The Church has released a new manual specifically for the Nursery:
Behold Your Little Ones
Behold Your Little Ones PDF
A few years ago, my wife and I were called as the Nursery Leaders for our LDS congregation. We had just moved into the ward from another part of town where I had just been a nursery worker for the last year. I spent a total of two and a half years working in the Nursery.
As nursery leaders, we found that it was very important to have a consistent, repeated order of short activities every week.
As a kind of a follow up to my previous post on the family, I wanted to share a story about our children that occurred yesterday.
First, a little background:
A few years back, the Marriage and Family class at our LDS church was taught by sister Williams, who is a professional psychiatrist working with young, recently married couples at BYU. She had lots of wonderful insights, both as a marriage dynamics professional and a gospel instructor, that have stuck with me ever since.
Among the many topics she presented, one discussed studies that indicated that some parents were enforcing the virtue of “sharing” upon their children so much that their children were growing up with a deficient, warped, or even nonexistent concept of personal property. As a result, these children who lacked a sense of property were less likely to respect the property of others and more likely to steal or vandalize.
My own parents had been careful about how much we were forced to “share” our toys.
With our own children, we have tried to teach that their belongings really do belong to them, and that, while sharing is the right thing to do, we will not force them to share against their will. After all, what virtue is there in sharing unless you have the choice not to share? And if no property is ever your own to withhold, then what beneficence is there in giving?
The 18th annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival starts tomorrow, August 30th in Orem, Utah and continues through Saturday, September 1st.
The storytelling festival is absolutely awesome! If you have never been, and can be in Utah County this week, it really is worth checking out.
Every year, they invite ten or so of the most accomplished national and even international storytellers to come to Utah to teach workshops and perform for the festival. The festival is well known among professional storytellers, and each year the tellers comment on how impressive the event is when compared to similar events nation wide. Thousands of people attend.
Sorry for the lapse in blog postings during the last couple of weeks. Blogging is but one of my time-wasting endeavors. As many of you know, another is Puppetry.
My cousin Rus Wilson, his wife Kelly, my close friend Sean Healy, my wife Chastity, and I founded the Maxed Out Puppetry – Puppet Comedy Troupe nearly a decade ago while still students and recent graduates of Brigham Young University. Since then we have performed at museums, libraries, festivals, parties, churches, and many other venues, primarily in Utah County, but also as far north as the Davis County Library in Layton and as far south as Filmore.
Since then we have been joined by additional puppeteers: Caitlin Shirts, Patrick Svensson, and David Wilson.
We are very excited to present our brand-spanking-new website:
