The ‘S’ FactorSpotting Children’s Spirituality

and Supporting itDr Rebecca NyeYork Sept 2011

Spirituality :central and

primary

Defining Spirituality?

• Off the shelf definitions don’t really help

• Touching Hearts and Feeding Minds’ by Alison Seaman and Alan Brown .

• Children’s Spirituality = Relational Consciousness? (Hay and

Nye)

Spotting and Supporting Children’s Spirituality...

USING RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE:

important, but tricky.

....tread very carefully....

Spotting and Supporting Children’s Spirituality

Not just about recall of real experiences

Also take imagination seriously

• “They’d just feel like there was someone behind them and they’d just be really still in their tracks and they’d feel all good at the back of them, and then they’d turn round and there’d be nothing there. And then they’d just hear this flutter of wings and then they’d turn round and see a big golden thing going up in the sky’ [R: wonderful, eh? But you’ve never felt quite like that?] No, they only visit you when, well..when, what’s the word?..they only come down to visit you , if you know, if you are arguing or if you are really really steamed up! Or if you are at the top of your temper and going to burst into hot water and stuff like that, or if you are at the top of your happiness or at the bottom of your sadness’

• (girl age 6)

Spotting and Supporting Children’s Spirituality

• Appreciate spiritual Signature

Signature..• ‘A mist of perfume, with gold walls, and a

rainbow stretched over God’s throne...but a transparent mist, like a..I can’t explain it. Like a smell. A real cloud of smell, a lovely smell..like the smell that you get when you wake up on a dull winter morning, and then when you go to sleep, and you wake up, the birds are chirping , and the last drops of snow are melting away, and the treetops, shimmering in the breeze, and it’s a spring morning..(then added) I suppose it’s not a season at all, not really, because it’s just a day in delight, every day.

Signature...• “I sometimes think about if there is one God and

there is..everybody, well..most people believe in one God and, um, there’s um, different people believing in different gods. Which God’s real? Um, I just can’t figure that out. And sometimes I think about after the universe, what’s..what’s the universe, going on for ever? I just don’t know. [R:what does that feel like?] well, when I’m thinking about the universe that gets me quite annoyed sometimes because I can never think about, um..get the right answer. Or even get near it and, um, then ..well, things , you just wonder...’

Supporting Signature?

• Does every child I know have a unique one?• What’s mine?• Does it stay the same?• If it changes, how does that feel, to them, & to

the teacher? • Signatures are not all verbalised

Csinos, D. 4 Spiritual Styles: Word, Action, Image, or Feeling Based Spirituality

Spotting and Supporting Children’s Spirituality

Self Taught Strategies

Spotting and Supporting Children’s Spirituality

• Feels like something to grow out of?

SPIRITChecklist

• SPACE• PROCESS• IMAGINATION• RELATIONSHIP• INTIMACY• TRUST

Space

Process

Imagination

Relationship

Intimacy

Trust

Children’s Spirituality: What it is and why it matters (2009) Rebecca Nye, Church House Press £8.99

For further information about Godly Play

www.godlyplay.org.uk

including accredited training courses for teachers and others over 3 days at venues

around the UK.

Or contact Rebecca.nye@ntlworld.com to discuss your training needs