Kids, Conversations, and God

Kids, Conversations, and God - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo by Paul Fitzgerald

Recently a mother told me about a sleepover her daughter had hosted. She peeked in on the girls at one point because it had gotten so quiet. The girls were sitting around the room texting and playing video games on their telephones. She had to remove the devices to get them to interact with each other.

In some, ways the scenario is amusing. It is a real reflection of how technical devices amuse (and possibly control!) almost everyone in our society. On the other hand, I am afraid this generation of children will be unable to converse effectively with another human being.

Continue reading Kids, Conversations, and God

The Final Challenge: Teaching Children to Live More Like Jesus

The Final Challenge: Teaching Our Children to Live More Like Jesus - Parenting Like Hannah
To 99% of the world, our homes look like Versailles!

If you and your family have been following our plan this year to live more like Jesus, you and your children may have established some new godly habits. Hopefully, they will be practiced by your children for their entire lives. There is only one more godly attribute to teach your children in the challenge.

This attribute is perhaps the toughest challenge of all. You see, Jesus was willing to sacrifice everything the world values for God and God’s plan. Think about it for a moment. Jesus (as far as we know) never owned his own home and set down roots. He never married or had children. He never had a career where he made enough money to buy anything he wanted. Although many disciples followed him for a time, when things seemed to take a turn for the worse, only a handful of people supported him as he died on the Cross.

Continue reading The Final Challenge: Teaching Children to Live More Like Jesus

Ways to Banish Greed From Your Child’s Life

Ways to Banish Greed from Your Child's Life - Parenting Like Hannah

Some time ago, I wrote this post about banishing greed. It has continued to be one of my most popular posts. As you prepare for the Christmas gift giving onslaught, here are some ideas to help you train your children to be a little less entitled.

Greedy children appear to concern a lot of people this time of year. It seems like everyone has a child with the “gimmes”, especially during the holidays. In fact, my daughter and I caught a segment where a “parenting expert” was counseling parents on how to “cure” their children. Her main advice was for parents to tell their children it was a recession and they couldn’t afford much.

My daughter snorted, “Then they’ll just wait until the economy is better and expect double presents!” She is right. There are a lot of ways to help your child take the focus off of what they can get, but giving them partial or incorrect information is not the best plan. Our daughter is incredibly responsible with money and always has a very reasonable and short “wish list”. In fact, she rarely has more than two or three items on her entire Christmas list.

Continue reading Ways to Banish Greed From Your Child’s Life

Taking God on Family Trips

Taking God on Family Trips - Parenting Like Hannah
From our mission trip last December

The holidays bring about the best of times and the worst of times (sorry Mr. Dickens). Often the joy of vacations is undone with the hassles of piling everyone and everything into a car or airplane and traveling hundreds of miles to visit family.

Between choruses of “I’m hungry”, “She’s touching me” and “Are we there yet”, it’s easy to forget about God. The idea of using the time to teach your children about godly principles seems insane. Yet, God told the Israelites to teach their children about God as they walked along the road. (Can you imagine that whining?!)

Continue reading Taking God on Family Trips

Teaching Kids to Make Smart Decisions

Teaching Kids to Make Smart Decisions - Parenting Like Hannah
Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

Ever take a small child with his birthday cash to a dollar store? Either the child goes crazy and piles more in the basket than he can afford or he takes an agonizingly long time to pick out the one perfect item. Silently, you are wondering how this child will ever pick the right college or spouse with his current decision making skills.

As our children mature, we tend to forget our concerns. Most of the time our children make pretty good decisions and once in a while they will make a really poor one. Either way, we let them work through it with little formal instruction on the steps for making a good decision.

Maybe you struggle with decision making yourself. If you are like me, the popular pro/con list rarely works. Either we are so swayed, we can only see one side or we are so analytical, both sides come out evenly. Praying helps, but God rarely places a billboard on our street with specific point by point plans for us.

Continue reading Teaching Kids to Make Smart Decisions