Monthly Archives: March 2024

Plan a Meaningful Easter

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come: Children, Come to Me; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; When the Stars Fall Down; My Thinking Book; Love is….) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.patlambchristianauthor.com

Train up a child…

Plan a Meaningful Easter

         Easter is arguably the most important holiday of the year.  Without Easter, Christmas would lose its importance.  For this reason, we should make great effort to impress upon children the relevance of this holiday.

         It is always good to create pleasant memories for children.  It is investment in their future to do so.  At the same time, we must make sure that children understand the true meaning of this special time.  

         Many would like to do away with the commercialism associated with Easter.  Realistically, that will probably never happen.  Our best option, it would seem, is to use the commercialism to teach children while they still enjoy the fun provided by longtime traditions.  Egg hunts are fun and children would most likely resent not being allowed to take part in them. If we can tell the children that the eggs represent new life as provided by Christ’s death on the cross and that we are promised in the Bible that if we seek that new life we will find it; then, they can learn truth while having fun.  Easter baskets can be explained as coming from those who love them and want to show that love.  Since God gave his son as a gift, we like to give gifts to our children. If new clothes are purchased at this time, again we can tell the children that a life is just like new once a person believes in Christ, repents, and invites the Holy Spirit to live within us.  Most children are too intelligent to actually believe in an Easter bunny.  It is best to tell the children that the Easter bunny is simply part of a game that is played at this time of year.

         There is no better time than Easter to take the family to church and teach children John 3:16. Every child should know this verse that says, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”.  Many churches have special services at Easter. Some churches have a solemn service on Good Friday. Some churches will have a sunrise service.  When children get up early for this event, they are forced to realize that this time is special.  

         Let’s put special effort into making sure children remember this Easter.  Let’s have fun with the children and at the same time teach them the real meaning of the holiday.  Many religions worship an individual, but the Christian religion is the only one that worships a risen Savior.  This event provides hope for each of us in a life after death.  Knowing this gives children purpose and meaning to life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Dealing With Attentiveness

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble; and www.patlambchristianauthor.com

Dealing With Attentiveness

Train up a child…

Dealing with Attentiveness

         I don’t claim to be an expert on Attention Deficit Disorder, but sixty-two years of teaching experience should count for something.  When I first started teaching, a child was given a spanking for not paying attention in class.  Now, a child is often given medication for the same problem.  Many people feel that the medication is over-prescribed.  It becomes a real quandary for parents to know what to do when they are told that their child has ADD.  In making decisions about such a child, it would be well to check to see if the child is consistent in not paying attention, check the environment of the child, and make sure the child is not getting caffeine or too much sugar and getting proper nutrition.

         During my 20 plus years teaching GED classes, I have often had students tell me that they have been in special education classes and have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.  When I worked with them, I found they were far behind where they should have been at the time they dropped out of school. I believe that a few of them truly had a physical problem affecting their ability to focus on their work.  However, most seemed able to focus when they chose to do so.  In one case, a student told me he had ADD.  When I asked him what he really liked to do, he told me that he was a cook at a restaurant and liked to work on cars.  “Do you have a hard time paying attention to cooking and working on cars?” I asked.  “No”, he said, “that’s something I like to do”.  If a person can pay attention at some times, but not other times, it is a pretty good indication that medication is not needed.

         Our education system has taken on an attitude of classroom management that is often very distracting to any student.  Many classrooms are far too noisy for children to concentrate.  In my orientation of new students for GED, I often hear a loud sigh of relief when I tell them that I don’t allow anyone to waste time and steal time from other students by being disruptive in the class.  I have been surprised by responses to the question on their enrollment paper that asks, “How can the teacher best help you to learn?”  Many new students have written that they would like a quiet room with a good learning environment. Several students have told how their classrooms were often too noisy when they were in school.

