Category: Character Training

Using Your Kids’ Interests to Reinforce Biblical Truths

What are your kids’ interests outside of screen time? If they don’t have any, that’s another discussion (But please get them back in the real world!). Did you know you can use aspects of their interests to reinforce things they are learning from the Bible? You just need to help them look a little below the surface to find all kinds of real life examples.

How? Let’s say your teen daughter loves watching rom coms on Great American Family. Enjoy the movie with her. As you are watching, take note of choices the characters make. Were there any sins (probably not on GAF)? Were there poor choices or red flags that a person would not make a great spouse? Were there questionable choices for a healthy relationship (for example basically dating someone while in a committed relationship with someone else)? What consequences did or could these choices cause? After the movie, choose one observation and ask your daughter, “What did you think about so and so doing such and such?” Or “Why do you think their relationship didn’t last?”

What if your kids participate in a sport? After practice or a game, bring up an incident or comment on one they mention. Focus on whether or not the choice leading to the incident was good or bad and what influenced their interpretation of the event. What would God have to say about the choice? What other consequences could come for the person who made a poor choice now and farther down the road?

If your children are into the arts, the conversation can take a different direction. In the arts, the focus is often on obvious and hidden messages and themes. Talk about those messages. Discuss whether or not God would want certain messages amplified with the arts or better, more godly messages shared. What sort of messages do they want to send to others with their participation in their art of choice?

You have to be careful not to do this every single time or to sound like you are lecturing them when you do. Make the conversations casual, but meaningful. Show real interest in hearing their thoughts and opinions because they may be sharing parts of their hearts with you as they talk. Since they are already interested in the springboard for the conversation, they may also be willing to discuss it at more length than if you brought it up in some other way. Using your children’s interest to begin spiritual conversations is a great way to help them better understand what God expects from them in a non threatening way. Doing it regularly can help you reinforce important biblical truths you hope they live out in their lives.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids – Fasting

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at spiritual disciplines as a way of helping kids and teens develop habits that will help their spiritual growth and health. These are practices done by Jesus, the Apostles and/or early Christians. Perhaps the discipline most common in antiquity and least practiced today is fasting for spiritual reasons.

By the time of Jesus, fasting had several purposes. People might fast while in mourning, in the face of a local or national tragedy, to prepare for something important or as part of repentance or in service to God. In the time of Jesus, Yom Kippur was the only fast commanded by God, but many observed additional days of fasting associated with holidays and remembrances, like Purim.

Although we think of fasting mainly in terms of not being able to eat, it really had greater significance. Fasting was used as a time to stop a daily routine and use that time to reflect and connect with God through prayer. It also provided time to linger in those prayers and “listen” to what God might want the person to know. Finally, it was used as a time of introspection and repentance.

Our idea of how to conduct a fast is also very different from that of the Jews during the time of Jesus. Their fasts generally lasted from sunrise until the first stars appeared at sunset. Some fasted by not partaking of food or drink during those daylight hours while others only abstained from food. The fasts were generally broken at the appearance of the first stars during sunset.

Jewish children are not required to participate in fasting until they have reached the age of twelve or thirteen, the time at which they begin to take personal responsibility for their faith. Younger children, however, would have watched the adults they know fast on a regular basis and may have even looked forward to their first fast as a rite of passage.

Since health experts question the wisdom of children fasting for a number of reasons, it’s important to teach your kids the principles behind fasting without actually making them go without food for an entire day. (Having said that, our congregation does a special month of praying and fasting every January and the teens are some of the most willing participants.) Encourage them to fast from something they enjoy that takes up their free time for a day and use that time for the same purposes Christians do when they fast from food. For some children, going without their devices for an entire day would be more difficult than going without food.

Even though they aren’t fasting from food, go ahead and plan a special dinner for any night they have fasted. Serve it after sunset. Talk about fasting, its purposes and what they noticed about fasting from their activity. If you fast regularly, talk about how your attitudes and perceptions about fasting change over time. As they approach the teens years and may want to fast from food, make sure to set some safety parameters. Fasting for spiritual purposes is not a way to diet. It should be broken after the ten to twelve hours of daylight with a healthy meal. It’s probably best if they continue to drink water while fasting and teens with certain medical conditions like diabetes should continue to fast from something other than food. Remind them to focus on the spiritual and not other more secular things during the times they would have normally been eating.

While fasting for spiritual reasons has fallen out of fashion, Christians over the centuries have found it helps their focus, their Bible study and their prayer lives. It’s worth teaching your children how to fast and help them make it a regular habit.

Fun Way to Teach Your Kids About Friendship

Friends are a huge influence in the lives of many children and teens. You can’t just assume your kids know how to choose close friends who will support and encourage them. Nor can you assume your children will automatically know how to be a good friend to others. It’s important to have regular conversations about friendship. Fortunately, there are some fun things you can do with your kids while having these conversations.

Find a recipe you want to teach your kids how to make. It can be for one of their favorite dishes or something fun like cookies. Take the time to show them the recipe and talk about the importance of following it well if you want the food to turn out great. Talk about what would happen if you put a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar in your cookie recipe or didn’t follow the recipe in other ways.

While your recipe is cooking, read or tell your kids the story of David and Jonathan found in 1 Samuel 20. Ask your kids to point out the clues in the story that Jonathan and David were good friends to each other. How did they support and encourage one another?

