"I hate church" and other things kids say.

“I Hate Church.”

Admit it, you said it. It may not have been last week or last month, but think back to when you were a child. Your mom or dad drug you out of bed sleepy and hungry, they dressed you in fine Sunday attire then plopped you in the car. Somewhere between the warmth of your bed and the door of your church you said it: “I hate church.”
In just a few days, thousands of children will be repeating those words again and again and again. Yet we ignore them, the church ignores them, and refuses to look at the reasons why children hate church.
The adults in the church regard the Sunday school experience as a necessary process, one that will develop fine Christian citizens. Or they accept it as a convenient babysitting service for their hour away relaxing and contemplating the will of God.
So, while adults gain from the Sunday experience, children lose, in most cases.
The saddest part of this equation is that it doesn’t have to be like that, the Sunday school experience can be fun, rewarding, and genuine. With a few simple, and one not so simple, adjustments, children can look forward to their hour of independence and learning. But you have to go back to the reasons why children hate church, and you have to do this through the eyes of a child.
The five reasons children hate church:
1. I’m miserable. Children usually arrive at church tired and hungry. Most parents complain about the pre-church ritual of awakening, dressing, and feeding their children. They report that it is often (if not always) a struggle, one they don’t look forward to, and one that sets the tone for the entire experience. This is the first problem with the Sunday school experience, but one that is easily remedied.
Solution #1 When children arrive in your class in the morning, have waiting a variety of food and drinks available for them. Choose healthy snacks of whole grain cereals, fruit and milk, yogurt and bagels. I’ve even brought in a toaster and jam on special occasions. Instead of a designated snack time serving fish crackers and juice, leave food as a viable option from the very beginning. If the children are hungry, they will eat and immediately this solves the first problem of the day.
Solution #2: Provide a comfortable and quiet space for your students who are tired and need a few minutes to wake up. I prefer comfortable bean bag chairs with soft worship music and even comfortable snuggly bears to curl up with. Surprisingly, it is not the youngest students who will gravitate towards this space, it will be your older kids, who stayed up much too late the night before.
When they are ready to join the group, they will naturally assimilate, but until then, let them relax- they need this time!
2. I’m scared. It may not seem like it to you, but entering a loud, new, cold classroom with a different teacher every week, is scary, particularly if you are entering alone. There are many solutions to this problem.
Solution #1: Tone down the room by creating spaces for children to relax and spaces for them to keep busy while others are arriving. Several different centers help disperse children and keep wild antics to a minimum. It also presents many fun and exciting opportunities for the new child. You might try a lego center, craft area, play-doe, kitchen, dress-up, quiet, music center, library, and manipulative center. Then when the children arrive, allow them to pick a center. Introduce them to a ‘buddy’ or teacher to play with them.
Solution #2: Allow siblings to stay together. The one- room school houses of old had it right- they allowed multiple siblings to stay and learn together. This dissolves so much of the fear of entering a new situation.
There is remarkably little effort in running a multi-age class with the older students helping the younger. It also provides a community atmosphere, something so lacking in our world today.
Solution #3: Encourage parents to come early and play, then stay as long as they need, and play after the service. Allowing the space to present itself as a family room, not just a place for the kids to wait for mom and dad, will alleviate the scary time alone.
3. I’m lonely. Sometimes it is impossible to keep siblings together, and individual students will feel lonely and reserved. Even those students who act comfortable and friendly, will often report that they have no friends in church and hate the experience.
Solution #1: Communicate correctly. As the teacher, you are your students’ first friend. Take them by the hand and tell them you are so happy to see them. Work hard to remember their names, and kneel down to eye level when you talk to them. Always, always, always smile. These are the basics of communicating with children.
Solution #2: Buddy up your children. You will find some children return again and again to Sunday school, while others only arrive a couple of times a year. Get to know their schedule and buddy them up according to likes and dislikes. Below the age of 10 gender buddies are important- girls with girls, boys with boys. Introduce the buddies and do an activity with them together. If you can’t interact with them, put a helper with the buddies to get them talking and playing. When the new student feels strong and connected, you, or your helper, can move on to another pair. A buddy system is much stronger than a group system. Having individual attention builds confidence. If a child is just one in a group, they will tend to become lonely and disjointed.
Solution# 3: Build strong, committed Christian relationships with your students. Talk to them, paint with them, play legos, read a book with them, focus on the children and not your colleagues. You are there to build a relationship with your students to model the love of Christ. Time is the only factor that builds a relationship, and yours is precious. You only have a few short minutes to create that relationship, so make those minutes focused and fun.
