Brings back memories ! My husband worked for an airline, so was out of town on trips about half of the weekends. So, what I did was think about each of my kids’ interests, and bought a few quiet things they would like.
The night before we would attend Mass, each kid would pick out what nice thing they wanted to wear, so that was all ready to go. The next day before we left for Mass, each kid got their own little “Mass bag”. While in the car, I would usually have to keep them so they wouldn’t open them early. They each carried their own “Mass bag” in, and got to open them only after we were already in the pew and they had said their prayers.
My daughter loved books, so in her bag there were several books about different saints,
Bible color books she could color with colored pencils and stickers she could put into books. She also liked small puzzles with saints pictures. My son had a hard time being still, so his bag contained saints memory matching cards, coloring books about the lives of the saints, pictures that he could lace with colored strings, and he really liked books that had magnet Bible character/animals in them that he could move around.
The
ONLY, I repeat,
ONLY time they got these toys was at Mass, so it really seemed to keep their interest since they didn’t have time to get bored with them. It was their job to make sure all the articles got put back neatly into their bag after Communion and back to the car. The Mass bags would then be quickly put away when we got home until the next week.
I forgot to add that when I first bought any book, I read them to the kids, so that when they were in church, they knew what the stories of the pictures or cards or magnets were about.
I had to really hunt back then to find religious toys, but now they are pretty easy to get on the internet. Two sites come to mind:
catholicchild,com
Shop.Catholicsupply.com
As the kids got a little older, I would say something like," Let’s pay attention and see if the people remember to stand up after Father washes his hands". So my son would watch the priest with an eagle eye for him to wash his hands so my son could be the first one to stand up. Just little things to get the kids to pay attention.
Just a couple of ideas that worked wonderfully for us. Try not to worry too much about other people. Anyone who has had children has gone through some form of this, they’ve just forgotten. God bless you for taking them to Mass. They have to learn and the only way to do that is to be there. :hug3:
