faith and family | march/april 2020

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30

As I sit here typing, I feel tired! Daylight savings is getting the best of our household so what a gift to open chapter eleven of Liturgy of the Ordinary and see this message on Sleep. Tish Warren shares that approximately ⅓ of our lives are spent sleeping and reveals four key points that our sleep habits expose about each of us.

• Our Loves

  • We give up sleep for our children (lots of it), for date nights with our spouse, to reconnect with family and friends. We gladly do this for people we love or objects of importance.

  • Warren asks us to also examine the items we may stay up late for that have become idols in our life, such as social media, Netflix, or our inboxes. She writes that though we may be unaware, prioritizing these practices can hinder the things that we love most.

• What we Trust

  • Many of us lie in bed each night worrying… It is hard not too with the craziness in today’s world. We fret over jobs and money, our health, our kids and their friends, schooling and athletics.

  • Warren writes, “It is God who watches over our city and who ultimately determines our safety. God has called us his beloved and He is faithful to provide for and protect his people, so we can savor His good gift of rest.” AMEN!

• Our Limits

  • We need to sleep in order to learn, keep ourselves safe, and be productive. Lack of sleep exposes our weaknesses and also reminds us that we cannot live solely off of caffeine! :)

  • Warren encourages us to have hope. God is the only one who never slumbers or sleeps. (See Psalm 121:3)

• Our Ultimate Limit

  • Sleeping reminds us of our mortality. Throughout the Bible, sleep and death are used interchangeably. Waking to the fear of death provides us an opportunity to rely on God’s grace, focus our eyes on the Cross, and look forward to the hope of Heaven.

  • Warrens reminds us that in a place of weakness we can learn to rest in the omnipotence of Christ embracing the beauty that all of our days are hidden in Him. Psalm 3:5 says “I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me.”

Sleep is learned through practice! Just as babies learn to walk, resting takes time and repetition. Warren writes, “through these collective years of rest, God is at work in us and in the world redeeming, healing, and giving grace. Each night when we yield to sleep, we practice letting go of our reliance on self-effort and abide in the good grace of our Creator. Thus embracing sleep is not only a confession of our limits; it is also a joyful confession of God’s limitless care for us.”

NOW WHAT?!

Try practicing a Sabbath day with your household. Set this day apart as holy and spend this time in rest (not only physical rest but holistic as well). This can include anything that rejuvenates you.. napping, a long leisurely walk, cooking a delicious meal as a family, reading, etc…

Addy Kirven, WDS Advisory Board Chair

tune in boundaries | february 2020

Tune in boundaries

Author and therapist, Dan Allender writes in his book How Children Raise Their Parents:

“Beginning with the first day of life outside the womb,  every child is asking two core questions: ‘Am I loved?’ and ‘Can I get my own way?’ These two questions mark us throughout life, and the answers we receive set the course for how we live.” 

Our job as parents is to provide an answer to both of these questions. The answer to the first question is an easy “YES!” We want our children to know and experience the reality that they are loved no matter what, for who they are, for how God made them, just because.

How do you answer the second question: “Can I get my own way?” Is your answer yes, no, or sometimes?  Perhaps the most honest answer to this question is “Sometimes.” Sometimes you can get your own way. Sometimes you cannot get your own way. This is a LIFE reality. Our job as parents is to appropriately prepare children for the way life really works. This means training them to navigate a “no.” This is where the concept of boundaries come in.

Simply put, a boundary defines what is okay and what is not okay. When children are young, they are just beginning to learn what is okay and not okay. They need parents and teachers to TEACH boundaries through direct experience and loads of practice. Setting and maintaining good boundaries at home is a crucial way we love and care for our children. It is not unkind to say “no” or “that’s not okay, “ or “I can’t let you….” It’s quite the opposite. It’s a gift you give your child. Boundary setting equips children with the skills and experience under your watchful care that they need to move out into the REAL (school, sports field, playground, etc.) world as they grow up.

So how do you set a boundary with a preschooler? The links below will help answer that question. But here’s a bit of wisdom to get you started. Boundary guru, Henry Cloud, writes: “If your boundary training consists only of words, you’re wasting your breath. Demanding someone to change a behavior is not setting a boundary. Consequences (actions!) keep a boundary in place while giving the other person the freedom to choose.”

