Practicing Welcome in
Everyday Family Life
Kathy Nickerson
Author, Speaker, and Eternal Optimist
www.kathynick.com
2/6/2026
​
Parenting young children offers a unique and powerful opportunity to shape how the next generation sees the world. Parents can practice the next right thing in age-appropriate, life-giving ways, weaving values of welcome, kindness, and dignity into everyday family life.
Simple practices like the stories you read, the language you use, the prayers you pray, and the questions you invite can help children grow with compassion rather than fear. You do not need to have all the answers. Faithfulness here looks like modeling curiosity, empathy, and love of neighbor in small, consistent ways that take root over time.
​
In 1984, we lived across the street from a cheese factory. It wasn’t the most desirable part of town. A good friend had recently encouraged us to smooth the bedtime routines with our four children by reading and praying with them each night.
​
One of those nights, we grown-ups started with the typical, “Thank you for a good day and for the people in our family. God bless us, everyone.”
​
Our five-year-old went next. “Dear God, please help the lady who eats out of the dumpster across the street.”
​
We were stunned, of course. Was there a dumpster across the street? Did somebody eat from it?
​
That conversation led to an investigation and, eventually, to sharing some groceries with a single mom and her son. When we delivered the first sack of food, the mama explained she couldn’t use our favorite brand of mac & cheese because she didn’t have a stove in her garage apartment. She preferred canned meat with a pop-top lid. Our family learned to embrace a different way of life without judgment.
​
After that, we discovered lots of ways to practice welcome in our everyday lives. We learned to count to ten in Spanish. We read stories from other lands. We played in the park with neighbors from Africa, and we enjoyed lunch with a Korean family nearby. When we couldn’t speak the same language, we all just nodded and smiled.
​
We didn’t do everything right in those years, but we made a concentrated effort. Our nightly readings from The Chronicles of Narnia probably helped our children become comfortable with people from various backgrounds. C.S. Lewis had taught us to love everyone, from Mrs. Beaver to Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle. Not to mention The Lion.
​
Once, we ate dinner at a restaurant where my husband ordered Minestrone. After several bites, he admitted he disliked it a great deal. The children asked why he didn’t stop eating. I told him to order something else.
​
He told us he would eat every bite because he was practicing. He was imagining he was in Italy, being hosted by a local church. They had offered him this soup as their local specialty, and he would eat it with gratitude and grace. Forty years later, we still talk about that soup.
​
Our small attempts to offer welcome have not changed the world in a big way. We still see injustice in so many places. But we are privileged to say we have friends from many nations, and we are watching a third generation in our family practice the principles of welcome, kindness, and dignity. The work isn’t done, of course. It won’t be done until everyone feels safely home and nobody eats from dumpsters.
​
The Next Right Thing page.