Helping Children Find Easter

As we approach Easter, I asked author pal, Linda W. Rooks, who just released her newest title, The Bunny Side of Easter, to pen a guest post. Linda uses her life-long love of children’s books to tell a winsome, "hare-raising" adventure explaining the true meaning of Easter - on a child's level. Here's what she says . . .

   The beauty of the Easter story is unsurpassed for us Christians but, as parents - or grandparents - we struggle with how to explain the deep truth of Easter to children. We want them to know that Easter is about Jesus, and to help them understand its spiritual significance.

But how do we skillfully do that?

Winter Months - Well Kids

I was pleased when freelance writer, Helen Pox, and I chatted about keeping kids healthy during the long, cold winter months. Indoors, they breathe recycled germs and often fail to receive the necessary amount of the sunshine vitamin D, which maintains immunity.

Helen is a fitness instructor and a nutritionist. With her qualifications, I was happy when she agreed to pen a post on keeping us and our kids healthy. If you enjoy her words of wisdom, and practical tips, leave her a comment below. 

    In the cold winter months it is easy to let our diet and fitness regime slack a little. Dark, snowy evenings don't exactly encourage an after dinner jog, and as soon as the cold temperatures creep in we find ourselves craving comforting carbohydrates as a way to keep bulk up and keep warm. The combination of the two can see us putting on weight (one study suggests the average American will put on a whopping 5 lbs during the Christmas holidays alone!) and letting our general health fall into decline means getting back to normal in the Spring can feel like a real slog. It's important to maintain some sort of health and fitness regime over the winter months. and to enlist the whole family. 

Parents' Words Make a Difference

She has one child who is blind. And another with autism. Pat Linkhorn explained to me that people must see her children apart from their circumstance. 

“My kids aren’t special needs kids -- 

they’re kids with special needs.” 

“When people say ‘special needs kids’ it implies the whole package is wrong. They’re normal kids who simply have a unique condition,” said Pat.             
She candidly writes of her child with blindness in this Letter to God:

When Love is Not Enough

Here's a scenario: a family with two adopted teens attends a church. The teens have emotional and psychological problems that demand regular therapy. Perhaps residential treatment. The adoptive parents - aloof or unwilling to admit their teens' deep-seated psychosis - deny them consistent professional treatment. 

Does that constitute neglect?

If a child was born needing a breathing apparatus to live, is it neglect for parents to remain aloof or unwilling to learn how to apply a breathing tube?

These teens of which I describe are anti-social, angry, manipulative, disrespectful, chronic liars, non-compliant, and steal without conscience and remorse for their inappropriate actions. 

To the extreme.