Kids & Thai Cultural Ceremonies

[Boo]

Today for songkran we went around with the MIL, youngest of her 7 siblings, to 3 of her older sisters to pay respect & get/give blessings. This involves pouring water on hands of older relatives & getting blessing in return as well as having water rubbed over our heads & faces. My son who is nearly 3 found it all a bit boring tbh as toddlers do, but managed to join in the water pouring & get some water rubbed on his head & face, 3 times.

After the last of the "big" sisters were honoured we went to the family temple where all the relatives ashes are interred in a the 4 walls of a courtyard ( was very interesting to see generations of my husbands family all named on the wall where their ashes have been placed in holes covered with plaques.)

7 monks then came to chant & we made offerings. By this time my son was quite tired & was playing up a little bit but nothing major but when the monks came he perked up as he was quite interested in their clothes & bald heads.

Half way through the chanting (about 10minutes or so) he said loudly, in English. "Monks be quiet now, I'm tired!"

Thankfully as me & hubby as the only English speakers it passed with only a small chuckle from me, he was also trying to copy the head monks chants which got a a few giggles from the monks & in law too.

After another 10minutes of chanting it was done so the monks stood up t leave & my son said "bye bye monks, pretty princess dresses"

In my boys world anything frock like is a princess dress as he is into Disney movies at the moment & princesses feature alot

All in all he was a very good boy but I wonder how your kids get on with the sometimes quite long winded buddhist processes, do you just let them run around & amuse themselves or do you expect them to at least try to follow, as we do?

Any funny stories?

[Niranut]

I would have done the same thing in your situation, Boo. You really can't expect much more at that age

Your story reminded me of our last temple visit with all of the kids. They were 3.5yo, 2.5yo, and just over 1yo. My hubby had the 1 yo in a sling and I had the 2.5 yo in a sling to help contain them. We instructed the 3.5 yo to use his inside voice and sit nicely. The plan was to wait for the monks to come to their thing. So I'm kneeling there with a slightly squirmy 2.5 yo and my husband had the 1yo, and the 3.5 yo was sitting nice and quiet between us.

The monks hadn't come out yet, but they had some very nice purple chairs lined up in front of the Buddha for them. It took my 3.5 yo about 2 seconds to decide that the purple chairs were much more comfortable than kneeling on the floor, and off he went. He was quiet about it plunked right down to wait for everything to be over already. No one seemed to notice at first, but by the time I got my husband's attention my son had his hands behind his head, feet stretched out and was all settled in

Needless to say, we decided not to wait for the monks as it was clear how this particular visit was going to go. So we cut the trip a little short. Everyone else at the temple tryed to appear to be focused on their prayers and offerings, but I caught a few little smiles and finger pointing here and there. Not the end of the world, and it made a for a good laugh when we told everyone how our day went

Sadly, on that same visit, I also saw another little boy getting a bit of a whooping for some unknown offense right there at the entrance to the temple. Definitely not the way to go for oh, so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the little guy was howling in addition to whatever it was that he initially did...