Parenting Pagan Tots

By Janet Callahan

Parenting Pagan Tots is for parents of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Ms. Callahan, a mother of two young children, includes many details on ways to build a tradition specifically for your family, while including the youngest members, while also talking about considerations for things like handling mainstream media and other people's holidays.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janet Callahan
• Release date: Dec 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311949509

Janet Callahan

Janet Callahan is a writer, artist, engineer and priestess, with plans to write an actual book someday in between blog posts. She lives with her husband, two cats, and her two children, and blogs extensively about her journey as a Pagan parent of children with medical issues. She writes about Pagan community, philosopy, and her experiences at http://janetcallahan.com where you can also find links to her other projects.

Book preview

Parenting Pagan Tots

Janet Callahan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015, Janet Callahan

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Edited by Rosa Sophia

Cover by Angelique Mroczka

www.janetcallahan.com

Table of Contents

Tots & Timelines

The Beginning

Pagan Children

Different Approaches

Focus

Developmental Basics

Tools

Myth and Legend

Altars and Ritual Tools

Sensory Options

Music and Movement

Elements

Spirits

Nature

Energy Work

The Media

Traditions

Building Traditions

Daily Prayers

Moons

Annual Holidays

Conclusion

Resources

Books for Pagan Kids and Other Stories

Prayer Books and Resources

Pagan Parenting Books

Holiday Resources

Online Pagan Parenting Groups

About the Author

Tots & Timelines

The Beginning

They say children are gifts from the gods, although every once in a while, I suspect all parents wonder if they’re the kind of gifts we can return for something less complicated—a pet rock, maybe, or a silk plant? They are both more work and more joy than I think most of us expect before they are born, and our lack of sleep in their earliest days puts college all-nighters to shame.

At our house, we hit the jackpot on complicated kids. Our son was a premature baby with severely under-developed lungs, leading to an almost three-year marathon of doctors, medical equipment, people in our house all day, every day to help care for him, and sleepless nights wondering if things would ever be normal, whatever that means. Just before his third birthday, as his health was improving and our home was starting to look more like a typical home with a toddler instead of an ICU, our daughter came along. She was also a preemie with severe breathing issues and similar complications to her brother. And she eventually came home with a cart full of equipment, and a staff of people in and out of the house to help her grow and heal. We are now nearing the end of the worst of her medical journey. Even so, both kids continue with therapy, and both still have challenges to work through.

Being a Pagan family (I’m Wiccan in my outlook, my husband decidedly less structured in his relationships with the gods), it’s been tough having all this additional help, since we never know what the beliefs of our caregivers and therapists are, and whether they will find our beliefs so unacceptable that they cannot care for our children. Finding ways to work around that has been a challenge for all of us.

Nevertheless, children in Pagan families, both yours and mine, are just that—children. With all the normal joys and trials, the developmental milestones (though in our case, sometimes delayed) and the blessings that children bring. They can teach us so much about what it means to have faith, what it means to manifest what we need, and what it means to be children of the gods in our own right. Our experiences with them teach us more about how to walk in this largely non-Pagan world as Pagans—when to stay quiet, as well as when (and how) to express our beliefs.

And this walk amongst those who believe differently is a complex one, made more so by the responsibility we hold for the little ones in our lives. Your life too

Reviews for Parenting Pagan Tots

[Jacinta Grobbelaar · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Simple and informative advice. A great starting place for a pagan wishing to introduce their children to their practices. So much of this information is simple to implement, for example, teaching your children about the plants in the garden isn’t specifically “witchy” or “pagan” but is certainly encouraging an interest in and reverence for nature, which is something all of us enlightened souls strive for. Lovely read.