Children's Prayers

    A mother was teaching her 3-year-old the Lord's prayer. For several evenings at bedtime she repeated it after her mother. One night she said she was ready to solo. The mother listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer. "Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us some e-mail, Amen."

    A woman invited some people over for dinner. At the table she turned to her six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" The girl replied, "I wouldn't know what to say." "Just say what you heard Mommy  say," the mother answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?

    A 5 year old boy was sitting down to eat when his mother asked him to pray for his meal. He replied, "Mom we don't have to. We prayed over this last night." His mother had prepared leftovers from the day before.

     A 4-year-old boy who was asked to return thanks before Christmas dinner. The family members bowed their heads in expectation. He began his prayer,  thanking God for all his friends, naming them one by one. Then he thanked God for Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister, Grandma, Grandpa, and all his aunts and uncles. Then he began to thank God for the food. He gave thanks for the turkey, the dressing, the fruit salad, the cranberry sauce, the pies, the cakes, even the Cool Whip. Then he paused, and everyone waited--and waited. After a long silence, the young fellow looked up at his mother and asked, "If I thank God for the broccoli, won't he know that I'm lying?"

    A daddy was listening to his child say his prayer "Dear Harold," At this, dad interrupted and said, "Wait a minute, "How come you called God, Harold? The little boy looked up and said, "That's what they call Him in church. You know the prayer we say, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, Harold be Thy name."

    One night Mike's parents overheard this prayer. "Now I lay me down to rest, and hope to pass tomorrow's test, if I should die before I wake, that's one less test I have to take."

    A five-year-old said grace at family dinner one night. "Dear God, thank you  for these pancakes." When he concluded, his parents asked him why he thanked God for pancakes when they were having chicken. He smiled and said, "I thought I'd see if He was paying attention tonight."

    A little boy's prayer: "Dear God, please take care of my daddy and my mommy and my sister and my brother and my doggy and me. Oh, please take care of yourself, God. If anything happens to you, we're gonna be in a big mess."

    Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room. After a while he emerged and informed his mother that he had thought it over and then said a prayer. "Fine," said the pleased mother. "If you ask God to help you not misbehave, He will help you." "Oh, I didn't ask Him to help me not misbehave," said Johnny. I asked Him to help you put up with me."

    A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if You can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am!"

    A little boy was saying his bedtime prayers with his mother: "Lord, bless Mommy and Daddy, and God, GIVE ME A NEW BICYCLE!!!" Mom: "God's not deaf, son." Boy: "I know, Mom, but Grandma's in the next room, and she's hard of hearing!

    Little Johnny was softly saying his night prayers kneeling down, and his mother was beside him. "Say your prayers louder, darling, I can't hear you," Said Little Johnny's mother. "But I'm not talking to you" was the instant reply.

    One Sunday in a Midwest city a young child was "acting up" during the  morning worship hour. The parents did their best to maintain some sense of order in the pew but were losing the battle. Finally the father picked the little fellow up and walked sternly up the aisle on his way out. Just before reaching the safety of the foyer the little one called loudly to the congregation, "Pray for me! Pray for me!"

    And this particular four-year-old prayed: "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

School Phone Menu

"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:

- To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

- To make excuses for why your child did not do his work - Press 2

- To complain about what we do - Press 3

- To swear at staff members - Press 4

- To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several fliers mailed to you - Press 5

- If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

- If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7

- To request another teacher, for the third time this year - Press 8

- To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

- To complain about school lunches - Press 0

- If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior,class work, homework and that it's not all the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!

Child's Definition of LOVE.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined.  See what you think:



"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.  So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too.  That's love." Rebecca - age 8

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.  You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4

Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time.  Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.  My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen," Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate," Nikka - age 6

"There are two kinds of love.  Our love.  God's love. But God makes both kinds of them." Jenny - age 8

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared.  I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.  He was the only one doing that.  I wasn't scared anymore," Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody.  You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine -age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross." Mark - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it.  But if you mean it, you should say it a lot.  People forget," Jessica - age 8


Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.  The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.  The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.  Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

The Top Ten Myths of Divorce

Discussion of the most common misinformation about divorce
David Popenoe

1. Because people learn from their bad experiences, second marriages tend to be more successful than first marriages.

 Although many people who divorce have successful subsequent marriages, the divorce rate of remarriages is in fact higher than that of first marriages.

2. Living together before marriage is a good way to reduce the chances of eventually divorcing.

 Many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have a considerably higher chance of eventually divorcing.  The reasons for this are not well understood.  In part, the type of people who are willing to cohabit may also be those who are more willing to divorce.  There is some evidence that the act of cohabitation itself generates attitudes in people that are more conducive to divorce, for example the attitude that relationships are temporary and easily can be ended.

 3. Divorce may cause problems for many of the children who are affected by it, but by and large these problems are not long lasting and the children recover relatively quickly.

Divorce increases the risk of interpersonal problems in children. There is evidence, both from small qualitative studies and from large-scale, long-term empirical studies, that many of these problems are long lasting.  In fact, they may even become worse in adulthood.

 4. Having a child together will help a couple to improve their marital satisfaction and prevent a divorce.

 Many studies have shown that the most stressful time in a marriage is after the first child is born.  Couples who have a child together have a slightly decreased risk of divorce compared to couples without children, but the decreased risk is far less than it used to be when parents with marital problems were more likely to stay together “for the sake of the children.”

 5. Following divorce, the woman’s standard of living plummets by seventy three percent while that of the man’s improves by forty two percent.

 This dramatic inequity, one of the most widely publicized statistics from the social sciences, was later found to be based on a faulty calculation.  A reanalysis of the data determined that the woman’s loss was twenty seven percent while the man’s gain was ten percent. Irrespective of the magnitude of the differences, the gender gap is real and seems not to have narrowed much in recent decades.

 6. When parents don’t get along, children are better off if their parents divorce than if they stay together.

   A recent large-scale, long-term study suggests otherwise.  While it found that parents’ marital unhappiness and discord have a broad negative impact on virtually every dimension of their children’s well-being, so does the fact of going through a divorce. In examining the negative impacts on children more closely, the study discovered that it was only the children in very high conflict homes who benefited from the conflict removal that divorce may bring.  In lower-conflict marriages that end in divorce—and the study found that perhaps as many as two thirds of the divorces were of this type—the situation of the children was made much worse following a divorce. Based on the findings of this study, therefore, except in the minority of high-conflict marriages it is better for the children if their parents stay together and work out their problems than if they divorce.

 7. Because they are more cautious in entering marital relationships and also have a strong determination to avoid the possibility of divorce, children who grow up in a home broken by divorce tend to have as much success in their own marriages as those from intact homes.

 Marriages of the children of divorce actually have a much higher rate of divorce than the marriages of children from intact families.  A major reason for this, according to a recent study, is that children learn about marital commitment or permanence by observing their parents. In the children of divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong marriage has been undermined.

 8. Following divorce, the children involved are better off in stepfamilies than in single-parent families.

 The evidence suggests that stepfamilies are no improvement over single-parent families, even though typically income levels are higher and there is a father figure in the home.  Stepfamilies tend to have their own set of problems, including interpersonal conflicts with new parent figures and a very high risk of family breakup.

 9. Being very unhappy at certain points in a marriage is a good sign that the marriage will eventually end in divorce.

 All marriages have their ups and downs.  Recent research using a large national sample found that eighty six percent of people who were unhappily married in the late 1980s, and stayed with the marriage, indicated when interviewed five years later that they were happier. Indeed, three fifths of the formerly unhappily married couples rated their marriages as either “very happy” or “quite happy.”

10.  It is usually men who initiate divorce proceedings

 Two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women.  One recent study found that many of the reasons for this have to do with the nature of our divorce laws.  For example, in most states women have a good chance of receiving custody of their children.  Because women more strongly want to keep their children with them, in states where there is a presumption of shared custody with the husband the percentage of women who initiate divorces is much lower. Also, the higher rate of women initiators is probably due to the fact that men are more likely to be "badly behaved." Husbands, for example, are more likely than wives to have problems with drinking, drug abuse, and infidelity.

Eid Al-Fitr

'Id Al-Fitr or Eid al-Fitr (Arabic for "Festival of the Breaking of the Fast") is one of Islam's two major festivals. It marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting, and is celebrated during the first three days of the month of Shawwal.

The festival "is distinguished by the performance of communal prayer (salat) at daybreak on its first day. It is a time of official receptions and private visits, when friends greet one another, presents are given, new clothes are worn, and the graves of relatives are visited."  The traditional greeting for 'Id Al-Fitr is "'Id Mabarak" ("May God make it a blessed feast").