Conversation Circles: Welcoming Families to Quaker Community

Conversation Circles, August 20 and 22

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AISING 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. Parents and caregivers may be looking for like-minded people to share child-rearing questions, challenges and experiences with. Quaker meetings can offer a spiritual home, the respite of silent worship, opportunities for families to share deeply with each other, a safe place to think differently, and caring, multigenerational community. It’s about being welcoming, building trust, appreciating the gifts each family brings, and being connected and sustained by our faith.

Join this Sharing Circle to explore how Quaker meetings can welcome, engage and nurture families.

QUERIES

• Why do you keep coming back to your Meeting?  How would that be engaging for others?
• How can your Meeting welcome families who may come with gifts and challenges?
• When new families come is the Meeting being transformed because they are there?
• How can we give families some context for Quaker community to help them feel comfortable?
• What relationships does the Meeting have with diverse parts of the local community?
• How can your Meeting offer family-friendly events outside Sunday morning to engage the community?
• How can the welcome be so meaningful that it builds relationship regardless of whether the family continues to attend the Meeting?

FACILITATORS

• Tuesday: Andrew Wright, Durham Friends Meeting, NCYMC
• Thursday: Sita Diehl, Madison FM, NYM

RESOURCES

Videos:

• When a Family Comes to Quaker Meeting, Melinda Wenner Bradley
• Nurturing the Spirituality of Children, Caryl Menkhus Creswell

Books on Parenting:

• Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home, Traci Smith.
• Raising Human Beings by Ross Greene
• Paths to Quaker Parenting, Harriet Heath, Editor.
• Parenting 4 Social Justice: Tips, Tools, and Inspiration for Conversations and Action with Kids, Angela Berkfield et al.
• The Parenting Project: Build Extraordinary Relationships with Your Kids Through Daily Conversation, Amy Alamar and Kristine Schlichting.
• Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, by Laura Markham.
• Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings by Laura Markham
• Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child John M. Gottman.
• Tending Sacred Ground: Respectful Parenting, Pamela Haines.

Books on Parenting Older Kids:

• Blessing of a B Minus: Raising Resilient Teenagers by Wendy Mogel
• Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens and the Culture of Sex by Amy T. Schalet
• For Goodness Sex By Al Vernacchio

Other Resources:

• Children & Nature Network: https://www.childrenandnature.org/
• Friends Couple Enrichment https://www.friendscoupleenrichment.org/
• Goose Creek Friends Meeting Mud Club. http://goosecreekfriends.org/mud-club
• How children make sense of climate change: A descriptive qualitative study of eco-anxiety in parent-child dyads, Léger-Goodes, T., et al. (2023).
• Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from nature deficit disorder, by Richard Louv.
• Quaker Quicks series: https://quakerbooks.org/collections/quaker-quicks

Articles:

• Nurturing Children’s Spiritual Lives: A Journey of Spirit and Wonder, Melinda Wenner Bradley
• Exploring Quaker Testimonies with Children, Melinda Wenner Bradley

Learn more: Visit the QREC Resource Library and subscribe to our announcements