The Ten Best Ways for Parents

Godly Play, Jerome Berryman's interpretation of Montessori religious education, is an imaginative approach to working with children. This approach supports, challenges, nourishes and helps guide their spiritual quest. Godly Play assumes that children have some experience of the mystery of God's presence in their lives, but that they lack the language, permission and understanding to express and enjoy that spiritual experience in our secular culture. In Godly Play, we enter into our parables, sacred stories, silence and liturgy in order to discover God, ourselves, one another, and the world around us.

One Godly Play lesson tells children about the Ten Best Ways to live. This is the story of the Ten Commandments that God gave to God's People. Here we offer Ten Best Ways for Parents–not commandments, but ways we invite you, the parent, to share more fully in your child's Godly Play experience.

  1. Please help your children arrive a few minutes early. Godly Play sessions take place on Sunday mornings, 10:20 a.m. – 11:10 a.m.
  2. Please allow the "Door Keeper" to encourage your child to get ready as they wait outside the door. The Godly Play circle is built slowly and lovingly, to welcome each child, one at a time.
  3. Please say goodbye in the hallway, and know that the teachers will make the next hour a safe and welcoming time for every child.
  4. Please make special arrangements at the beginning of class should you need to pick up your child early.
  5. When you pick up your child, keep in mind that young children will not always be able to tell you what they learned–what they learned was how to learn about the powerful language of the Christian people. Some things cannot be put into words, even by adults.
  6. Please be conscientious about interacting with your child after class, keeping in mind that children will not always be able to show you a physical product for their "work" each day.
  7. Please remember that in Godly Play, the children focus on their relationship with God and with other children in the Godly Play community. Adults, even teachers, keep their profiles low during a Godly Play session!
  8. Please take a Parent Page from the envelope near your child's classroom to learn more about the story of the day and the methodology and purpose of Godly Play.
  9. Please feel free to schedule a visit to your child's classroom. You are always welcome!
  10. Please volunteer to support teachers and the community of children through teacher luncheons, donations of materials or the making of various classroom materials!

For more information about Godly Play at Incarnation, please feel free to contact our Godly Play Coordinator, Anne Spradley.