Posts Tagged ‘Children’

I’m bored!

20th of July, 2010, by Cadu.

I happen to talk regularly to a few preteens during the week, and one thing that I hear a lot from them is that they are bored. Every time I hear then complaining about it I feel sad and think “But how? How can you be bored??”. I don’t think I ever felt like that when I was a kid or a preteen. Seriously, this often bugs me so much that I try to remember how I felt when I was bored, and I am never able to remember a time when I felt like that…

bored... by RedHand (http://www.flickr.com/photos/redhand/2870546896/)

Even though I have a sister, I used to spend a lot of time on my own, and when I was not playing with her I always had something to do. And when I didn’t have something to do, I invented something. I never had a video game (until two years ago when I bought a Nintendo DS)… but I had a chemistry set; I liked to do experiments with plants and insects; I took an electronics course by mail; I played with matches and fire; I looked at my own sperm in the microscope (too much information perhaps, but still interesting); I learned BASIC; I tried to make a rocket (that turned out to be more like a fragmentation grenade that thankfully didn’t explode) and tried to make trinitroglycerine with a friend as crazy as me (which also didn’t explode, very sad…); I learned sewing, counted cross-stitching and knitting; I opened (and never closed) electronics and toys (and sometimes made something new from their spare parts); I recorded funny things on tape; I made some short films (and I didn’t have YouTube to publish them); and when I ran out of things to do, I found new ones…

Sometimes I try to compare their times with my times, and it looks to me that they have more alternatives to “waste” their spare time than I did years ago. They can do everything I could do, plus all the games and entertainment that is available today. They can even learn Python instead of BASIC! And yet, they are bored…

While I have some theories to explain why this is happening, I don’t have a concise explanation. Sometimes I think that all the technology and entertainment options available today is the reason why they get bored so easily, but I might be wrong. And that is where you come in to the discussion! If you have any ideas, any theories that could explain it, please say so in the comments… or if you read any recent research paper on this topic, please let everyone know about it! Also, if you have a solution for it, I will be very happy to know it!

I will probably write another post on this topic in the future, hopefully with more answers than questions.

Cadu

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Posted in Children, Psychology | 1 Comment » --------

Review 17th: Libera

17th of March, 2010, by Cadu.

Today is the 17th (at least where I live) and since 17 is a prime number it is time for a new post! And to make things more simple complicated, I decided that the 2nd and the 17th will be dedicated for reviews (books, music, movies, blogs, whatever I feel like reviewing…)!

Today I want to talk about Libera, an alternative kind of boy band, as they describe themselves. They are a British vocal band of boys that sing unique arranged songs that sometimes remind me of Gregorian chants. Libera is a latin word that means “free”, and while many of their songs are (partially or fully) in Latin, they also sing contemporary songs including their own compositions. Musically speaking, I think they are incredible and their voices and harmonies are perfect. Theologically speaking, ignoring the songs about Mary, some of their songs bring me into a place of worship and awe before the Holiness and Majesty of God.

My favourite songs are “Sanctus”, “Libera”, “Love and Mercy” and “Time”, from their new album “Peace” that should be released already. You can listen to their album “Peace” for free on their Amazon page. You can also visit their website www.libera.org.uk to buy their albums or donate.

See you again on the 19th! :)
Cadu

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Posted in Children, Music, Poetry, Reviews | No Comments » --------

Help Haiti!

17th of January, 2010, by Cadu.

Haiti Donate Online

I imagine all of you know about the massive earthquake that affected Haiti, specially the regions around Port-au-Prince. Lots of people died, and some people estimate that the number of deaths will be around 200,000…

I really encourage you to help! Either by praying for them, by going there (I wish I could), or by giving money to some good organisation that is helping the people in Haiti. I already did, and my choice was Compassion.

I chose Compassion because they are already there for years, they have many Children Development Centres in Haiti, and they are focused in helping children and families, in Jesus’ name. Many of their Children Development Centres were affected, and possibly many of the sponsored children were injured or died because of the earthquake. They have a webpage with updates about the situation of Compassion partners in Haiti: http://blog.compassion.com/haiti-earthquake-update/.

If you can, I also encourage you to sponsor a child from Haiti once their operations there are back to normal.

