Growing Our Kids & Our Faith Together
Get out a shareable snack and dig into the story about a big picnic Jesus hosted on the fly! As Jesus fed 5,000 people, he didn’t question that there was going to be enough. Instead, Jesus focused on making sure that every person that was there got what they needed.
This is a great story to bridge into an anti-racism equity conversation with your family. Check out this great equity resource to support your conversations: https://www.storybasedstrategy.org/the4thbox
The series, ‘A Kids Book About’, is a personal favorite. The series dives deep into many important and somewhat difficult topics.
Malia Jones, an epidemiologist, wrote a new book about COVID-19. (We read another ‘A Kids Book About’ book at Westwood- A Kid’s Book About Racism, by Jelani Memory)
The extra cool part- it’s a free download!
Ran across this article today. Chalk drawing protests that were power washed or street swept away, over and over. City officials called it ‘graffiti’ and it can now be grounds for a citation. It doesn’t really matter where it happened in the US, we know things like this happen all the time in every state.
Use this article to open up age-appropriate anti-racism conversations with your kids. Read the article (or parts of it) together. Ask what surprised them. Where did they see racism at work in what happened? What would be an anti-racist ally response to what happened?
Then get out the chalk. Give your kid(s) a place to protest by creating a Black Lives Matter chalk drawing on the driveway, sidewalk, or road. And keep talking. The action of drawing Black Lives Matter is great, but it’s the conversation and questions about racism and activism that help give our kids language to be anti-racist allies.
As you draw, consider listening to a podcast to learn more about racism in the US, or hear what protestors are doing to keep Black Lives Matter growing in the US, or listen to music that talks about change.
And after it rains, write it again. And again. And again.
Have you run into this? It’s Awesome.
A full episode about racism, current events, and anti-racism activism with elementary kids and youth, hosted by Alicia Keys. Meet the women who started Black Lives Matter, hear from kids that experience racism at their school and are activists in their communities, and listen to families of color talk about living in a white supremacy society and working for change.
Looking for more resources? Check out https://www.nickhelps.com/
Join us for our Flat Jesus summer challenge! All summer long, find times to take a picture with Flat Jesus and send them to Jen Mohr (j.mohr@westwood.church) to share with our Westwood community.
“The Flat Jesus Project is simple: each kid gets their own paper cutout of Jesus to take with them on their summer adventures. You’ll encourage them to take photos of their Jesus as he walks with them—helping them keep Jesus at the forefront of their minds. As natural questions and discussions come up, you will have new conversations to help facilitate summer faith development.”
Who am I? Deepening Our Conversations About Race.
Friends, our world is reminding us, yet again, that we have work to do and that it’s everyone’s work to do. It isn’t a box we get to check. Our work continues and is imperative as we begin to understand systemic racism more fully.
As Westwood Staff, we’re committed to doing this anti-racism work with you. We’ve done some digging to find resources that will help you in this work and we want to pass it along because it has been helpful to us in our anti-racism work.
As Jen said in the post below, we’d love to hear from you about resources you have found helpful, and we’ll keep adding to these lists! Send us what you’re reading, and watching and listening to, so that others can learn alongside you! You’ll keep seeing this logo as we keep adding to our lists!
Anti-Racism Resources for Middle and High School Youth and Their Parents: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qR0YT4Xa0_I6yufxhpzxjWLx7tAiOdhE1MBBdhc8ToA/edit?usp=sharing
During this past Lent, we looked more closely at our own racial identity, how racism has shaped our lives, and developed anti-racism skills with the theme, ‘Who am I? Deepening our Conversation About Race’.
Anti-racism work is never done.
This post includes the parent resources that were provided during Lent to support our work in raising race-conscious, anti-racist kids.
If you have additional resources to share with our community- please let me know! j.mohr@westwood.church
Anti-Racism Parenting Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AIN6qgGmX8duOvPAyt6LwZXvsQYkjzwf8Xcg9ckycCY/edit?usp=sharing
Our kids are the leaders of a more equitable future! As we seek change, justice, and equity- it’s important to give our kids language and tools to recognize racism and empower them to be an ally or educator.
This lesson was used in The Message during Lent this year. Read the book together, work through the discussion questions, and connect as a family to your role as God’s hands and feet in a broken world.
For younger kids, check out Naomi O’Brien’s lesson plan and approach to talking about race to younger children. She uses the story ‘Chocolate ME!’ to encourage problem solving and racism awareness.
Feel the Holy Spirit this Pentecost using pinwheels in prayer!
The holy spirit is described as a wind rushing. By breathing to spin the pinwheel, kids can see the movement of the holy spirit as you pray as a family.
