Quiet Toys For Church
By Jennifer Hsu, Senior Staff Writer, Mormonchic.com

Whether you have morning, afternoon, or the unfortunate luck of the evening church meeting block (two of the wards in my stake meet at 4 p.m.-wouldn't you just die?) keeping your young children reverent and quiet during sacrament meeting can be a challenge. All your Family Home Evening lessons about reverence will eventually pay off and you shouldn't feel the need to entertain your children once they get a little older, but your little ones will need a little encouragement to stay quiet and close by you during church meetings.

We teach our children to be quiet first and reverent second, but reverence is the ultimate goal we are hoping to achieve when we provide quiet activities for our children. We know that even if our children are too young to understand reverence that we don't want to distract from the tone of the meeting and make it difficult for others to feel reverence in our meetings.

In his October 1991 General Conference talk "Reverence Invites Revelation," President Boyd K. Packer stated, "Our sacrament and other meetings need renewed attention to assure that they are truly worship services in which members may be spiritually nourished and have their testimonies replenished and in which investigators may feel the inspiration essential to spiritual conversion.

"Our meetinghouses are designed so that we may enjoy socials, dancing, drama, even sports. All of these are important. But these auxiliary activities should be subdued when compared with what the world is doing. Music, dress, and conduct associated with them are quite different from what is appropriate in the chapel or classroom on the Sabbath day.

"When we return for Sunday meetings, the music, dress, and conduct should be appropriate for worship. Foyers are built into our chapels to allow for the greeting and chatter that are typical of people who love one another. However, when we step into the chapel, we must!-each of us must-watch ourselves lest we be guilty of intruding when someone is struggling to feel delicate spiritual communications."

I have asked several of my friends with children and grandchildren and compiled their suggestions for keeping children quiet during church.

Variety
Set aside certain toys and activities as "church only." This is helpful for two reasons. First, your child won't get used to making sounds while playing with the toy. Second, your child won't really get used to the toy at all because they only see them for an hour each week. Also, don't take the same set of toys to church every week. Have a box with a dozen or so options and choose three or four each week so that your child doesn't get bored with individual items easily.

Beware the Round & Squeaky Toy
It is inevitable that the toys that you bring for your children will end up on the floor. Save yourself some clean-up time, and save those sitting next to you from constantly having to return your toys, by not bringing round toys. They WILL fall, and they WILL roll. The same goes for toys that are squeaky or have bells/chimes/jingles of any sort. You may think your child can play with the toy without making it sound, but you are wrong. And even semi-soft sounds from a toy sound so out of place in sacrament meeting that you are sure to distract those seated closest to you.

Trade Supervisory Responsibilities
In the same conference talk quoted above, President Boyd K. Packer stated, "The reverence we speak of does not equate with absolute silence. We must be tolerant of little babies, even an occasional outburst from a toddler being ushered out to keep him from disturbing the peace. Unless the father is on the stand, he should do the ushering." Interesting, no? At the very least, the father and mother should take turns watching the young ones, or divide them up and each watch one, or three, or seven.

Make Misbehaving an Unpleasant Option
I have seen too many parents take a disruptive child out of sacrament meeting only to let the child run up and down the halls of the church.
While that is an easy option, I'm not sure it teaches the child to want to be in sacrament meeting. My dad was a huge advocate of making leaving the chapel as unpleasant as possible. If we were so loud/sassy/disruptive that we needed to be taken from the chapel he would take us into an empty classroom and we would have to sit (firmly restrained) quietly on his lap until we were ready to go back into the chapel and be reverent. Sitting quietly with no stimulation is not fun for any child. We learned quickly that it was better to just behave in the chapel so that we could stay where the toys/snacks/ everyone else was.

Snacks
You know better than I what your child likes to eat. When you pack snacks for church, though, keep the following in mind. Pack food in small containers, and only take as much as you think your children might eat. If the food comes from the store in a crinkly, crunchy bag, transfer the food to a quiet Ziploc bag. Avoid snacks that crunch when eaten, or that have a distinctive smell that will distract those around (popcorn and oranges, for example, have a very noticeable smell). Food that is small or bite-sized is best so that you don't make a mess. For example, Teddy Grahams, or something comparable, would be better than whole graham crackers because they don't make as many crumbs when eaten.

Toy Suggestions

Pipe Cleaners
Pack a Ziploc bag with a dozen or two of colorful pipe cleaners. They are completely silent and can be twisted and bent into limitless shapes.

Crayons and Paper The major downside of having your child color during church is that the activity needs to be pretty well supervised. Oh, the nightmare of thinking that little Susie is coloring on a piece of paper, only to look over and realize that she is really illustrating the hymn book! Tidy as they might try to be, it is easy for crayon marks to end up on the pews, carpet, and church books if you are not careful. That having been said, almost all children can be entertained for a little while with a page out of a coloring book or a blank piece of paper and eight crayon colors. Buying coloring books that are the size of half a sheet of

Funstuf from The Friend Magazine
Photocopy, (or just tear out) the Funstuf pages from The Friend magazine. You can even print off the Funstuf pages from previous issues of the magazine from the Church website. From www.lds.org, select Gospel Library from the menu options on the left, then Church Publications PDF, from the next menu, then select The Friend magazine. The Church has monthly issues from the current back to January 2001. Here is a more direct link.

