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.

The Little Things in Christian Parenting

The Little Things in Christian Parenting - Parenting Like Hannah I moved a lot during my twenties. Packing boxes is a pain. Then you either have to tape them closed or struggle to get them to do that criss-cross fold that keeps them shut. Imagine my excitement the other day when a store gave me this box! Some genius (worthy of a major prize or patent in my mind) came up with the idea of notching one flap. That’s it. Something really simple, but it makes a world of difference if you need to temporarily close a lot of boxes.

Christian parenting is the same way. We can get overwhelmed with the weight of the task and basically give up on even putting any effort into it. I can’t tell you how many blogs and posts I see from people who don’t want anyone to suggest a better way of doing anything – especially parenting. Those who have tips to make our job easier and the results better are obviously just judging us. Evidently, it is now even “cool” to be mediocre – those putting a lot of effort into almost anything are portrayed as uptight or neurotic and definitely worthy of scorn from those of us who are “average” and are happy to stay that way. Better to continue just taking our kids to church from time to time and hope it “sticks” like it seems to have with us than to put in extra effort and appear prudish, nerdy or judgmental.

Unfortunately, God makes it absolutely clear that is not at all what He expects from parents. Check out Deuteronomy 6:7 and Deuteronomy 11:19 if you don’t believe me. The sad part is many children will walk away from God because their parents didn’t put in that extra effort. And the good news is that it really isn’t all that hard. Just making a few tiny changes, can make a huge difference in the spiritual development of your child.

So what are some quick, simple things you can do to start your child in life with a well grounded faith? There are probably hundreds of things you can do, but try a few of these for starters:

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A Fun Way to Remind Kids to Read the Bible

A Fun Way to Remind Kids to Read the Bible - Parenting Like Hannah Remember the old string tied around the finger? Back when I was growing up, whenever we saw a string tied around a finger, we knew someone was supposed to remember something important every time they saw the string.

We want our children to read their Bibles regularly. We may not want to nag in an effort to avoid having the Bible seem like another chore for our kids instead of something they should treasure. So how about a fun memory jogger like the string?

Recently, we taught a group of children how God’s Words are sometimes referred to as honey (Psalm 119:103) or milk (I Peter 2:2) in the Bible. We explained honey meant God’s words are so special we should be as excited to read them as if someone gave us something sweet to eat like honey. The scripture in I Peter mentions how important milk is to a new little baby. God’s Words should be as important to us as milk is to a tiny baby.

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Helping Kids With Bible Literacy

Experts vary in their opinion slightly, but to be considered literate in the English language, a person should be able to functionally read and write on somewhere between the fifth and eighth grade levels. Anything below that may allow people to do some minor things, but to function well in society, one needs basically a middle school level of proficiency in English.

What about Bible literacy? What would God say is necessary to be considered literate in His commands and principles? Obviously, a knowledge of Jesus, your need for forgiveness and how to become a Christian (and obtain that forgiveness) would be the very basic level of Biblical literacy.

What about everything else in the Bible? Do our kids really need to know about all of those people and their lives? What about all of that “boring stuff” in the prophets? Should they read the Psalms, which just looks like a lot of poems or the letters in the New Testament, which are just someone’s mail?

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Laying the Foundation for Christian Kids

Laying the Foundation for Christian Kids - Parenting Like Hannah What if I told you your child was only going to learn less than nine letters of the alphabet at school? If that is all your child ever learned, how well would they cope in the world? Would they struggle more than if they had learned the entire alphabet and could read more? Would the missing letters cause gaps in their knowledge?

A very conservative estimate is that there are 250-300 stories in the Bible. Some are only a verse or two. In addition, there are Psalms, Proverbs and other passages that would not exactly qualify as a story, but have tremendous meaning and wisdom to give us. Yet even if your children have Bible class twice a week for their entire childhood, in most cases they are getting less than 20% of the information in the Bible shared with them. Even children attending private Christian schools are not covering everything in the Bible.

Now if your child were only taught a percentage of the alphabet, at first you might attempt to get the school to step up and teach more. The parents who realized the value of knowing the entire alphabet wouldn’t wait for something to change. They would take the time to teach their children the missing letters so their kids would get everything they could out of life.

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Teaching Kids To Go the Extra Mile

Remember the command in Matthew 5:41? You know – the one when if someone asks you for one piece of clothing or to walk a mile, you give them twice what they asked from you? I think if I ever heard any sermons on it, they revolved around helping others or being nice to our enemies. How often though do we teach our children to actually go the extra mile in everything they are asked to do?

Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect and “uncool” to do your best. Anyone expecting the best from us is judgmental, demanding, and even divisive. If we go the extra mile and give more than is asked from us – whether it is in church, service, work or school – we can be labeled “teacher’s pet” or much uglier things. Yet, I don’t find Jesus putting any limitations on his commands in those surrounding verses. Clearly, God expects us and our children to go that “extra mile”.

So how can you encourage your children to do their best without turning them into anxious perfectionists or rebellious slackers in the process? I think we can train our children to go the extra mile while also teaching them how to set healthy boundaries. There are probably a lot of ways to do it, but here are a few we tried:

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