Give your kids some blank paper and pens, crayons or markers. Explain that just like your recipe, there is a recipe for what makes a great close friend. (For some children, you may want to explain the differences between acquaintances, casual friends and close friends.) Give them time to create and illustrate their “recipe” for a great friend. After they have finished, discuss their answers. What else should they add? What things would be nice, but aren’t essential? Why are the best friends sometimes different from us in key areas? Which of these characteristics do they see in their current friends? If they don’t have close friends, where might they begin trying to find them? What are some good ways to make new friends?

Like many other conversations about important topics, you will have to revisit friendship multiple times over the years. If not, you may find your kids are choosing friends who are gradually pulling them away from God.

Fun Activity to Teach Kids About Jesus as a Boy

Do your kids ever complain about going to school? Even kids who generally love school have those moments when it just seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth. There’s a fun activity you can do with your kids which may not only help them understand the wisdom of doing their best, but also help them learn a little more what life was like for Jesus as a boy.

While you don’t have to have a lot of supplies, it can be more fun if you have chalk and a small chalkboard or a feather that can be used as an ink quill. I highly suggest using thinned black tempera paint rather than ink to minimize the possible disasters ink can create!

Start by asking your kids whether or not God cares if they go to school and if they do their best while there. Don’t correct their answers, but do have them explain their rationale for their answers. Then ask them if they know whether or not Jesus had to go to school and what they know about it.

Just like today, when Jesus was very young, he would have been taught at home. Although we don’t have anything in the Bible about those years, we know Jewish children were taught letters and numbers like children today, except in the languages they used.

Once Jesus was school aged, he would have attended school at the local synagogue with other boys. Sometimes girls attended these schools for a time, while others were “homeschooled”. The synagogue schools taught a variety of subjects, but their main textbook was what we call the Old Testament today. Before they were teens, most boys had memorized the Torah or the first five books of our Old Testament. The really interesting thing is that studies often began in the book of Leviticus – the book of the five most people find difficult because it is full of the laws the Jews had to obey.

In addition to reading, writing, scripture and law, they learned history (mainly from the Old Testament), science and math. The area where Jesus grew up was very concerned with knowing and obeying scripture, so the school Jesus attended probably really taught a lot about it.

Another interesting thing is that Jesus spoke at least two languages – Hebrew and Aramaic. Hebrew was important to the Jews, but in their dealings with those who weren’t Jewish they needed to know Aramaic – the common language at the time. That area would also have been exposed to Greek and Latin, but we don’t know how much of those languages Jesus knew.

If you want, you can also tell your kids about how the students sat around the synagogue in basically a circle. That the Torah and other books of the Bible they had at the time were still on giant scrolls. If you have the writing supplies, let them trying writing some letters and words in Hebrew, Aramaic and even Greek (you can find samples to copy online). Older kids may want to think about the types of scriptures teachers could have used to teach history, science and math to their students.

After your discussion, ask your kids whether or not they thought school was difficult when Jesus was a boy. If they forget, remind them of how much those kids had to memorize to do well in school. Do they think Jesus did his best in school? Why or why not? Although we don’t know a lot about his school years, we know what happened when he went to the Temple the first time at age twelve. Review the story found in Luke 2:41-52. What clues are there in the story about what Jesus had learned?

Read Colossians 3:23-24. How might these verses apply to what they do at school? How would they act differently if they Jesus would ask them how they lived out this verse every day at school? Why is it hard for them to do those things now? What can they do to remind themselves to live out these verses and make better choices at school. End with each child stating a goal for how they can work at school that will reflect the verses in Colossians.

Spiritual Disciplines for Your Kids

As a Christian parent, you may or may not have heard of the concept of spiritual disciplines. Periodically, it gets some focused attention in various circles, but doesn’t seem as popular as it may have been in the past. For those of you new to spiritual disciplines, they are practices Christians have participated in since the beginning of Christianity. Many Christians believe these disciplines will help them become more like Jesus and more pleasing to God. The lists vary from person to person, but they all have in common things that are commanded or modeled in scripture, like prayer and Bible study. While the term “spiritual disciplines” is not found in the Bible, the individual practices on most lists are found in scripture.

The problem with these disciplines is that they don’t always come naturally. At least not doing them consistently and constantly. Perhaps it is because often Christians don’t try to start making them habits until they are adults. What if we spent more time helping our children develop these disciplines when they are young? Would they be able to be more consistent and benefit spiritually from doing these things regularly?

Part of the problem I would imagine many parents would have is that most of these disciplines sound very adult in nature. I believe, however, that they can be tweaked in such a way that they are appropriate for even very young children and can help them develop healthy spiritual habits while it is still relatively easy.

Over the next few weeks, we will spend one post a week going into more depth about specific disciplines and how to get your children started in participating in them. (Our other post each week will feature other topics, tips and activity ideas.) For now, here is the list we will be using,

  1. Prayer
  2. Bible study, including reading, memorizing and meditation.
  3. Fasting
  4. Worship
  5. Service
  6. Fellowship
  7. Solitude
  8. Confession
  9. Giving
  10. Hospitality
  11. Simplicity
  12. Reflection
  13. Stewardship
  14. Evangelism
  15. Gratitude

As you look at this list, in which spiritual disciplines do you personally participate in consistently? With which do you struggle? How could these disciplines help your own spiritual growth and health? That of your children? Join us next week as we begin taking a closer look at individual disciplines and adapting them for children and teens.