Children and the elderly: Nursing Home Ministry with kids

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Last Christmas a friend and I coordinated with a local nursing home for our moms group to bring in home baked cookies for the residents. Currently the children in our group range in age from infant to 7 years old. It is a wide age range but several families have multiple kids so we have become rather all inclusive age wise.

The cookie distribution was such a blessing to the residents that the activity director of the home contacting us to ask if we would be interested in coming on a monthly basis to participate in an activity with the residents.

It took a few months to figure out what would work but around March we began going to the home on a monthly basis. Thankfully for me the staff at the nursing home is taking care of the planning of monthly activities. Some have included playdough, bubbles, finger paint, and roll out cookies.

Sometimes it can feel like we aren’t ‘accomplishing’ much. We don’t have a gospel presentation while we are there. Sometimes I spend most of the time chasing my youngest who is 1 ½. At times it might not feel like all the kids are interacting. Many of the residents are not responsive to basic conversation. But on the other hand some residents such smile and enjoy the company of these young ones who have so much energy.