Kids These Days

Recently, I was reading Their God is So Big--a kids' ministry handbook--with Nick Mollison recently. Here are a few things that grabbed my attention (no surprises, just helpful reminders to me):

• Two year-olds
• have short attention spans, you have to change it up regularly
• they like to help
• they thrive on routine and repetition, rather than getting bored with it.
• Three-Four year-olds
• fantasy and reality remains a blur, so work to reinforce the historical truth of the Bible
• Structure your various activities so that they give you their attention at the key time
• use visual aids to lessons
• Five-Seven year-olds
• involve them in helping you
• give them approval
• delegate small tasks to them