The intensity of the election cycle is an experience both for adults and for the children and youth in our families and communities. Depending on their age, preschoolers to teens may be aware of the anxiety in the adults around them — and experiencing their own anxiety about the outcome of the election in November. This article shares resources and support for adults caring for children and youth.
Parenting Resources
Conversation Circles: Welcoming Families to Quaker Community
Raising children to lead kind, respectful, creative lives is challenging. In today’s fast paced world, it is easy for parents and caregivers to feel buffeted by hurried schedules, multiple demands and our technology-driven culture. Join these conversations to explore how your Meeting can welcome, engage and nurture families.
Parenting for Peace
FRIENDS SCHOOL OF PORTLAND'S PARENTING FOR PEACE PROGRAM developed as an outgrowth of their overall educational vision – to encourage inquiry, reflection and action and to strengthen the community of learners. In accordance with Quaker values and process, they...
Outreach to Families: Support for Parenting in Community
Conversations to help Quaker Meetings organize gatherings to support parents and families. Tuesday, September 19, 1pm ET and Thursday, September 21, 8pm ET
Finding the Light Within Us: Queries for Quaker Families
Vocations and Gifts Parents: Is your work compatible with your values? Is the life of the business/institution for which you work broadly in line with the Quaker values of peace, justice, equality, simplicity, integrity, and community? Do you listen inwardly for new...
Teaching the Language of Children’s Spirituality
We as human beings need stories. It's this primal part of who we are as a human race — from the very beginning. That's how we have always made meaning. Telling stories, over and over again. Caryl Cresswell, a recorded minister in Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting, a...
Nurturing Children’s Spiritual Lives: A Journey of Spirit and Wonder
By Melinda Wenner Bradley When a new baby or child arrives in our lives, into our care, we learn to assess their needs: What does my crying child need? Is the baby hungry? Does she need to be fed? Is his diaper wet? What does my child need to help them fall asleep? We...
Books for these trying times with COVID-19
A listing of nine books with brief synopses that we think have a message for children in these trying times. Many of the stories are about children overcoming challenges.We hope the books encourage you to think about other things, and appreciate the beauty around us....
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Lesson plan for the home with a book and activities. When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops began to fail. Without enough money for food, let alone school, William spent his days in the library — and figured...
Lucky Beans
Lesson plan for the home with a book and activities. 1930's Great Depression is the setting of a boy's ingenuity in helping his family. Like so many people during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Marshall Loman's dad has lost his job. There's little money, but there...
What Do You Do with an Idea?
Lesson plan for the home with a book, music and activities. What do you do with an idea? Especially an idea that's different, or daring, or a little wild? This is the story of one brilliant idea and the child who helps to bring it into the world. As the child's...
Let love (and welcome, inclusion, knowledge, and action) be the first motion!
In response to events and news stories, how can we parent, work with children, model activism and take care of ourselves? This article explores how to find support in the circle of people around us, whether in our families, Meeting, or the wider world of Friends....
Crossing the Threshold: Preparing to Welcome Families
"How do meeting communities prepare and engage in active invitation to families and children? When a family walks through the door of a meeting, there are three sets of needs we should be prepared to support: the spiritual formation of their children, the spiritual...
Quaker Parenting Initiative
The Quaker Parenting Initiative seeks to nurture parents on their spiritual journey as they strive to integrate principles of human development with their Quaker faith while living with and guiding their children. This website offers a rich array of resources for...
Paths to Quaker Parenting Using Quaker Beliefs, Testimonies, and Practices
Is there a distinctly Quaker way of child rearing? What in Quakerism speaks to how we guide and nurture our children and ourselves as parents? Paths to Quaker Parenting, is the outcome of a group of Quaker parents and grandparents who met for three years to share...
How do Quakers Support Children’s Spirituality? A QuakerSpeak Video
If you bring your children to a Quaker meeting, what will they experience? Part of the QuakerSpeak series from Friends Journal, this brief video excerpts interviews with Friends to explain how Quakers introduce children to silent worship, nurture children's spiritual...