Holiday Activities

Here is a great website that has heaps of information about holiday activities, outings and how to keep the children entertained through-out the holidays.

Kiwi Families

Thriving Families has some ideas for building in a faith idea each day during the holidays.

Family Service To The Community

Add your comments about family service projects you have done recently, or something you might try in the next couple of months!

Just click on comment and follow the instructions.

Family Service Project

TakeItHome October Idea: Family Service Project.

This month, as the weather warms up, the challenge to us is to find a service project to do with your family. Make sure you involve the whole family in your project! 

Some examples:

• helping an elderly or single parent neighbour clean up their section ready for summer. 
• if someone you know works in a rest-home, ask if you can help serve morning or afternoon tea and chat with some of the people there.
• put a bin in your living room where your family can add grocery items to give (as a family) to the local foodbank.
• go through your clothes and toys and put together a box of good quality gear to take to the salvation army store.
• clean up the rubbish at a local park.
• make a meal together and deliver it to a single parent, elderly neighbour or family who have just had a baby.

Website with other ideas: 30 Excellent Ways To Make A Difference

If you have the resources to do the following, why not try this. Have a family discussion about the charities and aid organisations in your local area who need help. Pick the top 6. Then, for the next month, choose one charity and collect goods that they would need, placing them into a bin in a prominent place in your house (so it doesn't get forgotten). At the end of the month, phone the charity to ask if you could deliver the goods and have a talk about what they do with the whole family. Repeat with a different charity. You may need to call the charity at the beginning of the month to ask what they need. This is a good way for your children to discover whether they have a passion to volunteer for the particular charity in the future. Examples include: Foodbank, women's refuge, SPCA, hospice, foundation of the blind...

What is Faith@Home?

 I thought it might be a good time to ensure we are all on the same page and we all understand the intention of Faith@Home. Firstly, it is nothing new and it is not a program. Christians have passed their faith onto the younger generation for generations and this is really the bottom line of Faith@Home - passing our faith on to the next generation. But how do we do that? The greatest influence on our children is how they see us (their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and parents’ friends) living out our faith every day, after we leave church. They will catch faith from us, not learn it from what we say or books we read or children’s church or youth group (although these can be influential). How we act, talk, what we watch and listen to, how we communicate with our spouse when we are outside the influence of church has the greatest influence on our children’s faith. What is one thing you could change this week that would bring you closer to Christ? That’s what will influence your children for Christ.

TakeItHome September idea: Blessing your children.

Watch the video of Mark Holmen talking about blessing your children found here:

http://www.thrivingfamily.com/Features/Web/2011/how-to-bless-your-kids.aspx

The priestly blessing is found in Numbers 6:24-26. Start blessing your children today.

Filtering Software - Blocking The Rubbish

Andre asked a great question:

What software etc. is available to block undesirable web sites while surfing on the net? I know schools use certain programs to protect students. Do you have any recomendations?

About 6 years ago we decided to go with Maxnet (recently acquired by Vocus) because they had a filtering system called Net Guardian. It works well to block undesirable content.

Watchdog provide a similar service where they can operate as your provider as well, or they can work with your existing internet provider with their filtering system.

Both of these cost around $5 per month.

Advantages of a service provider filtering system:

• you don't need to load software on your computer and ensure it is maintained 
• the cost is spread out over the year
• they take care of updates (usually daily)

Software solutions include Net Nanny, McAfee Family Protection and a number of others. Net Nanny seems to get the best reviews, but I have had no experience with using the software.

These cost about $100 and will need to be renewed each year to keep up to date.

Advantages of software solutions:

• You have control of who can view what
• You can set up a white list (allowed) or a black list (not allowed) account
• Usually they also come with computer use time control software
• Lists of visited sites can be sent to an email address for review.

Don't forget the IPOD, IPAD, IPHONE, SmartPhone and Tablet you may have. Software is available for these too. An article in the New York Times is a must read if you have these devices at home.

Cybersafety

There is much to be said about keeping our children safe. It used to be that when they were home and the doors closed, they were safe from those outside our influence. This is no longer the case. Cell phones and mobile devices connected via wireless internet connections in the home can be useful, but they can also provide opportunity for our children to be reached at any time of the day or night. Here are some tips for helping your children to stay safe, or at least reduce the potential risk.

Talk these over with your children, as appropriate.

1. NEVER share passwords. Even best friends can let us down. 
2. NEVER pass on a personal message you receive about another person.
3. Remember that as soon as you put something on the internet, you lose control of it.
4. Think carefully about any comment you make through on-line, email or text and run it through the Philippians 4:8 test:  "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true,whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
5. Online friends may not be who they say they are.
6. Ensure your Facebook and other sites' privacy settings are set correctly - friends only, and only accept those who are your friends.
7. Would your mother and father be happy if they read your profile?

Here are two online resources you could use with your children to discuss this further.

• NSTEENS - good discussion starters, video and activities
• Netsafe is a New Zealand site about cyber safety

Bryce Jourdain

I attended Bryce Jourdain's memorial service on Saturday. Bryce was the TOPEC (Taranaki Outdoor Pursuit and Education Centre) instructor who died on the 8th August at Paritutu when he jumped into the sea to attempt to save the two students who fell during a rock climbing activity. His body and the body of one of the students have never been found. Bryce had a wife and two primary age children. It was an emotional 2 hours, and any who didn't shed a tear at some stage would have to be pretty hard. Bryce had a faith in God and those who spoke described him as a man who loved his family, God's creation and God.

I was reminded again of how important every moment is with our families. You never know what tomorrow will bring. You don't know what will happen next week. If something were to happen, would you have regrets?

Live your life in such a way that in the end there will be no regrets.

What would that look like for you and your family?