If you volunteer in your child’s school, Church Bible classes or even their extracurricular activities, you have probably realized there are entirely too many children living in crisis. Often, these children will never turn to an adult for help. Instead, they will share their concerns, fears and problems with a peer.
If your children are loving, kind and supportive in their interactions with other kids, they may be the ones to whom these hurting children turn. Unfortunately, no matter how mature and godly your kids may be, they just don’t have the training and life experience to handle this vital task fully.
You can however, teach your kids some important Christian Life Skills that will help them step in and give their peers some hope and direction while facing life’s problems. So what are the skills most children should be able to handle when trying to help a peer? Here are some of my favorites.
When our daughter was old enough to be interested in a personal devotional or Bible study, we really had a difficult time finding books that were appropriate for her interests and had enough Bible without being too “preachy”. Even though our daughter is now in college, I’m always looking for books to suggest for great personal devotionals during those upper elementary and middle school years.
When our daughter was younger, we played lots of board games. Over the years, the games changed as we moved from CandyLand (one of the happiest days of my life!) to Monopoly to the challenging family and friend games my husband now invents. I also began to realize these days and nights of game playing helped us teach and reinforce many lessons on godly behavior.
We all know the “age of accountability” for baptism (and thereby becoming a Christian) probably varies slightly from child to child. For years I have watched as the first children in a class study with their parents, decide they want to be baptized and dedicate their lives to Christ. The parents of the other children in their grade start looking forward to the day when their child decides to become a Christian, too.
Want to raise a child to be a strong Christian? Want your kids to stay away from drugs, alcohol and premarital sex? Want them to be emotionally and psychologically healthy? Read any books or articles on those topics and one of the top suggestions is usually for their parents to have a strong, healthy marriage. Just like everything else, it’s no guarantee, but the odds improve greatly for any children raised in a home where their parents have a strong marriage and parent together.