How to Set Limits for Kids Without Harshness, Fear or Shame

How to Set Boundaries For Preschoolers

Setting Limits and Building Cooperation

How to Set Healthy Boundaries With Your Child

faith and family | february 2020

“We speak the good news to each other. And we become the good news to each other.”  - Tish Warren

While reading Chapter Nine in Liturgy of the Ordinary, I was again reminded that I don’t really enjoy or make the time to connect with people I do not often see over the phone. I’ve made it a “New Year’s resolution” to strengthen those relationships separated by physical distance by reaching out to them over the phone so many times (and failed), but lately, I’ve tried to view it as more of a mission – How can I love this person better? What questions can I ask about their life? How can I specifically be praying for them? The times I actually enjoy talking on the phone more are when I stop and recognize it’s not always about how it makes me feel – sometimes the other person needs to talk more than I do. And sometimes I need that friend to ask me those questions. We all want to be heard and loved.  God designed us to live in community. It has been a slow process, stretching me outside of my comfort zone, and, thanks to Tish, I’m making it a priority to call friends, both near and far, more. 

In her chapter, “Calling a Friend”, Tish compares Christian friendships to that of a responsive prayer or reading in the church. When we call a close friend to catch up and talk, we are confessing our daily lives to each other – our hopes, joys, sorrows, struggles, successes, worries, doubts and fears. We are having a back and forth conversation with a friend, who loves us and wants to meet us where we are and comfort us, hold us accountable, or lovingly challenge us when needed – just like the church should be doing for its body of believers – and just like God does for us. 

When we participate in worship with a body of believers, Rev. Canon Mary Maggard Hays says, “We aren’t just conversing with each other when we recite the Psalms antiphonally or responsively. We are talking to God, too. Reminding one another and God of His promises and our complaints. We are witnessing one another’s cries for help and reminding God that we are in this together.” Isn’t that what true friendship is meant to be like? Going through the journey of life with friends who help you up if you fall, carry your backpack when it gets too heavy, help clean your wounds when you fall and get hurt, celebrate when you reach a milestone, no matter how small, and rejoice when you finish the race! 

God designed his people to have individual personal relationships with Him and also to belong to a body of believers, His church, to worship as a holy community. Tish states “We profoundly need each other. We are immersed in the Christian life together. There is no merely private faith – everything we are and do as individuals affects the church community; Our own small stories are wrapped up in the story of all believers throughout time, which are together part of the eternal story of Christ.”

Although Jesus was spotless, perfect and whole, His church is currently blemished and broken. Just like friendships, the church is not perfect. We hurt each other and have to seek forgiveness. We put others down only to feel better about ourselves. We live for ourselves and our needs, rather than living in a holy fraternity of believers in a sacred bond formed by Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. As Tish Warren says, “In the sin and failure of the church, we see the darkness and ugliness for which Christ suffered and died. But we also see the spectacular hope that in the midst of sinners, God can bring forth redemption, repentance, and transformation. We gaze in weakness with dim eyes, on the power of God.”

1 Corinthians 12:12 and 14 states “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.” We are not meant to live a life without community, fellowship, unity and friends. Praise God for that! So, the next time you call a friend to catch up, I hope you remember the beautiful family and community of believers you belong to as part of the body of Christ.

Now what?!

• Pick up the phone and call a friend, or two or three! Ask about their life, family, friends -whatever you can think of! Tell them how thankful you are for the way they love and encourage you and how God has used them in your life. 

• Don’t forget your kid(s)! Let this month of love encourage you to pray with and for your child(ren) and don’t forget to write them love notes. 

Invite a friend to church this week, or attend a church if you aren’t currently going anywhere. First Presbyterian Church of Orlando Sunday services: Genesis (contemporary) – 8:45am and Traditional – 11:05am. I would love to see you at the 8:45am Genesis service!

Layne Spears, WDS Adivisory Board

from the director | february 2020

Happy February! I am writing to you this month about love. Not the romantic kind of love. I want to focus on the deep, profound, protective love that we feel as parents for our children. Parental love is fierce - Mama Bears know how to roar! This love compels us to sacrifice many things for our children: our sleep, for example, or the cleanliness of the backseat of our car, or extra hours at the office, or a career altogether, and the way we spend our time on a Saturday. Love compels us to watch children’s shows over and over again until the theme song takes up permanent residence in our brain. It’s why we can wipe away and clean up the most stomach-turning messes. We can do hard things for our children because we love our children.

