As Lent moves along, kids (and grown-ups) forget that it’s still a time for sacrificing. I see my kids (and myself) lapsing on the sacrifices. So, to get us all back on track my kids and I made a “cross tree” as a reminder to keep it up. Our tree is full of “no complaint crosses”. Each cross has a task written on it. These tasks are things the kids should do without complaint!
The key point here is “without complaint”. I don’t know about all of you other moms out there, but my kids will do the task given to them after they voice their complaint!
I remind them that Jesus took his sufferings without complaint and we all need to do our daily duties without complaint, too!
Each of the crosses have a daily duty listed on them. The daily duties are things that we have to do each day, but they are things that we should do without complaint.
Some of the things that we wrote on the crosses were: “doing our chores”, “helping our brothers and sisters”, “brushing our teeth”, “cleaning our room”, plus, things like “no wining, instead asking nicely”, or “no complaining about others”, “don’t complain when you are bored”, “no complaining about the temperature in the room” (that’s a hard one for me) etc… We easily added 20 crosses to our tree.
It was a great reminder for the kids to keep the Lenten sacrificing in mind throughout the day and to not complain about the things we can do as a sacrifice for God!
How we made our tree:
I printed the crosses onto purple paper. (purple for sacrifice)
Just cut a piece of purple construction to a size that will fit into your copier.
I printed the second and third pages onto red paper.
(red for Christ’s Passion)
(red for Christ’s Passion)
The kids made a list of daily activities, which they should do without complaint. I wrote them on the crosses for the younger kids and they hung them on the tree.
We made our tree with sticks and an old glass jar filled with rocks (to weigh it down).
We made our tree with sticks and an old glass jar filled with rocks (to weigh it down).
They can even add a cross whenever they think of another situation when they shouldn’t complain.
Click here to view and print this PDF file
Click here to view and print this PDF file
I think kids need to be reminded that complaining is not good.
And hopefully I won’t have to say, “I’m sure Jesus never complained to his mother when she asked him to sweep the floor.” lol! Really, my kids are pretty good kids! But we all need to be reminded to do our daily duties without grumbling – even me!
May God Bless the remainder of your Lent!
~Jen-Marie
This is wonderful!! And it's not too late to do this with the kids.
Thanks, Jill! You're right! It's not too late! It's always a good time for a holy reminder! God Bless!
LOVE, as always, AND I already have a tree! 🙂
\”No Complaint Crosses\” – ingenious! Thank you for sharing.