Dinner Table Tales

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Scott

Thanksgiving dinner with our foreign exchange student – 2012

Sharing a meal with others is one of life’s great, relational, creative expressions. It goes without saying that mealtimes serve an essential practical purpose – that of nourishing our bodies – but at the same time, sharing a meal is (or can be) a spiritually meaningful and life-enhancing act.

Of course, growing up, I didn’t appreciate this. Our family ate dinner together every evening. This seemed to me to be a routine, mundane part of suburban life. I was more interested in finding a way around eating my helping of canned peas than in relating to my family in a positive way. But I believe the habit of eating together had a lasting and positive effect on me.

There is a proverb of Solomon that says, “Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife” (Prov 17:1.) We now know scientifically that stress and strife is bad for the digestion. By contrast, relaxing around a table as a nourishing act of mutual enjoyment, and as an expression of unity, is a God-ordained pleasure. It’s interesting that with the establishment of the New Covenant 2000 years ago, Jesus used a meal as a sign by which to remember the covenant; a covenant that was intended to be characterized by love and unity. This meal is often referred to as “the communion meal.”

On an everyday level, one of the best practices we can share as families is to practice the habit of sharing a meal together around the table, looking into each other’s faces, and seeking to enjoy each other’s company.

Meal sharing is an act of communion.

I read an interview in the late 80’s that for some reason stuck with me. Dweezil Zappa was talking about his then-upcoming TV show, “Normal Life,” co-starring his sister, Moon Unit. He said something like, “Our show is going to be about real families, where everyone eats their food in separate rooms in front of a TV.” As though families eating meals together is a cheesy Ozzie and Harriet thing that cool people don’t do.

Whatever. Being cool is overrated.

Eating with actual human beings
Sure, it takes more effort, but relationship is what life is all about, after all. Even as an unmarried college student in midtown Kansas City, when I lived in a 3-story house sharing rent with 6 other art students, this ethic came through. Enough of us had been raised this way that we determined that we wanted to create a community rather than simply serve as a cheap boarding house. One of the first things we decided toward this end was to share a meal together at least once a week.

When Mollie and I got married, we decided early on as our young family began to grow, that we would try to make it a practice to always eat meals together around the table as a family, with TVs and electronic devices turned off, and earphones pulled out.

A Story About Dinner and Art
Many years later, Mollie and I moved our family to Colorado so that we could pursue careers as fine artists. Some of our old college friends from the 3-story house, now a married couple and living in Loveland, had offered to let us stay with them for a few months until we could get ourselves established. They had 3 kids, and we had 5, and their house was probably too small for this endeavor. But they welcomed us in nonetheless.

One of the first things we did was to fix the situation with the dining room table. We knew we wanted to share meals together, and our host’s dining room table was too small for all 12 of us. So my friend Mike got a nice 4×8 ft board, and, since we were all artists, we decided to turn the table into a community art project involving all the kids.

We thought it would be fun to get everybody’s handprints on the table, as a small monument to our love and friendship. We had all the kids and adults interlace hands and arms around the table, something like this:

Then we spray-painted over everyone’s hands to create a handprint border around the edge of the table. (We first applied lotion to everyone’s hands so that the paint would come off easily.) On the underside of the table, each kid wrote their name under their handprints to identify them. Then, back on top, we helped the kids stencil some primitive animal shapes running through the center of the table to complete the design. I designed the stencils to be suggestive of Native American art imagery.

Below is a shot of the finished tabletop.

I will always fondly remember that crazy season of starting over in Colorado, made possible because of the friendship of this family.

Some sad observations from across the pond
I recently read an article by British doctor and psychiatrist, Anthony Daniels, who has worked extensively in some of Britain’s deeply impoverished areas. His duties required him to visit the homes of his patients, and to personally interview them. Daniels recounts some universal patterns he saw in Britain’s underclass:

“Everyone lived in households with a shifting cast of members, rather than in families. If there was an adult male resident, he was generally a bird of passage with a residence of his own somewhere else. He came and went as his fancy took him…

I should mention a rather startling fact: By the time they are 15 or 16, twice as many children in Britain have a television as have a biological father living at home…Few homes were without televisions with screens as large as a cinema – sometimes more than one – and they were never turned off, so that I often felt I was examining someone in a cinema rather than in a house. But what was curious was that these homes often had no means of cooking a meal, or any evidence of a meal ever having been cooked beyond the use of a microwave, and no place at which a meal could be eaten in a family fashion. The pattern of eating in such households was a kind of foraging in the refrigerator, as and when the mood took, with the food to be consumed sitting in front of one of the giant television screens.

Surveys have shown that a fifth of British children do not eat a meal more than once a week with another member of their household, and many homes do not have a dining room table. Needless to say, this pattern is concentrated in the lower reaches of society, where so elementary but fundamental a means of socialization is now unknown. Here I should mention in passing that in my hospital, the illegitimacy rate of the children born in it, except for those of Indian-subcontinental descent, was approaching 100 percent.”
(Imprimis: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass)

What a sobering glimpse of a government welfare state. The government has essentially become the household provider, the nuclear family has disintegrated, and there consequently isn’t even a table around which to share a meal.

Rise up and share a meal!
My purpose here is not to criticize Dweezil Zappa, or the underclass of Britain, or TV watching. My point is simply to encourage connection and communion within households. Whether you are living with family or friends, if you are currently not connecting with those around you, why not start the adventure now? If you are already committed to meal sharing with those you love, then may these thoughts serve as affirmation that you are doing a good thing. Keep it up, you crazy radicals!

Sometimes we do good things almost by accident, or by inertia, or habit. This is certainly better than not doing those things at all. However, at times I have found that doing those same things with intentionality and purpose reminds me to make the most of the moment. Meal sharing is one of those things. Reinforcing your values by reading stories regularly with your kids or grandkids is another. In this blog I’ll periodically share encouragement on other life-enhancing practices.

May God strengthen you to create a culture of life and love within your own family!
A Happy Thanksgiving to you,

Scott

(Tabletop detail.) Feel free to share a dinnertime story or memory below…

A Creativity Game To Play With Your Kids

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Scott

As an artist, I am sometimes asked by parents about how they can foster creativity in their kids. Do I teach children’s art classes? Can I recommend a great art curriculum for home-schoolers?

Ironically, since my wife and I are both professional artists we may not be the best people to ask. Art was simply part of the environment within which our kids grew up, and we naturally incorporated the arts into life because that’s what we do. I would say as a general rule, though, parental enthusiasm plays a big role in fostering creativity. My wife and I both happen to love children’s art, and we did get pretty enthusiastic when our kids would create things we thought were cool. We hung a lot of it, and saved some of it.

Perhaps indicative of our enthusiasm was that our most entrepreneurial son used to try to sell his drawings to people who would come over to our house. I suppose because that’s what he saw me doing. (For a living, I mean. Don’t worry – if you come for a visit I won’t try to hard sell my art to you.) He would make little pictures of cellos (we don’t know why) and write “25 cents” at the top of the page. When people would come over he would show them, and ask them if they would like to buy one of his cello pictures. We like to think this was a reflection of our supportive parenting, rather than our poverty-level artist income.

When I was a kid, I was obviously artistically gifted, but my parents had no clue as to what to do with me. What they did right was encourage me, not only with their words, but also by making sure there was always plenty of paper and art supplies on hand. Even though my dad was a manly, blue-collar guy, he never gave me the impression that he thought I was an overly-sensitive, skinny, weird little artistic kid. (Even though I was.)

Looking back, I think what my parents could’ve done better was to provide some art materials other than the usual color pencils, which tend to be not very visually impactful and may be a bit tedious to use, depending upon a child’s personality. We usually supplied our kids with Crayola markers because of their bold and bright colors, especially when the kids were small. We would also let them paint, but this requires more time, supervision, and commitment, especially for parents who may not be as comfortable with paint.

Also, it might have been nice if my parents had exposed me to some fine art, but I think this was simply outside of their bandwidth. (Mostly I pored over my big brother’s Marvel comic books.) My third grade teacher, whom I did not particularly like, once got permission from my parents to come to my house and take me to the St. Louis Art Museum, which kind of freaked me out in general. Miss Cunningham. I suspect she must have been an art-lover. I now think this was a pretty amazing and outside-of-the-box thing for her to do.

A Simple Game to Play With Your Kids
Today I want to share with you a simple art game that I often played with my kids. We think we invented it, and we called it “The Drawing Game.” (Admittedly, not a terribly creative name for a game about creativity.)

It’s not much of a game, really. The main point is to think creatively and to make each other laugh. It is also a bit of a challenge to keep the game going, because it’s possible to shut the game down by limiting possibilities too soon. The game also teaches patience and forbearance in relationships because the other party will be taking something you’ve drawn and changing it, usually not in a way that you would’ve chosen. Kind of like in life.

I was reminded of the game in my previous post. You may recall that I quoted a researcher who said that over the past decade American children have become:
“…less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.” The largest drop has been in the measure of “elaboration,” or the ability to take an idea and expand on it in a novel way…”

Well, The Drawing Game is all about thinking creatively, synthesizing, and expanding on an idea, just for the fun of it.

You will need:
A piece of paper
A pencil or marker
your kid or kids
yourself
your creative minds

How to play:

Someone starts off by drawing one simple shape, geometric or organic, on the page.
That player passes the page to the next person, who adds a new, simple element to the page.
The page is passed to the next person, who adds a new element. The page may be turned sidewise or upside-down to help in imagining new possibilities, and to keep the game going.
Continue on in this way as long as everyone is having fun, or until the page becomes too cluttered. Your kids can color the picture in when the game is over.

Rules of play:

No making fun of anyone’s lame drawing. The point is to enjoy each other, not make awesome art.
No obliterating anyone’s drawing. You can only change the drawing by adding to it, or changing the context. (For example the scene may suddenly become an underwater scene if someone adds a waterline.) If you feel you would like to cover part of someone’s contribution, ask their permission. Like in real life.
Be complimentary when someone draws a creative idea. Say things like, “That’s a great idea.”
If you have boys, you may want to place a limit on the number of times they can add blood or projectile vomiting to the drawing.

Example:
I asked my 17-year-old daughter if she would play with me, so that you could see an example of how the game is played. It was still fun.

I drew the circle first. I thought it might become a sun. Or Renee might have added a long string to it to turn it into a balloon. Or it might have become an eye on a giant face. Or the wheel of a car. Part of the fun is seeing how other people’s minds work, and watching the “story” develop.

Below I show the subsequent stages without comment…

Let me know if you tried The Drawing Game, and if you and your kids enjoyed it!

(Click the Book Store tab to order my new kids’ storybook, The Cocky Rooster.)

Dad Notes: The Safety Police

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Scott

The author as a politically incorrect child, apparently unable to choose a side.

I read an interesting article at the gym last weekend that resonated with me. Both the artist and the dad part of me liked it, mostly. My wife can tell you that for years I have railed against “the Safety Police.”

I don’t know exactly who the Safety Police are, but apparently they hold positions of influence, because pretty much every playground in America is now coated in rubber, and padded underneath.

The article was about fostering creativity, courage, self-confidence, and problem-solving skills in kids. Hanna Rosin, the author, contends that the current trend of parents scheduling every minute of their child’s lives with closely supervised activities is robbing them of the chance to explore and take risks in life. (See full article here.)

Her article is centered around a visit with her son to something called an “adventure playground” in Wales. Such playgrounds are designed to encourage a “free and permissive atmosphere” with a minimum of adult supervision from the trained adult staff. The idea is to allow kids to experience a sense of danger and risk, and to learn how to deal with these situations themselves. These playgrounds include an area with moveable elements such as tires and wooden shipping palettes. She describes another area where some kids were starting a fire in a metal drum. Part of the playground runs steeply down into a shallow creek, and includes a rope swing, which may or may not get you across.

Stay with me here. I’m not on a campaign to litter our playgrounds with glass shards. I just think it’s a worthwhile discussion.

Dangerous…

I think of my own childhood, which included long, unsupervised hours away from my house and my parents, engaged in creative play. Admittedly, some of my activities with young friends were less than brilliant, but that’s kind of the point. We figured it out and lived to tell about it.

…also dangerous.

I think of my own kids. How often – regularly, in fact – Mollie and I would be outside somewhere and we would hear the words “Hi Mom!” But these words would sound much farther away than they should’ve, especially coming from overhead. We would look skyward to find our second-born son high in a tree, as high as he could possibly go. (Higher than we were comfortable with.) Of course, as soon as his little brother grew old enough, he was right behind his big brother.

There’s no question that there was very real risk there. But it never seemed quite right to me to tell them, “YOU KIDS GET DOWN FROM THAT TREE RIGHT NOW!” even though Mollie and I wondered out loud to each other if all of our children would make it to adulthood. I guess I’m still not sure whether or not we should’ve forbidden extreme tree climbing. I do remember instructing them to make sure that they always had a firm grip on a strong branch so that they wouldn’t fall.

At one point in our downstairs bathroom, the bathtub contained one turtle, two large toads, and several garter snakes, all found in and around our inner-city yard. (The kids thought it was great that these animals couldn’t escape the tub. Eventually we released them when the bathroom started stinking.) None of these animals were dangerous, but I suppose it still seemed exciting to the kids since a certain percentage of the population is either freaked-out or grossed-out by such creatures. We did instruct the kids to always wash their hands after handling the reptiles because there is a real risk of contracting disease from the salmonella bacteria carried by reptiles.

Rosin quotes early childhood education professor, Ellen Sandseter. She has concluded that children have a sensory need to experience (perceived) danger and excitement. Sandseter has identified 6 categories of risky play, including exploring heights, and exploring on one’s own.

I have to think this must be true of a lot of kids, based on what I’ve seen in myself, in my own kids, in conversation with others, and in watching other families. And I don’t see any reason to ascribe this “need” to our sin nature.

Rosin also cites the research of Kyung-Hee Kim, an educational psychologist who has found that over the past decade American children have become:
“less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.” The largest drop has been in the measure of “elaboration,” or the ability to take an idea and expand on it in a novel way. Practicing psychologists have also written about the unique identity crisis that this generation faces—a fear of growing up and, in the words of Brooke Donatone, a New York City–based therapist, an inability “to think for themselves.”

Given the context of the article, it seems that Rosin thinks over-protective parenting is the culprit.

What do you think? Are our children over-protected? How do/did you as a parent strike a balance between safety and controlled risk with you kids? How do you avoid being a “helicopter parent”?

At the recent release of my new kids’ book, THE COCKY ROOSTER, I described its underlying theme as “the need for young children to submit to their parent’s loving authority in a broken and sometimes dangerous world.” In my opinion, it is essential for loving parental authority to be in play first before we can responsibly allow our young kids the freedom to explore, and to have their own “lion and bear experiences.” Such experiences will prepare them to go out and face giants someday. But risk is always part of the picture. Even as adults, living a life in submission to God-given authority, and to God Himself, does not equate to a life free of risk. Being under right authority helps us to discern the difference between foolish and worthwhile risks (Prov 10:23.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences…

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

My daughter, Sierra, on the summit of Long’s Peak, elevation 14,259 ft.

Next time I’ll share with you a simple game my kids and I used to play, designed to foster “creativity, imagination, synthesizing, and elaboration.”

Grace and peace – Scott

New Book Release: The Cocky Rooster

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Scott

I’m pleased to announce that my first new kids’ book is ready to go!
Following is a brief introduction and some thoughts around the story.