Cadu

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Posted in Announcements, Children | No Comments » --------

Impacting Moments…

13th of December, 2009, by Cadu.

A number of weeks ago there was a leadership event for all the volunteers at our Church, and I served in the kids program. It was a Thursday evening, and not many kids came to the program. I ended up hanging out with a kid I didn’t know before… he likes soccer and I am from Brazil, we played for a while, talked for a bit and at some point of the program we prayed for each other. That was basically it. I serve at Voltage (for kids on Year 5 and 6 at school), and he is on Year 4, and that is the reason why I didn’t know him before.

A few weeks later I saw him at Church with his family and stopped to say hi. It turned out his mum already knew me as “the soccer player”, and she said that he talked about me for ages since that evening when we met.

I have to say I was very surprised that his mum heard about me, and that he talked about me for a while, since we hung out for only one evening, a couple of hours… it made me think about the impact we can have in a child’s life if we stop for just some moments and show interest in their lives.

If you stop to do the maths, if a child comes to church every week, he or she will spend about 110 hours at church in a whole year. That is 1.25% of the year, and it is almost 7 times less than the time this child will spend eating (about 8.5% of the year) and almost the same time this child will spend in the toilet (about 1.5% of the year)…

One of the things that God is teaching me this year is the art of being available so He can use me to make a difference in a child’s life. When I am serving in the kids program, if there is at least one child in the room, there I am, talking to them. The last thing you will see me doing during the kids program is hanging out with other leaders or doing something by myself.

We don’t have much time, but we can make the most out of the time we have. If we let God use us during those couple of hours that we have every weekend, we can be powerful instruments in His hands to make a huge difference in the lives of the children that come to our kids program. It is a simple choice that can change their lives forever!

Cadu

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Posted in Children, Deep, English, Truth | 2 Comments » --------

Pray for your children!

9th of November, 2009, by Cadu.

I was not born in a Christian family. In fact, I don’t know anyone from my extended family that is a Christian… and today, the only ones that follow Jesus are me, my mum and my sister. How did everything turn around?

Since I was 6 months old I had a baby sitter, Fátima. She was (and is) a Christian… a very strong Christian! She was a bit shy and didn’t really talked about Jesus with my mum or dad, but there was one thing she did: she prayed for us! She prayed for us in her bedroom, in her church, and while taking me and my sister for a walk… and she gave birth to me, my mum and my sister. We were born again! Because she prayed for us, today our lives are changed, and not only our lives, but the lives of everyone else me, my sister or my mum impacted and will still impact one day. Only God can count how many people this woman, my spiritual mother, blessed because of a simple and powerful thing: prayer.

How simple is that… to bring our children (real or spiritual) before God… to stand in the gap for them when maybe no one else will… to profecy blessing over their lives! Sometimes we strive to make things happen in our kids’ lives, strive to change things by our own strength, strive to make them sit down and pay attention to whatever we are saying, and forget about praying for them… but there is nothing more powerful than just shutting up, calming down, and bringing their lives before God.

I had (and still have) problems remembering kids names… Sometimes I know a child for months, they all know my name, but I don’t know their names… it is terrible, yes. But since Hillsong Conference this year I decided to change: I started to write down the names of the kids I know, and the names of the kids I meet every weekend. After the service, I go through the list and check who was there and who wasn’t, how much time I spent with each kid and so on. Before the service I have a look and think about who I expect to be there. But the most powerful thing is what happens to this list during my week… sometimes when I am praying, I just go through the list, and pray for each child in that list… I think about them, remember the good and not so good things that are happening in their lives, and I just bring all that before God, and I know that if I care, God cares much much more! They are His children, and He actually wants them to be blessed, succeed, be empowered, be happy and transformed by Him.

As Fátima’s prayers changed my life, I know that my prayers are changing the lives of the kids I pray for. Most of the time, I have no idea what is happening because of my prayers, but I KNOW that God is moving, turning situations around and changing their lives forever! Only God can do this kind of stuff! I can’t change their lives… I can’t be with them while they are crying at night because of whatever problem they might have. But I can pray! And God will do everything to be with them, love them and impact their lives forever!

How about you? How often do you pray for your children?

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Posted in Children, Deep, English, Truth | 1 Comment » --------