Teaching Christian Kids Logical Fallacies (Made Easy!)

Teaching Christian Kids Logical Fallacies (Made Easy!) - Parenting Like HannahIn Why Christian Kids and Teens Must Learn About Logical Fallacies, I shared how learning about logical fallacies can help protect your kids from false teachers and teachings in the Church. You may have tried to find more information about logical fallacies only to read pages full of Latin terms and pretentious explanations. It probably feels like you are missing a piece to your child’s faith puzzle.

I’m no expert on the subject, but below I have given the most common logical fallacies easier names to remember and hopefully definitions a bit easier to understand. I have also given examples of the types of ways they may be used in the context of Christianity. (Any resemblance to any actual teaching is purely accidental.)

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Why Christian Kids and Teens Must Learn About Logical Fallacies

Why Christian Kids and Teens Must Learn About Logical Fallacies - Parenting Like HannahA stint working for Hearst Magazines taught me a lot about the tricks of advertising. I became fascinated by the Good Housekeeping Institute. Anyone wanting to run an ad in Good Housekeeping magazine had to submit the ad copy and the product they were advertising for testing, before being allowed to advertise.

The people at the Institute were meticulous. If a product claimed to have zero of an ingredient and the test showed even one millionth of a particle of it, the ad was rejected until the copy was changed. Mind you, even back then advertisers were paying over $100,000 for a one page ad in one issue. Yet, they willingly accepted the rigor in order to have the cache that came with advertising there (that didn’t even earn you the “Seal”!).

During those years working with advertisers and their agencies, I realized there is a lot of subtle and not so subtle deception in ads. As the years have passed, I have also come to realize people are most often tricked by logical fallacies – a statement that on the surface sounds absolutely logical, but in the end is utter nonsense.

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Can Moms Dare to Hope?

Can Moms Dare to Hope? - Parenting Like HannahEvery mother has a unique set of issues with which she is dealing as she parents. Perhaps your child has special needs. Or maybe you have a child who is suffering from serous illness. Or you may struggle with your kids’ attitudes or misbehavior. Perhaps your financial struggle is so deep, you find it difficult to feed your children. Maybe your husband is no longer in the picture and what you thought would be a shared parenting journey is now a solo one.

Whatever your struggles, it can be easy to lose hope at times. Even the strongest Christian can question when God will intervene or perhaps even if He cares about our woes. Look at King David – the man after God’s own heart – and read his Psalms. Yet, we do know our hope is built on God and His promises – sometimes we just need a little perspective and reminder.

I will be honest. I was excited when given the opportunity to review Katie Majors new book Daring to Hope. Many of you may know her better by her maiden name – Katie Davis and her original book Kisses for Katie. Katie Davis was a young college aged woman, who through a variety of circumstances ended up living and ministering in Uganda. Oh, and she adopted multiple children as a young single woman!

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Quick, Fun Family Devotionals

Quick, Fun Family Devotionals - Parenting Like HannahWhat does the person demonstrating this trick with a jar tell you? If we put the important things like God into our lives first, everything falls into place. If we wait, however, to add God to our lives after we have crammed in everything else – we won’t have room for Him in our lives. They are just to full of the other “stuff”.

This is an example of perhaps one of the most well known object lessons used to help people visually understand some important concept in the Bible. Think of it as a visual version of a parable. Object lessons are great ways to teach children about God. They used to be very popular in Bible classes, but have cycled out of use in many places.

Object lessons make great quick, fun family devotionals. Most use items that you already have around the house. It helps visual learners and kids who are still concrete thinkers have a better understanding of some of the more abstract concepts in the Bible. Or you can even use them to “act out” a parable of Jesus.

You can find lots of free ideas online, but here are a couple of ideas to get you started:

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How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk

How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk - Parenting Like HannahOne of the most important parenting skills is to be a great listener. Why? Because, if you listen well, your kids will talk. The more they talk, the more they will reveal of what they are thinking and feeling. As Christian parents, what they say is even more vital, because it gives us clues how to strengthen their faith foundation and help mold their hearts towards God.

Yet, communication is one of the biggest struggles most parents face. Most of us have developed communication skills which are sloppy at best. In our defense, this is often because we had very little actual training in communication and default to what we picked up somehow along the way. Often these poor habits cause issues as we parent our children. The rifts they cause can become even greater as our kids reach their teen years.

So, I was really interested when offered the opportunity to review the new book How to Listen So People Will Talk by Becky Harling. This isn’t the first book on the topic. In fact, Amazon is filled with books with similar sounding titles and topics. I can’t speak to the others, but I loved this volume.

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