Tangrams Often called "the oldest Chinese puzzle," tangrams are a game that your older children (ages 6-11) will find challenging. The puzzle is to take seven specific geometric shapes, called tans, and form different shapes using all the pieces. Directions for making your own set can be found at: mathforum.org or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram.You can also find several basic shapes like these online or purchase a book.

To help you make your own, we've drawn a few simple tangram games to get your creative juices flowing!

Magnetic Friends
Smethport Specialty Co. makes a variety of magnetic friends, the most popular of which is Wooly Willy. You know the ones, right? Where you use a pencil-sized magnet to move shards of something onto Willy's face, forming a beard or really bushy eyebrows? I knew you would remember. If you need further memory jogging, visit their website www.smethporttoy.com. My sister found several for $1 each at her local grocery story, so I'm optimistic that they are not too hard to find.

Quiet Books
Basically a soft book with pages of activities, my mom made quiet books for us when we were little, and my sister makes them now for her children. The benefit of the quiet book is that there are usually several pages with assorted activities to entertain your child. You can find directions on making a quiet book by following this link:
http://www.mormonchic.com/crafty/quietbook_church.asp

Picture book of family and friends
I have seen many families who bring small photo albums to church for their children to look through. The children enjoy seeing the familiar faces. You can also make your own flip book that has not only family pictures, but also gospel art and pictures. From this previous Mormonchic article, it is basically combining the Church Picture Book and the Photo Album for Baby.
http://www.mormonchic.com/mommy/quiet_books.asp.

Excellent related talks. I wish that I could write such good advice.
"Children in Church," Ensign, Mar. 1982, 42 Chris Crowe,
"Enjoying Sacrament Meeting with Children," Ensign, July 1989, 40 Pam Williams,
"The Little Loud Ones," Ensign, Jan. 1978, 57

What has worked
for you?

"The best thing for my kids during church is puzzles. I buy those cheap cardboard puzzles (8 1/2 x 11) and then put them in a freezer Ziploc so that all the pieces are kept together. Plus then you can dump the pieces in the bag while they do the puzzle. If you look hard, you can even find scripture/church related puzzles. I have found cardboard puzzles by the checkouts at Wal-Mart."

- Amy Pitcher, Springlake 4th Ward, Payson Utah South Stake

"I have found that stickers are great for sacrament meeting. My kids love taking them off and sticking them on paper and then coloring around them. We seem to collect a lot of random stickers so this is also a great way to get rid of all of the extras. We've even used the free address labels that come in the mail."

- Ginet Owen, Colorado Springs 13th Ward, Colorado Springs North Stake

"When our five children were young, they enjoyed looking at pictures of themselves and family, friends and pets. We purchased inexpensive small picture books and added our own pictures. As our children got a little older, instead of filling Easter Baskets with so much candy, we started adding small notebooks and a fun pencil in each basket. Our five kids enjoyed being creative and drawing their own pictures during sacrament meeting."

- Cheryl Slaugh, Indian Creek Ward,
Lenexa Kansas Stake

"When my bag of entertainment fails to quiet my 3 and 4 year old, I have them look around and we talk about what we see (in quiet whispers of course). I call their attention to the bishop sitting up front and ask what color the bishop's tie is. Or we look at the flowers in front and talk about the colors we see. Or I point out the deacons passing the sacrament and talk about how quiet they are being and if the water trays might be heavy or what color their clothes are or what row they will go to next. Sometimes we look at the other small children in the pews and talk about what they are doing and if that is appropriate for sacrament meeting."

- Heidi Hallam, Iowa City 1st Ward,
Iowa City Stake

"Okay, I know I am from a different generation (it is my grandchildren that are the noisy ones in church these days), and we did use quiet books and coloring books, but mostly what worked was the threat of having to sit on the couch, arms folded, not saying a word in the living room when we got home for however long they were irreverent for. But, it really is a rare occasion that "they are quiet and well behaved during the entire meeting"!! Dream on!! I have watched the next generation in my family do all that has been mentioned, but they also have little snacks like fruit snacks or crackers. The kids seem to stay calmer if there are plenty of snacks."

- Karen Pingel, Salem 12th Ward,
Salem Utah West Stake

“After having six children I have found that the best way to keep my little ones quiet on Sunday is to have a small hands-on quiet toy which is different each Sunday. Whether it is a coloring book and crayons, a quiet book with snaps and buttons, or a little bag of Cheerios, it doesn't matter. I just keep rotating the activity so that they only get it every month or so and they are excited to see again. I keep these things separate from their normal toys so that they only get to use them during church to keep them entertained and quiet as long as possible.”

- Karla Nye, N. Ogden 7th Ward,
North Ogden Utah Stake

Other Mormonchic.com
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Crafty Chic File Folder Games

Crafty Chic Making a Gospel Quietbook

Crafty Chc Tote Bags!

Gospel Chic Teaching Kids Reverence

Mommy Chic Keeping Kids Quiet During Conference