The Cocky Rooster is a tale about a self-absorbed rooster who eventually has a change of heart. Its underlying theme is loving, parental authority.

In my experience as a parent, it has been unusual to find storybooks that portray God-given authority in a favorable light. Most moms and dads that I know recognize that parental rules and authority exist primarily for the safety and protection of their children and those with whom their children interact. This is simply a fundamental, good, and necessary part of everyday parenting. Even so, the message that our children will so often hear from the world is that authority is a tool used to control people, that it can’t be trusted, and that people should instead “follow their hearts.” This is reflective of a secularist worldview.

But if the human heart is already naturally inclined to be rebellious and selfish, urging small children to follow their hearts reinforces exactly the wrong idea. We might as well urge them to eat dessert first and only eat their vegetables if they feel like it. There is, arguably, a place for following one’s heart, but for young children, I think a true picture of God-given authority is the message that needs to be reinforced, because that’s the message that will otherwise go unheard.

I believe that, of course, as children grow older into adolescence, wise parents will give them increasing freedom, responsibility, and autonomy. But The Cocky Rooster is a picture book designed for children under 9 years old, to reinforce the idea of the need for loving parental guidance in a broken and sometimes dangerous world.

In a nutshell, the story tells the tale of a Rooster who lives on an urban farm, (possibly in your neighborhood!) He resents being cooped up in the henhouse with the hens every night. He wants to meet the nighttime animals and have his own adventures…
One night he finds a way out, and has an adventure that he is ill-equipped to deal with on his own, resulting in consequences he couldn’t have foreseen.

Following are a couple of consecutive page excerpts, so you can see the wording and typical page length:

“You’re not big enough to overcome the fox,” she said gently.

The rooster knew she was right. “I wanted to see the nighttime creatures,” he said to her.

“But you are not a wild creature like the nighttime animals. You need the protection of a farmer and a dog.” Again the rooster knew she was right. He now very much wanted to get back to the henhouse.

“I do want to return to my coop now,” said the rooster. “Will you help me to get back home safely?” The graceful deer promised to do the best she could. (pg 21)

Together, they carefully walked back through the neighborhood, watching closely for any sign of the fox. Soon they safely reached the urban farmer’s home, where everyone was fast asleep.

“This is where I live,” said the rooster, thanking his new friend.

Quietly, he slipped past Rufus’s doghouse where he could hear Rufus snoring. Soon he would be back in the coop where he would fall asleep to the sound of the snoring hens. (p23)

Unless otherwise stated, all books will be a typical 32 page storybook length, and 8 x 10 inches in size. I’ve made 3 options available to you:

> Ebook format – $4.95
> Paperback format – $14.95
> Hardback format – $18.95

For the release of this first title I’m offering FREE SHIPPING on orders inside the U.S.

You and your child can enjoy The Cocky Rooster, together, very soon – in fact, before bedtime tonight if you order the ebook now!

PURCHASE NOW

GIFT GIVING: If you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher, or someone in a position of caring for young children in any capacity, please consider ordering a book for the kids in your care. Remember – a great storybook can be a great gift for a child who already has a humongous pile of toys and video games. A great story goes to the heart!

And speaking of gift giving, I should also mention that at this point I have no plans to sell these books in stores or on Amazon. The only way to get them will be from my Big Picture Publishing website BOOK STORE. This means that if you order my books as a gift, it’s almost certain that your little loved one won’t yet have a copy.

I hope you and your loved ones enjoy The Cocky Rooster. I can hardly wait to get started illustrating the next book – The Friendly City. Watch for it here!

Confessions of a Revisionist Dad

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Scott

Revisionism can cut both ways.

A few years ago my wife and I were in a public place with one of our teenaged daughters. She happened to hear the lyrics from the lullaby, Rock-a-bye Baby, and her mouth dropped open. She turned to us and exclaimed, “Did you hear what they said?”

“What?” I innocently asked.

“They said the bough breaks and the baby falls out of the tree!” she replied. “That’s terrible!”

