Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I have one of the cushiest jobs in my Church. I’m a nursery leader for the one to three year olds! I prepare a 30 second lesson, bring a picture for the kids to artfully scribble on, some home made play dough for making messes and a little bubble machine for the criers. How easy is that? I get to read stories, wrestle crying toddlers from their mother’s bodies, eat snacks and nobody talks back to me. There is just nothing more delightful than watching a room full of small children bouncing off the walls, the tables and each other. It’s a two hour party every week!

Things were going great until one day, when an evil thought crept into my head. I should be doing more! We should be doing crafts and telling Bible stories with finger puppets! We should be taking nature walks and memorizing scriptures! I would have to start researching this on the internet right away! What are all the other cool nursery leaders out there doing with their classes? If we didn’t catch up our kids were going to get behind! What would the Sunbeam teacher think when the nursery kids moved up into her class so unprepared for life?

Luckily I came to my senses when my husband asked me why the three year olds weren’t reading yet. I obviously wasn’t doing my job, he said, if they didn’t all know their shapes, and letters by this time. What??? Are we talking about nursery here or pre-med? Maybe next week I’ll bring some frogs for them to dissect with safety scalpels.

The truth is that I don’t need to do more to be a great nursery leader. I just have to do enough. The kids are happy, we keep them busy and that’s enough. Enough with trying to be more, do more and everything in between. You don’t need to schedule more guilt into your life. Just do enough!

[tags]kids, children, nursery school, teaching, childcare, work, effort, earnest, guilt, enough[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by mondopanno, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved