The theme of this podcast episode revolves around the unique perspective of experiencing Christmas through the innocent eyes of a child. We engage in a profound conversation with Dick Foth and his esteemed guest, Barb Melby, as they explore the magical essence of childhood during the holiday season. Through heartwarming anecdotes and insightful dialogue, we delve into the developmental milestones of preschoolers, illuminating how their understanding of the world is shaped by their experiences and imagination. This episode serves not only as a reflection on the joys of gift-giving and the significance of the Christmas narrative but also as a reminder of the invaluable lessons that can be learned from viewing the holidays from a youthful perspective. As we navigate through these discussions, we invite our listeners to reconnect with the wonder and joy that characterize the Christmas season, fostering a sense of hope and encouragement for all.

Takeaways:

• This podcast episode emphasizes the significance of perceiving Christmas through the innocent lens of a child's perspective, which cultivates joy and appreciation.
• The discussion revolves around the importance of storytelling in childhood education, highlighting how narratives spark imagination and foster emotional growth.
• Listeners are encouraged to reflect on the themes of reconciliation and connection with family and friends during the festive season, promoting forgiveness and unity.
• The episode includes insights from a preschool teacher, illustrating the developmental milestones of children aged three to five and their unique perspectives on holiday traditions.
• A significant portion of the dialogue is dedicated to discussing the joys and challenges of gift-giving among young children, emphasizing lessons in gratitude and selflessness.
• The podcast reinforces the notion that engaging with children during the Christmas season can rekindle joy and hope in adults, reminding them of the pure essence of the holiday.

Foreign.

Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

This podcast is all about providing clarity insight and encouragement for life and mission.

And my name is Aaron Sandemier and I get to be your host today.

I just want to wish you a merry Christmas once again.

I hope that you're having a great start to this Christmas season.

Many of you who listen to the last week's episode was with Dick Foth.

And we have Dick Foth back again this week.

Last week was When Enemies Become Friends and just the challenge of engaging and forgiveness.

In this holiday season we have these opportunities to come and connect with people.

Maybe that's family, that's friends, and we can see reconciliation take place and what a blessing that is.

This week is Christmas Through a Child's Eyes.

It's another podcast from Dick and as we walk in this Christmas season, and this one, I think I smiled a lot, listened a lot and enjoyed it and put a lot of smiles on my face.

I see just once the title of the podcast is Right to See Christmas Through a Child's Eyes and how important that is.

Many of you know Dick is.

He's a question asker.

He's able to tell a story and he also has a, he has a new audiobook that's come out about a year, a year and a half ago.

He had a book, Stories I Love to Tell.

And this one's the second volume of that Stories I Love to Tell.

Moments to spark hope and fire dreams.

And as you know, Dick's on the podcast for Backchannel with Foeth and he has this ability to ask questions, to hear people's stories so they really feel like they belong, really to feel like they matter, really to feel like they're known.

And he's able to take that.

And as we have the opportunity today to hear some stories he'll tell on this podcast.

But then also in his audio book, he's able to take those stories of other people and he is able to apply them to those listening in.

Do want to thank each of you who listened into this podcast, people that make this podcast continue to go and thankful for you as we've tried to provide clarity in life and mission and entering into our sixth year of that in February, it's been a fun ride.

So we continue to have guests on the podcast, some new, some that have been here before.

But I do want to thank you as we are in a season of gratitude and thanks.

I'm thankful for listening in and it's like I said, it's been a fun ride.

Do want to ask you to continue to subscribe to the podcast.

I know the podcast I subscribe to.

They're the ones I listen to.

And continue to send in your questions for Backchannel with Foe Dick.

Today's a special episode, but normally it's Dick and I people sending questions and we get to sit down and he answers those questions.

And that's always a joyful, fun time just to spend some time with Dick.

I'm going to go ahead and pray for us today.

Normally we pray at the end of the podcast, but I'm going to pray in the beginning of this one.

We'll go ahead and jump into what Dick has recorded for us.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the ability, as this podcast is today, to see Christmas through a child's eyes.

Father, I pray for each of us as adults, those that are listening in.

Father, sometimes we carry burdens and we walk through different seasons of challenging times.

And I pray that this podcast today will be an encouragement that those who listen in God, that they will see that joy returning.

Maybe it's been a stressful Christmas season for them, but in some way these stories will be an encouragement to them and they can feel the precious love of Jesus Christ.

We pray it all in the name of your son's name.

Amen.

Merry Christmas to you.

This is Dick Foth with stories to make sense of it all.

Meet a good friend of mine and I want you to meet the charges for whom she is responsible, or was then, and I'll let the program speak for itself.

So I introduce you to seeing Christmas through a child's eyes.

Here we go.

So here I am sitting on a very low chair in a lovely room for preschoolers at Harmony Early Childhood center, commonly known as Harmony School.

And I'm here with my friend Barb Melby, who teaches preschoolers and have for the last 25 years.

So, Barb, you could have done a lot of things, and I've known you for a number of years.

You could have done a lot of things, but you chose, at least for these past 25 years, to teach preschoolers.

Why?

Well, I got into teaching largely because I loved teaching this age to my own children.

This was a fun age for my family.

Not only enjoy this part of the awakening of a little child's mind, and experience experiences in life.

But I also wanted to be on their school schedule.

So I started off into school because I wanted to be off in the summers and at Christmas when my family was off.

And as I got into teaching, I realized that this three to four year old range is really ideal.

It's just a perfect time where kids, everything's new, everything's an introduction to wonderful experiences, wonderful opportunities, and there's not a lot of testing and school readiness that you have to worry about.

It's a lot of developmental kind of experiences that we get to introduce to them.

It's a great time to be involved with families.

A lot of parents are starting off on this new child rearing thing and they want to be reassured that their kids are doing great and that they're doing a good job of being parents.

So I get a chance to be there at that stage and say, look how what a wonderful job your child is doing of growing up and learning.

That's rewarding for me as well to be involved with them.

So a child's brain between three and five, huge developmental stage, right?

Yes.

In just the cognitive stuff, the experiential things.

Life is a series of firsts.

Can you see a difference generally between a three year old and a four year old in terms of what they can do?

And we don't need to get into a class in developmental skills, but just what are some of the differences?

Well, I think they're learning a lot at this stage to use both sides of their brain at the same time.

And they're also learning to incorporate all their senses at one time.

And that's why you see differences in kids at this age.

Some kids do that quicker than others.

And some of them, they all have areas where they're kind of gifted, where they do things naturally.

Some kids are very relationship oriented and they get that relationship piece down really quickly.

They make friends easily.

Other kids are a little bit more cognitive and they love the puzzle of things.

They love the puzzle of what the Alphabet is and stuff.

And so they really tend to have areas where they have strengths and then other areas where they just need time to figure it all out.

How about art?

In art they go from a whole range of things.

But most kids start at two and a half, three years old where they're still sort of scribbling and they're making arms and legs come out of a circle for the, for the head, the head, the body, everything, circle.

And then they get arms and legs and pretty soon they realize that that's not what I Look like my arms don't come out of my head.

So I have to start drawing a body and I have fingers and I have eyelashes and so they start adding all the details.

And that's when it's really great to see what of those details is important to them, which is, you know, some of them really go for all the decorations on their clothes.

And other kids want to, they want to make themselves either really tall or they want to make themselves doing funny faces.

So it's great.

Have the child's personality come out in that.

I took a class in developmental psych one time way back in the dark ages, and if I remember correctly, 4 and 5 year olds this age group, they of course, they all love stories.

But the difference between what is real and what's not real, what we would call fanciful and real, it's sometimes there's no line there.

It's all one world.

Right.

Which is why the Christmas story in itself gets to be a little challenging because we talk a lot in our classroom about what is pretend and what's real when it comes to certain stories.

But we certainly want them to enlarge their imagination because that's what helps them to eventually in their life learn to hope, learn to dream, learn to anticipate is that you have an ability to think of things that you can't see right now.

And so those types of developmental opportunities where they get a chance to learn to be creative and learn to be imaginative are really important at this age.

But you don't want them to live in that world either.

You want them to understand, begin to understand that difference between the real and the not real.

It's great to.

They also think, very literally, they think, I had a little girl one time, very concrete, very concrete.

This one little girl, her cousin came and was talking to her about school and said, well, what does your teacher look like?

And she says, well, I don't know because she wears clothes.

Well, there you go.

Yes, I thought, well, he did ask that question.

And so they, they do they have such a one nobody yet has told them not to think like that.

Sure.

So they have a wonderful ability to put those, those kinds and their experiences together.

You know, what, what's happened in their own families or what's happened when they travel, they incorporate that into their play.

You know, this podc stories to make sense of it all.

Studies show that a 2 year old will start telling their own stories and that's sometimes how they explain their worlds and as they age and how they maybe manage their worlds.

If they're in a difficult kind of situation.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I was just here watching your class share gifts because we're here in, what's this, December 19th, and they were sharing gifts, and several of the kids who brought gifts wanted to have that gift for them.

They wanted to keep it.

I thought to myself, well, that's how I am.

I buy things I like and give them to other people.

I'd like to get this.

I might give it to you.

That's exactly the way we are.

And that's a sure thing.

They were going to walk up to this whole table of presents wrapped, and the only one they knew what was inside was the one they brought.

So why not choose that one?

Yes.

So it was a huge.

A huge exercise in self discipline today.

It's the first time they've ever had to exchange a gift, come in, and actually open something that they have no idea what it is, and then say thank you.

Even when it might not be something that's their favorite, something that they already have at home.

And so we talk a lot about how we thank people, that we thank the people for the gift, even if the gift is not what we expected, but we thank people for what they've done for us.

So some of those things, we're introducing the thought to them that this is the way we function and the way you can bless other people's lives, you know, and.

And up until then, this point, you know, it's kind of been about them.

Sure.

So we're sort of introducing those ideas that we can do things that make people feel better.

It was very interesting to me that you had the table with all the gifts on it, and some of them were pretty large and some were smaller, but when the kids walked because they could just go pick up a gift.

Right.

For boys and girls.

Yeah.

And I thought that they might go for the big one.

Always thought that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't.

Why do you.

Any thought?

No, you know, and we have no idea.

They.

In fact, the one girl gift that was left for the girl who wasn't here was the biggest one there.

And so they.

Some of them look at the wrapping paper, and if they see that there's Snoopy on the wrapping paper, then maybe there's Snoopy inside.

Or some of them like things that are shiny.

Some of them have an idea of a shape of a package.

But some of them, like my little friend Urban, he just.

He really, you know, loved his.

Loves his friend Weston, and he wanted Weston's present.

And Weston at Some time during the day had pointed it out.

So we love that.

That's great.

Yeah.

So we've talked to the teacher.

Now let's talk to the kids, see what they have to say about life and Christmas.

I am sitting with a group of four year old friends.

Are you all four?

No.

Okay, we got a three year old, couple of threes.

Okay.

Okay.

So we're gonna go around the circle.

I'm gonna point at you, you say your name.

Okay.

Blakely, Weston, Urban, Ellie, Savannah, Anthony, Andrew, River, Benjamin, Lily.

Barb and Dick.

So here we are.

I'm sitting here with Mrs. Melby, who's your teacher this class.

And we want to just ask some questions about Christmas.

I even wrote them down on a card just a little bit.

So I'm just going to toss one out.

So here's the first question.

What is the best thing about Christmas?

You get to open presents.

Presents.

You get to open presents.

Two for presents.

Yes.

River.

Jesus birthday.

Well, there you go.

Okay, so we've got presents.

We got Jesus birthday.

So do you, do you like getting presents?

Yeah, yeah.

We opened presents today.

Oh, you did?

We opened presents today.

Yes.

I got.

It's a fairy and I got an Elsa doll and I got a Transformer.

Tremendous.

Do you like.

I got transferred.

I got.

For me too.

You did?

Me too.

Wow.

Do you like giving presents?

Yeah.

Do you like giving presents as much as getting presents?

Yeah.

That's a hard question, isn't it?

I don't like.

I don't like giving presents.

All right, here we go again.

You like getting them?

Yeah.

Okay, so well, this is somebody's birthday and I'm so glad that you're giving presents to each other because it's my birthday.

It's my birthday, Right?

No, Jesus birthday.

Jesus birthday.

Wow.

So like, is he here in the United States?

Like was he, where was he born?

Anybody know?

In the manger.

In the manger.

Okay, one at a time.

Bethlehem.

Bethlehem.

Okay, so we've got.

He was born in a stable in Bethlehem.

In a manger.

What's a manger?

It's a bed.

It's a bed.

It's a place actually where cows would get their food, right?

They would.

And so they made a little bed for Jesus there.

What's inside the manger, baby?

Do you know that?

Do you know the song Away in the Manger?

We've talked about that, haven't we?

My dad sang that to me one night.

Uh huh.

Do you know it?

Do you know that song?

Is there any song that they might know?

We well, we know a lot of songs from our Christmas program.

I know what.

Bye, bye, Merry day.

Okay.

Yeah.

And boys and girls, why was Jesus.

Why did they put Jesus in the manger in the hay?

How come they stayed in the stable?

Because there's no bed.

There's no bed.

No bed.

Where?

No room.

No room.

No room.

In the inn.

Like the inn in the old days was like a hotel, you know?

And they didn't have any.

Didn't have any room.

Yes.

My question is, do you know who Jesus mother was?

What her name was?

How about his dad?

That was Joseph.

Joseph.

Uh huh.

And did they have a long walk before they got to Bethlehem?

Do you know?

Went a long way.

How come they came to Bethlehem?

Maybe.

Well, how come they didn't stay home and have their baby?

Cuz there was bed.

Huh?

There's no bed.

You don't remember why they had to come to Bethlehem?

How did Mary get there?

No bed.

A donkey.

Did the donkey bring Mary?

How come they didn't drive a car?

Because they don't have any cars.

They didn't.

And no road.

And no roads.

So they just had to walk.

That's the dirt road.

That's pretty good, Ruby.

Huh?

And.

Donkey'S name was Boaz.

And they could use a bulldozer.

They could use a bulldozer.

Yeah.

Hey, I seen a star movie.

And Mary and Joseph.

Native Bozak the donkey.

That's the new movie.

It's the new movie.

Okay.

Yes.

So what was in the sky?

A star.

A star.

There was a star in the sky.

And what is a star?

It was God.

Special sign.

This is wonderful.

And these are great.

These are great answers.

And tell them what you were dressed up like.

Yeah.

What?

What were you dressed up like?

You were sheep, weren't you?

But some of you were something else.

What were you?

What were you gonna be?

Eloise.

It was an angel playing this day.

You missed it.

Why?

She was going to be an angel.

What?

What are angels?

There's a star.

No, what are angels?

They're messengers.

Yes, Godly messengers.

They're messengers.

And what was their message?

What do you think they said?

A baby.

Mary's gonna have a baby and they're gonna name it G Guy.

That's exactly right.

And then did they sing?

Were there lots of them?

What did they sing?

Glory to God and hiatus.

They did, didn't they?

They did.

That's great.

They had a wonderful party.

They were so excited.

Minus it.

Well, before.

Before I go, how about if I sang you a song?

Should I do that?

Or is that too scary?

Yeah.

Do you know this song?

Away in a manger no crib for the little Lord Jesus Lay down his sweet hands the stars in the sky.

Look down where he lay the little Lord.

There's something about a four year old choir that has whimsy to it.

It has a kind of innocence that just makes it fun.

And fun is what you get when you work with preschoolers, the way they see the world, how they respond to things.

So I asked Barb, do you just to tell us a funny story, maybe a funny Christmas story from all these years.

And she picked one out.

Well, one of my personal stories because it was my granddaughter.

She came into my classroom and was playing with the set that we have.

And it has a manger stable with a manger, and it has all the wise men.

And our particular set has a little inn.

And the inn has beds on the top, and it's a little Fisher Price set that came from years ago.

And she had heard the story of Christmas over and over again.

So she had gone through the whole process of when Mary and Joseph got to the inn, that the innkeeper said, I have no room.

And she was saying this to herself as she marched the people across the table and she said, I have no room.

And she got to the inn, the little playset, and she saw these two beds on top, and she said, oh, look, I found you room.

And so in her mind, the story was solved.

We didn't even have to go to the stable.

But I love that part of their imagination that they can actually enter into a story and then change it and, you know, go different directions with things.

And.

And we had a little boy today who was dropping his star into his ornament as we went through the whole Christmas program, and he informed us that that was the Death Star because he had just seen Star Wars.

Yes.

So we love just including our whole life in the Christmas story.

Yeah, it's great.

That's great.

Well, Barb Melby, thank you for what you and your colleagues do.

Not just to shape kids, but to shape the country and ultimately shape the world.

Thanks a million.

You're welcome.

Can't think of a better way to end this Christmas podcast than to have the kids sing to us, us one more time and say goodbye.

Go down on the mountain over the hills and everywhere Go down on mountains that Jesus Christ is born.

Merry Christmas.

What a fun time.

Over Bethlehem.

I know it scared the bejeebers out of the shepherds, but I have a feeling that it's hard to beat a choir of four year olds belting out Go Tell it on the Mountain.

Well, as we come to this Christmas Day and just, just a few days, I pray that your insight into what it means to invite light into darkness, to be bathed in it, if you will, will be something that becomes very real, if it's not already.

So that not only is transformative for us, for you, for me, but for those around us as well.

Thanks a million for listening in, for subscribing.

And I'll catch you in the new year.

God.