Keeping Quiet in Sacrament Meeting

Someone asked me the other day how to keep kids quiet in Sacrament Meeting.  Ha ha.  What a question!  But, what an appropriate question.  So, I thought about it and came up with a couple things (in no particular order) that you can do to help keep your kids - especially your kids with special needs - still and quiet (or more still and quiet, ha ha) in church.

1.  Read the Cues.  In any situation, it is crucial to read a child's cues.  You really need to assess what the child is interested in, what they are definitely not interested in, what is distracting to them (sights? sounds? touch?).  You want to see what things calm them down, what things rev them up.  Try to determine BEFORE they lose it what their energy looks like and what their patterns say it will turn in to.

2.  Think ahead.  By reading cues, you can start to think ahead.  Try to determine what your child is thinking and what they may do.  Stay two steps ahead.  Consider patterns from the past and use those as cues while you're thinking forward.  Try to predict the next move by your child before they do it.  Getting into the habit of thinking this way will start to get you thinking and acting proactively instead of reactively.

3.  Be prepared.  By thinking ahead and reading your child's cues in all areas of life, you'll be better able to prepare for situations specific to Sacrament Meeting.  If your child is a busy body, you'll be prepared with busy activities - lacing activities, coloring pages, bouncing on the knees, play doh or silly putty, things with fun textures or fabrics.  If you're child is a singer, you'll be prepared with song books that you can quietly sing into their ear or with soft tickling that you can use in a rocking rhythm.  If your child is super visual you will be prepared with books, crayons, colors, and a simple whispers about different things happening in the chapel.  Think about materials that absorb your child and think about why.  Then use those same attributes and find them in a myriad of toys or activities.

4.  Counter balance.  Is your child all over the place?  And does it make you anxious?  Do you start moving as fast as they do?  Snapping at them?  Watch your motions - are they chaotic?  Quick?  Do they express a nervous or frustrated energy?  Be careful because we often respond to certain energy states with the same energy state.  If we want that energy state to change, we need to guide it.  If your child is all over, be slow, be deliberate, be calm.  Oftentimes your child will follow.  Be predictable.  Often, I will try to catch my child's attention by being super expressive and making them think I have some awesome surprise (which I do...) and when they are motivated enough to find out what it is, I slow down and force them to wait and slow with me using that calm, yet enticing suspense.  Sometimes you must match your child's energy first - being quicker, more excited, and enticing them by mirroring them.  Then, when you slowly pull down your energy, your child will follow.  This is often something you do before Sacrament Meeting - getting silly and exciting with them and starting to perfect the amount of time it will take you to pull them down.

5.  Pick your battles.  Your child may not be the perfect, obedient, quiet child you dream of immediately.  Make a list.  What do you ultimately want your child to do?  Sit still?  Think of Jesus?  Cuddle with you?  Lay down on the bench?  Sit straight up with arms folded the whole time?  Not talk during the actual Sacrament?  Close their eyes during the prayer?  Really, make a list.  What, if your child was perfect, would you like your child to do?  Then, go back through the list and get rid of the ones that will never happen... no matter what child it is... (i.e. sit straight up with arms folded the whole time.... YOU don't even do that!).  Once you have a list of goals - things you are really hoping to see in Sacrament, order them.  What's the most attainable step first?  We're not going to do them all.  We will pick our battles - and do ONE thing.  How about sit quietly on your lap or on the bench during the Sacrament Prayer for the bread.  That's it.  Just the prayer.  Then you can work up to the passing of the bread.  Then the bread AND the prayer for the water... you get the picture.  Break it down as SMALL as you can and make that a goal.  One, you will feel success and two, they will feel your pride.  For some kids, I actually make the goal WITH them and we get to mark it off when we are successful.  For some kids, I just work on my own actions and ensure I can actually support them through it first before putting the goal on them.

6.  Build upon successes.  Once you have a small goal in mind, work slowly on it.  Analyze to make sure that you haven't shot beyond the mark.  You never want to make a goal you will never succeed in.  Look for successes.  Make a sticker chart for yourself.  "YES!  I get a sticker!  I was able to think ahead and pull my child onto my lap, singing into their ear before they sang into the whole chapel!"  If you really break things down in small steps, you will start to be able to see success and to build piece by piece onto that.  Like stated above - start with the bread prayer, then the whole bread ordinance, then the water prayer, then the water ordinance, then the WHOLE Sacrament.  Stay positive and if you start feeling like a failure, go back to your list, break it down and try again.

7.  Drop your pride and focus on love.  The hardest thing for me to do is to stop worrying about everyone else.  "They're gonna think I can't control my kids," "I am killing the Spirit," "I can't get my child to sit still, so everyone thinks I'm not teaching them about Jesus."  It is hard to feel embarrassed because you're loud or your kids are unpredictable or your small successes cannot be seen by others because even though you're succeeding, it still looks like you're in the hall 80% of the time.  This is where I rely on God.  A LOT.  Pray before telling Heavenly Father about the plans that you have to move forward with your goals and ask Him to help you NOT feel overwhelmed by the eyes around you.  Have Him help you to forget your pride of all those watching and wondering and to just put your focus on your child and the love you have for them.  They need to learn to control their bodies - each child to a different extent, depending on their own individual challenges - and that is the MOST important thing.  If it's REALLY hard, try to find a place where you and your child can feel less overwhelmed (in the back or near the doors, etc.).  Maybe utilize visiting teachers or friends or family to help with the other children as you focus on the one.

8.  Make it worth it.  If your child is being told to do something unnatural to them (sit still and listen to language that is WAY over their head in Sacrament Meeting for example), then we need to make it worth it.  We want our kids to feel the Spirit, but we need to recognize that may be in a different way than us.  We need to realize that our kids will feel loved, safe and ready to learn if we truly see what things they need and help provide that.  For some kids, it may be a bag of plastic animals.  For others, it may be a flashlight.  For others, a book.  Do what needs to happen to help them feel happy (not spoiled, but happy) so that they are open to God's love and yours.

9.  Practice creativity.  Start thinking outside the box.  We always bring our kids coloring books, books with pictures of Christ, small stuffed animals or toys... but what can we bring that will help our kids in ways that we never thought of?  How about a bag with a little cold, colorful paint (duct taped up, of course) that they can draw using their fingers?  How about a water bottle (again super glued shut!) with water and glitter that can intrigue a child with it's patterns and light?  Get creative.  Think outside the box.  See patterns (ex: my child really likes cold, stretchy, sticky textures) and use those patterns to find things that will support your child's attention and interest - like silly putty or rubber bands or those little squishy balls (especially if you threw them in the fridge right before you came).

10.  Make it special.  This goes right along with the "make it worth it" point.  I remember when I was little, my Mom wouldn't let us have any toys until after the Sacrament was over (this was appropriate for us as kids - it may not be appropriate for your children... don't compare, just consider your individual needs).  Anyway, we would wait and wait and wait because we knew if we were reverent and did our best to think of Jesus, when Sacrament was over we got the "Sunday bag."  In this bag there were special toys that we only got to see on Sunday.  Periodically they would change and new toys would fill our world!  They were all towards our individual needs - I always had books and things to write with (different notebooks and writing utensils would show up...) whereas my little sister needed little action figures (sometimes they were church related and sometimes they weren't... ha ha).  This made us have something special to look forward to - which is what church is.  It is a special time for us to feel God's love and be happy.  By helping a child organize their bodies and have appropriate materials to help them keep themselves together they will be prepared to hear God in a Sabbath type of way.  We create an environment by focusing on small, simple steps that walk us towards goals for our children and help them see that Sunday is special.

Okay, that whole thing was wordy.  I hope it helped in some little way!  Good luck!