“Last year, I decided to involve my two children in the seder planning,” said Alan Mellen, a single dad in Weymouth. “I wanted them to feel that they played an important role in Jewish tradition.“ Mellen took his kids, Michaela and Jakey, to the supermarket, where they picked out their favorite foods that were permissible for Passover. Then, they sat at the computer and designed a fancy menu that they could emaiI to friends.

At the top, Mellen included a paragraph about the matzah, horse radish, parsley, eggs and lettuce, fruit and nuts and lamb bone. The menu items, listed by category, included a lot of ketchup. But they also included “Jake’s favorite garden-fresh carrots” and “Michaela’s selected herb roasted chicken to perfection, served with rosemary roasted baby potatoes or sweet gannet potatoes, and steamed asparagus.” The wines were broken down into age 21 and over, and “Kid’s Wine,” which was red grape juice. The kids gave out Passover books with stickers from Israel Books, and played hide the matzah with two of their friends. Afterwards, they framed the menu.

Passover is Peabody-based freelance writer Nancy Mades’ favorite holiday. An editor at ADDitude Magazine with an ADHD-affected son, she knows firsthand the challenges associated with occupying children at a seder. Mades writes about her revamped holiday traditions in Family Fun magazine, which is viewable at FamilyFun.com. Her “surprise Matzah Ball Soup” recipe calls for the kids to roll the dough into balls and hide a piece of carrot inside each one. She suggests putting clues to the Afikomen location under kids’ plates, and includes directions to make “Afikomen bags,” for a game variant where each child must find his or her own bag.

Mades also has kids design their own “jeweled” and “stained glass” Kiddush cups for the seder‘s four cups, using craft glue, multicolored crafting gems and multicolored tissue paper.

“I have always approached Pesach by focusing on the positive,“ said Dale Appel of Stoughton, whose children were 1.5 and 3.5 years old when she and her husband separated. “I would emphasize the special foods we get to eat, such as matzoh brie, matzoh meal latkes, homemade Passover rolls, Passover quiche, and special Passover desserts,“ she said. The three got rid of chometz together, and would often go to her native New Jersey for an extended family experience. “My siblings and cousins would go over the Haggadah in advance and highlight all of the important points,“ she recalled, “so if the little ones were too tired, we could abbreviate the ceremony.” Even if it were only she and the children, they still had a seder with a holiday meal and special desserts. One year, they went to a vegetarian seder in Brookline for variety, and the kids still remember how a fuss was made because someone made a sauce with anchovies, but no one complained about ravioli brought in.

With a little digging, you can find brain puzzles for Passover to share at the Seder, a Rugrats Passover and mazes at Billy Bear’s Pesach, as well as songs with sheet music, Hebrew Passover songs and acting parts for Passover plays. Passover clip art can be found at Kaboose Free Clip-Art, as well as at Judy Litt’s collection at About.com; Uncle Debi’s Jewish Clip Art, Bitsela Artz, and Roz Fruchtman’s Jewish Graphics site.

Kids can be encouraged to extend the seder experience out of the home. Have them bring Passover foods to school. Include them in a mitzvah project: Beth El of Sudbury, Temple Aliyah of Needham, Temple Sinai of Brookline and many other local synagogues are sponsoring Passover Food Drives, many through Jewish Family & Children’s Services’ Family Table and B’Nai B’rith’s Project Hope.

“We once participated in a seder on the floor, like the wandering Israelites in the desert,” said Rosie Rosenzweig, a Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis. Her family once followed "The Family Participation Haggadah: A Different Night" by Noam Zion and David Dishon. “My son-in-law, psychologist Joel Ziff, wanted his stepson Max to learn the four questions when he was about 3,” she said. “So everyone who mattered to Max was videoed singing them to the camcorder, and Max would watch this video again and again.“ Rosenzweig’s innovative family used many different Haggadahs at another seder, from children's to Hasidic, to Steinsaltz. “Everyone read different commentaries from these various Haggadot.“

Nowdays, she and her husband visit her daughter in New York, who runs a seder for elderly Jews in extended care. “Many want to ask the Four Questions,“ she says. “One woman even did it in Yiddish.“ Thus, from this population, we can see that it is a highlight for them remember the time when they indeed were young enough to ask the Four Questions.

So all your hard work will always be worth it!

“What is important is the connectivity from one generation to another,“ says Appel. “During the seder we say ‘Because the Lord, my G-d, brought me forth from Egypt.‘ We do not exclude ourselves and say that G-d merely brought our ancestors forth from Egypt; from slavery to freedom. We say it is what ‘The Lord, G-d, did for me‘.”