Parenting Like Hannah

Fun Way to Teach Kids About God’s Love

Fun Way to Teach Kids About God's Love - Parenting Like Hannah When adults think of God’s love for us, we immediately think about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. For young children though, those concepts are very abstract. It’s important they hear them even though they can’t quite understand it fully. When you want young children to understand God’s love for them however, you want to also use some very concrete things. Things they can see, touch, smell.

One of the best ways to explain to a young child about God’s love is to help them experience the great variety in God’s creation. Tell them the story of creation found in the first part of Genesis. Explain God could have created anything he wanted to create. He could have decided one kind of fish or tree or flower was enough for us.

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Does A Mom Have to Worry?

Does a Mom Have to Worry - Parenting Like Hannah It seems natural for a mom to worry. You feel so responsible for those precious little lives and so many things can go wrong. In fact, if you read too much, you may have swirled yourself into a constant state of worry and anxiety.

That’s not the life God wants for His people though. Why else would there be so many scriptures advising us to not worry? Yet, knowing God doesn’t want us to be anxious and actually pushing those worries aside can be two very different things.

So, I was interested when offered to review the book How To Overcome Worry by Dr. Winfred Neely. Although the book generally gives good advice, I’m always a little annoyed when asked to pay almost ten dollars for a book of less than one hundred pages (the add-ons at the end make the final total 112 pages.) It’s not even a beautiful gift book, which frankly, it should have been. Instead it’s a small paperback with no illustrations.

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8 Tips for Raising Kids Who Survive and Thrive

In Are You Accidentally Raising a Victim, I shared why you need to raise kids who don’t see themselves as victims. 10 Signs Your Child Has a Victim Mindset explained how to tell if your kids are beginning to view themselves as victims. Whether your kids already view themselves as victims or you just want to make sure they never see themselves in that light, it’s important to know how to give your kids the tools to survive and even thrive in the face of adversity.

There are a lot of things you can do to help your children become survivors instead of victims. In fact, the Bible is full of stories of people like King David who experienced a lot of really negative things. Have your kids read how David shared his feelings about his adversities in Psalms. Then have them read the stories of how God helped David survive and even thrive in spite of the adversity in his life. If you regularly share these stories with your kids, they will begin to see the pattern of how God still works in the lives of His people.

There are other things you can do to give your kids the tools to avoid developing a victim mindset. In the case of serious trauma, your child may also need help from a mental health professional to process the event in healthy ways. For those with less traumatic negative experiences, here are a few more of my favorite tips for helping kids survive and even thrive.

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10 Signs Your Child Has a Victim Mindset

In Are You Accidentally Raising a Victim, I shared the negative effects a victim mindset can have on your children and the best way to stop it from developing. Unfortunately, your kids may have already started developing a victim mindset – even if they have never experienced a particularly traumatic event. Our society loves convincing all of us we are victims. It’s a great way for others to gain power and money, by promising to “fix” our victim status.

So what are the signs your kids may already think of themselves as victims? Here are some of the most obvious ones.

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Are You Accidentally Raising a Victim?

Are You Accidentally Raising Victims? _ Parenting Like Hannah — The society who built these were forced to flee and never returned.

Want to be inspired? Walk the 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk. As I walked 60 miles over three days, I met women who had every right to think of themselves as victims. They had survived a horrible disease that had ravaged their bodies. Yet, these were some of the most energized, positive people I had ever met. They refused to think of themselves as victims.

No matter what may happen to your children, the best gift you can give them is to teach them how to avoid thinking of themselves as victims. Victims get stuck. They don’t move forward. They don’t accomplish anything, because they are fixated on their pain. They surely, can’t reach their godly potential or accomplish the plans God has for their lives. They can’t continue to mature spiritually, because growth requires looking forward. Victims are stuck in the past when the hurt occurred.

In our society, people gain power and riches when they convince others they are victims. Then they can swoop in and “save the day” – often by actually victimizing the very people they are claiming to help. It used to be tough to convince people they were victims. Now we have a society full of them.

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