions, cultivate attention, and interact in ways that will increase their fame and social status.

Great intro to Godly Play

Here's a great introduction to the Godly Play process for faith formation.

Education and natural disasters

The CyberPilgrim blog (which is mostly focused on digital catechesis) has a great set of resources for engaging issues that arise around faith and natural disasters.

Children's sermons

Here's a great set of advice for any of you out there who are tempted to do "children's" sermons. Israel Galindo's point, of course, is that if you're going to proclaim to children, then really do that -- and respect who they are in the process.

Digital self-harm

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this? But I still am. Teens are often in so much pain, and perhaps what danah boyd calls "digital self-harm" is less physically harmful than cutting, or other forms of self-injury. But that doesn't mean it's any less harmful overall -- and clearly, it can be a cry for help.

Reclaimng YHWH for young people

Read this (it's a brilliant piece from a HS teacher of religion). A taste:

The early Christian Church was a mix of Jews and Gentiles, so it would make sense that the Christian God became a mixture, too. When Jews, who believed in YHWH, asked pagans to believe in one God, Greeks picked their most powerful god- Zeus. The problem is that the Jewish YHWH and Greek Zeus deeply contradicted each other. YHWH is humble, self-emptying, abundant love. Zeus is a self-contained, muscular, sexual, manipulative, controlling male. YHWH is relation with, Zeus is domination over. Zeus deals with creation like an appendage, YHWH is deeply in, with and through all of Creation. Our Church today is worshipping a very Greek influenced God. Zeus is winning. We have lost touch with YHWH as we read the Hebrew Scriptures less and less. Art from Western Europe, which makes up our mental prototype for God, is actually Zeus in part because one cannot draw YHWH. This reinforces our idea of a God as Zeus. We are hard wired for Zeus because he is easier to understand, more like us. And we yearn for simplicity. If we don’t start making the vulnerable, relational YHWH God accessible, we are going to keep losing young people.