What Your Daughter Can Learn From Hannah

What Your Daughter Can Learn From Hannah - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo by Pedro Ribeiro Simoes
Have you ever had a “light bulb” moment? Something dawns on you for the first time and you wonder why it took you so long to realize it. I had a really disturbing one the other day. I was writing some free downloads for the readers of Parenting Like Hannah. I wanted to create a list of great stories in the Bible for girls to read. Suddenly it hit me. We teach our daughters some of the Bible stories that “star” women. Do we ever teach them what characteristics these women had? These women displayed Godly traits we and our daughters should be trying to develop in our own lives.

I asked my daughter what she was taught at Bible school about women like Ruth or Hannah. I really believe that children get a good grasp of the basic Bible stories in class. Many times they will also be taught a good general principle, like the importance of prayer. I don’t think anyone ever suggests to our daughters that these are female role models for them. These women have good and bad characteristics our daughters need to develop or avoid.

How many women had their first in depth study of the women of the Bible well into their own journey as wives, mothers and adults? At that point, many of us have already developed habits that had to be broken or had new behaviors we needed to learn at an age where it takes a little longer to learn new things.

What if we taught our daughters the Bible proactively? We need to take another look at the women in the Bible. What can they teach our daughters about the type of women they need to be, to be pleasing to God? How can they help us train our daughters to be willing, loving, effective servants of the Lord? Let’s start teaching these lessons to our girls as early as possible. Hopefully, it will be a lot easier for them to develop these important traits as they grow rather than when they are already adults.

Published by

Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

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