Explaining Lent to children

I got the blankest stares in class today.

I tried to explain that like a caterpillar turns intoa butterfly Jesus was rebron into new life, and we want to be like the caterpillar (so one kid said "we have to DIE!?!") and keep changing to be more like Jesus (I blame my curriculum for the mixed metaphor here)...

Needless to say they didn't quite grasp it.

There's so mcuh left to just assumption...I've references jesus dying for us many times and expected the kids to just accpet it, but there are so many more lessons I have to go through before I can get to anything that will let them understand it.

Parents, teachers, how do you explain lent to kids?

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Since I work in a secular school, when my students mention things about religion (or anything of a serious nature), I ask them to talk to their parents. How is THAT for passing the buck? I was rather amused when one of them asked me, their Jewish teacher, what an apostle was.

Re: Explaining Lent to children

How old are the kids?

If I had to do it, I would skip the whole caterpillar and butterfly thing, curriculum or not. That just adds all kinds of metaphorical confusion that they don't need and may not be able to understand.

How about explaining what sacrifice means, keeping it really simple and straightforward? And then explaining how Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice when he died (and all that led up to it), and how Lent is when his followers honor him by making sacrifices in their own lives.

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Re: Explaining Lent to children

This is the first year that my oldest son will be participating in Lent.

First we talked about Jesus being in the desert for 40 days and how he gave up the things he might have WANTED to stay true to the Lord. We talked about how the son of God COULD HAVE had anything because He could perform miracles - but that he chose to live a simple life. After that we made a list of all the things we NEED and some of the things we WANT. For example - We NEED food - but we WANT ice cream. We NEED to drink - but we WANT chocolate milk. After we identified the difference between wants and needs we discussed that during the Lenten season Christians try to be more like Christ and they will give up something that they like to have that is a WANT or a DESIRE just as Christ did. Then we picked 2 things that he would normally WANT and decided he would try very hard to abstain from having it during Lent. He chose to give up iced tea and one of his video games.

I try to keep it simple and not get too involved in the paradox of the Trinity or anything like that. It's about giving the stories of the Living Christ and how our job as Christians is to do our best to follow his example.

ETA: My son is VERY upset because tomorrow is 'taco day' at school and he has to have tuna or PBJ.

Message edited 2/5/2008 7:19:54 PM.

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Re: Explaining Lent to children

Posted by rojerono

Posted by JenniferEver

How did you explain the "why" behind the 40 days in the desert?

Also, may I ask, how old is your son?

I kept the why simple and straightforward - I am not sure he fully understood - but I think he got the basic concept. I told him that the devil's job is to confuse people and to make them mixed up about what they WANT and what they NEED. And that Jesus went into the desert to see if the devil would try to confuse him too. And even though ***** TRIED he did not succeed because Jesus knew that being good and being true to God was the most important thing no matter what.

I do not make the devil into a monster - i think it is important that children not be taught to 'fear'. I have taught him that ***** is just a confused angel who is lonely because he is apart from God and who tries to get us to move away from God too so that he can have company.

My son will be 7 in May.