         Children should not be allowed to have caffeine at all.  Most soda has caffeine, and many children are allowed to drink that soda.  Sugar can cause a child to have a rush of energy that is hard to control.  Proper nutrition plays an important role in a child’s ability to concentrate.

         It is amazing to me, that when children are diagnosed with ADD, that acceptable means of dealing with it are not addressed.  Even if medication is required in a few cases, parents and teachers should continue to address the causes and make accommodations for dealing with the problem.  Until the problem is taken care of, teens and adults who have been diagnosed with ADD should not be behind the steering wheel of a car.  If they can’t pay attention in school, why do we think they can pay attention while driving a vehicle?  

         For the most part, we need to understand that treating the symptom does not correct the cause. There can be no harm done in checking a child’s nutrition and making sure s/he does not have too much caffeine or sugar.  Rather than simply giving in to the idea that a child can’t pay attention, we need to decide if the child simply won’t pay attention. It would be nice if we could get into a child’s mind and see clearly what is going on there.  Since we can’t, we simply must use our best wisdom and understanding to provide the help needed.

Children and Learning Disabilities

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble. www.patlambchristianauthor.com

Children and Learning Disabilities

Train up a child…

Children and Learning Disabilities

       We hear a great deal about children who have learning disabilities.  There are children who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Behavior Disorder, Dyslexia, and recently I heard of an instance where children were being diagnosed with obedience disorder.  One has to wonder about the authenticity of many of these diagnoses. 

         With the wide use of drugs and alcohol during recent years, we have to consider the possibility that many babies have been born carrying the effects of the usage of these substances by their parents.  No doubt, there has been some effect upon the ability of those children to cope with life. On the other hand, one can’t help but wonder if many children are labeled with the terms mentioned simply because those working with the children can come up with no way to deal with the needs the children have. In addition to the effects of substance abuse, children are also affected by nutrition and inherent interests.

         I had occasion several years ago to visit a neonatal ward in a hospital that specialized in babies born with problems.  It was horrible to watch little babies, so small you could hold them in your hand, shiver and shake with withdrawal symptoms from drugs because their mothers had used drugs while carrying them. When my husband and I worked on the Navajo reservation, we learned that some parents would put alcohol in the baby bottles on the weekend to put them out while they had a good time.  Now, I know of homes where children are constantly with cigarette smoke and they are getting the effects of the secondhand smoke.  This affects their health and possibly they have withdrawal symptoms needing “a smoke” during school hours.  Research shows that a large percentage of retardation is caused by mothers using alcohol while they were pregnant. There is much evidence to indicate that substances affect a child’s behavior and learning ability.

         When I was teaching GED classes,  I had a student enroll in my GED class who told me that he drank two 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew and smoked two packs of cigarettes each day.  He couldn’t understand why he was having a difficult time sitting in class and concentrating on studying!  Although this sounds extreme, it is not an isolated incident. Caffeine is not a good thing for children and too much caffeine and sugar is not good for adults.  (Four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon.  One large Mountain Dew has about 23 teaspoons of sugar.) Many adults allow children to drink a great deal of soda with caffeine, give them large amounts of sugar, and do not watch the diets of their children.  What a child consumes certainly affects learning and behavior.         

         When God created us, He didn’t create us with the idea in mind that all were to fit in a mold of behavior expected by the educational personnel in today’s schools.  I’m not sure that our ideas of how children are to respond to our teaching are how God intended all children to respond. Children are born with dominance in three or four intelligences. Children who have the “body” intelligence will naturally find it more difficult to sit quietly and pay attention in school.

         There is probably no person alive who does not have some difficulty at some time or another in learning something.  We have to find ways to work with ourselves to cope with the difficulties we have in order to learn what we need to survive.  As parents and teachers, we need to help children learn to cope with their challenges.  Unfortunately, labeling a child with a disability name often enables a child to feel excused for lack of accomplishment.  Children grow up thinking they can’t do some things and they simply stop trying. We need to use common sense in working with children when they have challenges to learning.