Speaking of hard things, disciplining our children can be another hard thing on a parent’s heart. The word “discipline” is laden with meaning, often synonymous with punishment for wrongdoing. The image of a stern, drill Sargent can be a turn-off when we think of our young children and what they need at this tender age. However, “discipline” comes from the word “disciple.” A disciple is one is who is being taught. You discipline your children to teach them how to get their needs met appropriately. Here’s the good news - you can be gentle and firm when you discipline. Here’s the bad news you may have already experienced as a parent…

“When you set boundaries with people you love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. This will difficult for you to watch.” Henry Cloud

We don’t like to see our children hurt. Their strong emotions in the face of our boundary setting make us feel responsible for their upset. We falter, we’re inconsistent, we compromise, we ease up to temporarily relieve their negative feelings and our own. In the kindest way possible I’m saying to you, “This is not in your child’s best interest.” What if we broadened our concept of loving our children well to include the topic of gentle and firm discipline skills. Because we LOVE our children, we can do hard things! Check out this month’s “tune into” feature for more…

I love talking about this topic. Not because I have it all figured out, but because I’m still learning. If I can ever be a sounding board for issues you might be having with your preschooler, please reach out to me in the carpool line or send me an email (bhewitt@fpco.org). I’m always open for a conversation or brainstorming session.

“For the LORD disciplines those he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:12

Much love,

from the director | january 2020

Happy New Year, everyone! We’ve had a great first week of 2020 which included reuniting with our school friends and our new 2 Plus children and families. These little ones are off to a fantastic start.

Rolling into the new year!

January is a “meaty” month. I have a LOT of important information to share with you. Let’s get straight to it!

Next week we begin enrollment for next school year (2020-21) for current 2 Day, 2 Plus, and 3 Day students. Be on the lookout for your email with an online form to complete. You will be billed the non-refundable registration fee (which holds your child’s spot) through Brightwheel. Tuition will be increasing by $15/month for next year with only slight increases in some “extra fees.” Click here to see the financial information for the 2020-2021 school year. 

I also want to mention that we receive grant money and fundraise (FUN FAIR!) every year to provide scholarships for families who find private preschool tuition a stretch. We never want money to be a reason a family doesn’t return to Weekday School.  To apply for tuition assistance for the next school year complete this simple form. 

If you’re a 3 Day parent who is curious about how our 4 Day program prepares children for kindergarten, you’re invited to attend the 4 Day Preview next Wednesday, January 15th right after morning carpool (9:15am in Room 215). I’ll provide some information about our curriculum and then we’ll pop into a few 4 Day classrooms LIVE. RSVP here to attend.

Let’s take a few deep breaths. There is more. I know, I’m running the risk of TLDNR.

In February, our 4 Day teachers will lead their classes through a NEW six week Child Protection Unit unit as a part of our social-emotional curriculum. These important lessons will focus on what children can do to keep themselves safe including body safety and what safe/unsafe touch means.  4 Day Parents will receive lesson outlines in advance as well as some great resources just for parents. One of these resources is an opportunity to participate in an online seminar that teaches parents how sexual abuse prevention can be implemented in your home. You can read more about this in “Tune Into Child Protection” in this newsletter or this website: Shielding Innocence. If you decide to enroll in the online course use the code WEEKDAYSCHOOL for a discount.

Finally! Word of mouth is one of the best ways for new families to learn about our preschool. I’m asking for your help.  As we begin enrollment for the 2020-21 school year, if a new family lists YOU in the “referred by” field of their online form and enrolls their child in our preschool, you’ll receive a $25 Amazon gift card from us.  Just a little something to thank you for being on our marketing team! We have an Open House for prospective families on the morning on January 23. Tell your friends to RSVP on our website to be included.

It’s easy to get wrapping up in lots of planning and goal setting at the beginning of a new year (and decade!). All well and good. At the same time, it’s helpful to remind ourselves in these January days that just as God has brought us faithfully to today, He is the one who knows and holds our future. Better than trusting our plan, we trust our Divine Planner. As preschoolers love to sing: God holds the whole world, the tiny babies, the wind and rain, and you and me in his hands.

In Christ,