Solution #4: Between Sundays, send a note to your students. Be prepared to do this by having the parents fill out an information card as they arrive. As a teacher I would send birthday cards to every one of my 150 students. I made a point to call home just to tell their parents how much I appreciated their child in my class. I would write notes congratulating my students on big and small successes, and I would let them know how much I valued them as a person. This small, but significant, gesture will create a bond between you and your students.
Solution #5 Talk to the parents. When it is time for your students to go home, take a moment to tell each parent (in front of the child) how wonderful the child is (regardless of any mishaps.) Tell the parents you appreciated the child’s input, creativeness, and kindness, or whatever you can muster to lift that child in front of his or her parents. Then kneel down and thank that child for joining you today and tell them sincerely that you would love to see them next week.
Solution #6: Keep your teachers in a longer rotation; one month or more at a time. This may seem hard, one month on, one month off, but the rewards are immeasurable. Students become comfortable with their teachers; teachers understand and can meet the needs of their students. Simple fact: Consistency is the key to a relationship; relationships are the key to learning.
4. I’m bored. This problem is epidemic. It is so large it deserves books and seminars and doctoral thesis time devoted to it. Kids become bored for many reasons. It could be our fast paced, reward society. It could be video game mentalities and too much television. It could be shoddy curriculum that is not age appropriate; it presents too much or too little, too fast, or too slow. To complicate matters, each child becomes bored for a different reason. Yet there are solutions.
Solution #1: Pick a curriculum, subject matter, or method that you feel passionate about. This isn’t your ordinary passion that creeps in after an effective seminar; this is searching yourself for the angle that really lights up your passion. Perhaps you like music and really love to teach through it, then teach that way. Do you like history- then teach from that angle. Do you like to build things? Then teach through manipulatives. Do you like to read and feel strength through literature? Then teach through that. It is not a mystery what makes a great teacher. The teachers that are best are those who teach through their passions. It doesn’t matter that the kids don’t have your angle, passion is contagious. Once you are teaching with your strengths leading the way, they will be there because you will light up.
There is no one right curriculum. There is no one way to teach. There is no perfect classroom, only very, very passionate and excited teachers who bring their talents to the table and really teach.
So, think about what you love- if you had no barriers to teaching the way you wanted to, how would you teach? What would you do? How would you get your message to your kids?
It is not about reinventing the wheel- there are plenty of tools to help you out there on the internet, in books, in various curriculums, at curriculum fairs, and the local library. Just figure out how to teach the way you want to. If you teach with passion, your kids won’t be bored.
Solution #2 Give your students a choice. There are times for choices, and there are times to comply. Give your students time to make choices. For example, at the beginning of my classes, I always allow for 20 minutes of free time with plenty of choices to work on. (See above.) If I hear a student complain that they are bored, or read the behavioral signs that they are bored, I’ll ask them what they would like to see as a choice. Children are reasonable if you treat them with reason. They understand they can’t have a giant jumping blow up castle in a Sunday school classroom, but they compromise and ask for something else they might like. Then if it is more than our budget allows, or not easily attainable, I’ll ask the congregation to look around their houses or at sales to see if they can find it. More often then not, just making an attempt to listen and respond to a bored child will help the situation. Many times, they will bring in the item or activity the next week to do with me!
5. I don’t like you. The last major reason children hate church is that they understand what we deny: some people just don’t like kids and shouldn’t be teaching Sunday school. This subject is difficult to address because most Sunday school workers are volunteers, many work with children as a profession, yet they don’t care for the experience, and the children know it.
Solution #1: This is the hard one: Fire them. This isn’t to say that children have all the control, but let’s be realistic, shall we? Let’s call the spade a spade; we all know there are bad teachers out there. Have the courage that the public school system does not and fire the bad teachers. Replace them with kid loving folks. They might not be as experienced, but this will certainly solve a major problem in your classroom.
Solution #2: Give your workers a break. Sometimes being overworked and overcommitted creates burn-out, which reflects itself in the classroom. Create limits on the commitments of your volunteers. Every six months give them the option of moving to a different class or volunteer opportunity. Also, listen when they complain about the commitment. It is harmful to keep an unwilling volunteer in your classes because you are short handed. It would be better to close your classrooms and let the parents honestly know the reason why.

So, that’s it. If you implement these changes in your classroom on Sunday, you will see a difference. It may take a little while for children to start trusting the situation, but eventually they will and more importantly, you will soon have eager, happy children racing into your classrooms and into your arms! There is no bigger joy than that.