Author: 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.

Fun Way to Create Local Extended Family at Church

Fun way to Create Extended Family at Church - Parenting Like HannahYears ago, most people lived their entire lives within a few miles of where they were born. If they did move, often one or more members of their extended family would travel with them. Parents had the support of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and others in raising their children. The important role wasn’t back up child care, but reinforcing family values.

At times, your children are going to internally or externally question something you teach them. They may hear from peers or on social media that others are allowed to do things their Christian parents won’t allow. They might want a second opinion from someone they love and respect. When tensions rise at home, a loving older relative can often smooth the waters. Yet for many of us most or all of our extended family live miles and even states away.

Parents are suffering from the lack of extended family support and yet Christian parents have a great source of substitute extended family right at their fingertips. We often call congregations our church family, but have you ever taken the term seriously? We have with our child (and my parents even go to church with us).

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The Most Important Thing to Teach Your Children About Modesty

The Most Important Thing to Teach Your Kids About Modesty - Parenting Like Hannah
Colonial Laundry

“Play not the Peacock, looking everywhere about you to see if you be well deck’t.” Unless you are a huge history fan, you probably didn’t know George Washington had a list of rules to live by that he shared with others. (This was rule #54!) He was known for his humility or modesty and thought it was an important quality of well bred people.

In modern society, modesty has come to mean how much of the naked body a female exposes to the world. I remember vividly having to measure the distance between the bottom of my shorts and my knees in order to attend summer Bible camp. While we don’t want our kids to have clothing that exposes private areas, I always bristled at the idea that it was somehow my fault if a man lusted after me. I had been in urban areas enough times to have men catcall in the middle of winter when everything was covered but my eyes. I wasn’t convinced an extra inch of covered leg would matter to those men.

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The Happy Christian Family

The Happy Christian Family - Parenting Like HannahWhen I was little, one of my favorite songs in Sunday School was the “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart” song. I loved life, loved church and was a pretty optimistic kid. Talk to some Christians though and it’s like God is trying to make them swallow some bitter medicine in order to get to Heaven. They look miserable and they make everyone around them unhappy. Why would anyone want to be a part of that?

Needless to say, I was interested when offered the chance to review 60 Days of Happiness: Discover God’s Promise of Relentless Joy by Randy Alcorn. Evidently this is a companion book to the original Happiness book (which I have not read). The book contains a series of sixty short essays on the subject of happiness – specifically as it relates to Christians.

Each day begins with a quote from scripture and a quote from a person who may or may not be familiar to the reader. The essays are three or four smaller pages long. They cover a huge number of topics, not just various angles of three or four as one might expect. Some deal with personal happiness, while others deal with the happiness of God. Many have a practical slant like to feasts make God happy or is it selfish to want to be happy.

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Fun Ways to Teach 5 Important Listening Skills to Your Kids

Fun Ways to Teach Five Important Listening Skills to Your Children - Parenting Like Hannah

 

In 5 Important Listening Skills You Should Be Teaching Your Kids, I shared the five types of listening skills you should be helping your kids master. The best way to teach kids almost anything is to find ways for them to have fun while they practice. Some of the listening skills we covered overlap the others a bit. Since they have a slightly different focus though, you should do activities focusing primarily on each particular listening skill.

You can probably find lots of fun things to try, but here are a few of my favorites for each listening skill:

 

 

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5 Listening Skills You Should Be Teaching Your Children

5 Listening Skills You Should Be Teaching Your Children - Parenting Like Hannah
Greek Bell

Did you realize there are dozens of verses in the Bible about listening? Whether it’s listening to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, parents, wisdom or instruction, it is clearly important to God that our children listen and listen well. If you have children, you have probably been frustrated more than once with their ability to listen – and we won’t even talk about the obeying part!

Strong listening skills are essential to any Christian who wants to make an impact on the world for God. Yet parents, churches and schools spend little time training children how to listen well. Oh, a few may have children practice repeating what they have heard or even answering questions about it, but the listening skills your kids need go far beyond merely recalling details.

So what are the listening skills you need to help your children learn to master?

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