One of the most difficult aspects of Christian parenting is truly seeing your kids’ heart for God. It’s impossible to know someone’s heart accurately unless they choose to honestly share it with you. As children grow older, they realize that filtering what parts of their heart they show to their parents can save them a lot of time and trouble. Some kids even begin portraying a false image of what is actually on their hearts, to avoid potentially upsetting others.
It’s difficult to help your child grow spiritually when you are parenting to a partial or incorrect image of their heart and what it feels and believes about God, the Bible, Christianity and more. You need to find ways to encourage your kids to reveal more about their hearts in honest ways.
Art can be a useful way to encourage kids to open up about their feelings. There is something about art that encourages those engaged in it to choose colors and images that reflect parts of who they are or what they think and feel. You can take advantage of that and find ways to use art to get your kids to open up about their personal faith.
Grab plain white paper and some art supplies. If you can afford or make some sort of art supply that is new to your children, that can make it more likely the art will be authentic as they focus on experimenting with the new medium. Participating with your kids and creating your own art work can give you more opportunities for a great discussion when you are finished.
Explain that you will give them a title for their piece of art. They can create anything using words or images that will fit the title you have given them. Give your kids a title like, “Who Is God to Me?”. Then give them the time and freedom to create their answer to that question. Have them explain their finished work of art. Ask interested questions. Why did they choose those particular things? What would they absolutely not have included in their work of art? What would someone who knew nothing about God learn from their finished creation? The more they become engaged in talking about their masterpiece, the more of their heart they are likely to reveal.
To make it more interesting, give each child a different title for their piece of artwork. Create a family art museum. Do the project more than once with different questions and different mediums. Find ways to share the finished art with others. It’s a fun way to check in periodically on your kids’ heart for God.