My wife and I sheepishly looked at each other. “Umm…actually… those are the real lyrics,” I said, grinning.

“Are you serious?!…

I guess I forgot to tell my daughter that when she and our other children were small, I made a small change to the classic lullaby, and changed a few bedtime stories to boot.

The first time I started singing Rock-a-bye-Baby at bedtime with my first child, I stopped myself mid-lullaby. I thought it seemed almost like a taunt; sweetly singing to a child about the wind blowing and breaking the branch, and the baby then falling out of the tree. ‘Sweet dreams, kid! I imagined him lying in the dark after I kissed him goodnight, wide-eyed and staring at the ceiling, fitfully drifting off to sleep, having nightmares about falling. So I changed the lyrics to:

Rock-a-bye baby in the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bow breaks the cradle will fall,
And Daddy will catch you, cradle and all.

And that’s what our kids grew up hearing. After adding this to my repertoire of bedtime lullabies, and singing it to our five kids over a period of years, after a while I never thought about it anymore.

A lot of old nursery rhymes left me scratching my head. What were these people thinking? Did they hate children? Were they even parents? Who wrote Jack and Jill, and Little Miss Muffet? And that one about the blackbird pecking off the maid’s nose? (Apparently, a 1744 version published in London had “four and twenty naughty boys baked in a pye.” Which, I guess, grisly though it is, at least has a point.)

With contemporary books it’s sometimes easier to guess the author’s intentions. A couple of my kids liked a certain storybook that I had picked up, used, from a garage sale. I purchased it because the illustrations were very nice, and, as an illustrator, I enjoyed looking at them. Plus, I liked the idea of the story. It was narrated by a little girl, and the story was really just her talking about her family, her dog, and her grandparents, and their lives together. I no longer have the book, but I’m pretty sure it was called, Come to Our House, Meet Our Family. It made for a cheerful and pleasant bedtime story.

I would guess the book was published in the late 1960’s or 70’s, and it seemed clear to me that part of the author’s intent was to normalize the idea of both Dad and Mom working outside the home. (The mom was a dentist.) I was fine with that, but I also wanted to do a little normalizing of my own. Toward the end of the book, there was an illustration of the Mom and Dad, and the boy and girl, and Smudge, the dog, all laughing together on the parent’s big blue bed. It said something like:

“On Sunday mornings my brother and I jump into Mom and Dad’s bed and wake them up. After a while we all go downstairs and make breakfast together.”

I would always cheerfully add a simple line that wasn’t really there: “Then we go to church!”

I had been struck by how rarely church-going is mentioned as a normal part of life in books and movies. As though it’s an embarrassing habit that we should all be quiet about. As though no one attends church in this country! Since this was a simple, unremarkable story about a normal family, I thought it would be nice for my kids to grow up thinking that going to church was simply a normal part of life. In fact they did grow up thinking this, but no thanks to the storybooks we read. Except for maybe this one.

I suppose someone might argue that classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes are the pinnacle of children’s literature for young children, but I’m not that person. Some I like very much, but some of them are downright creepy. I think there is room in the world for some children’s stories that are intentional about reinforcing a biblical worldview, yet without being so pedagogical that all of the enjoyment is sucked out. My conversations with other parents and grandparents have led me to believe I’m not alone in thinking this.

I would love to hear suggestions and insights from other parents on the subject of children’s books and stories. What do you like? What do your kids love? What is missing?

Watercolor illustration from The Cocky Rooster – coming in July 2014

UPDATE: I’m happy to say that my first new book, The Cocky Rooster, is finished and I’m waiting to get proofs back from the print-on-demand company before I make it available to you. My next post will introduce you to the book specifically.

I’ll talk to you then! May God bless you as you seek to make Him known to the children in
your care,

— Scott Freeman

bigpicturepublishing.com

Original kids' storybooks from Judeo-Christian worldview

Dinner Table Tales

A Creativity Game To Play With Your Kids

Dad Notes: The Safety Police

New Book Release: The Cocky Rooster

Confessions of a Revisionist Dad