Teaching Kids Reasons For God’s Commands

Teaching Kids Reasons For God's Commands - Parenting Like HannahHave you ever caught yourself saying “Because I’m the parent and I said so” to your kids? If you haven’t yet, you probably will at least once before your kids reach adulthood. There is actually value to teaching your kids to obey for the sake of obeying, especially when they are young. Having children who will immediately comply with your commands can literally save their lives.

In some ways, God too expects us to obey because “He is God and He said so”. The great thing about God though is that He really wants us to understand His incredible love for us. He wants us to realize His commands are in our best interest. He wants us to realize obeying His commands is not just about obeying God, but because it will also give us the best possible life in this fallen world.

Your kids especially need to understand why God gave us some of His commands. Sometimes the scriptures tell us exactly why God wants us to do something. Think about when the Israelites wanted a king. God made sure they understood that even though he would grant their request, putting a person in a position with that much authority would cause many problems. God even made sure Samuel listed all of the future problems the people would have because they had chosen a king to be their ruler instead of God. A quick look at history after that will quickly confirm all of those problems happened and still happen today with earthly rulers.

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Fun Activity for Teaching Kids to Follow God’s Commands

Fun Activity for Teaching Kids to Follow God's Commands -Parenting Like HannahHave you ever tried to put a piece of furniture together without the instructions? You might be successful for a time, but at some point you will find if you don’t follow the instructions exactly as written, you have a mess on your hands.

Your kids need to learn God gives us commands for a reason. He knows what is best for us and has given us a set of instructions in the Bible for living that best life. If your kids choose to ignore or change the instructions and do their own thing, they will usually end up with a mess on their hands.

There is a great, fun activity to make the point to your kids. Often young people will think God’s commands are for later when they are “old and boring”. Or they think, they can tweak them here and there to make God’s commands more “fun” for them. They may think they can pick and choose which commands they obey without any consequences.

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Teaching Kids About Godly Dreams

Teaching Kids About Godly Dreams - Parenting Like HannahWhat were your childhood dreams? Did you want to be an astronaut? What changed your mind? How do you know if changing your mind was what God wanted for your life or if He had another plan you missed somehow?

These are extremely important questions, not only for your life, but also for the lives of your children. The God who cares enough to know the number of hairs on their head, who sent His Son to die on the cross for their sins, and who tells us multiple times in scripture He will guide their steps (Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 30:21, James 1:5-6 and many, many more) – must surely care about where they go to school, whom they date and marry, their career choices and their ministry choices. Our children have free will, but how much more rich and fulfilling their lives will be if they can align their decisions with what God knows is best for them?!

So what do your kids need to know about having godly dreams? There are a lot of things they will learn as they go through the process, but here are some I have learned over the years:

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Christian Kids and Integrity

Christian Kids and Integrity - Parenting Like HannahHave you ever met someone who claimed to be something they really weren’t? You probably believed them at first. As time went on though, you begin to notice their actions didn’t match their claims. They lacked integrity. Sculptors understand about integrity. If the metal or stone they use is bonded into a whole, it is much stronger than if it is divided with thin pieces going in different directions. (Which is why old sculptures are often missing heads, arms, etc.)

We often teach that being a person of integrity is about being an honest person. That is a huge part of it, but it’s more than that. True integrity is when your beliefs, who you present yourself to be and how you speak, act and think are a united whole. You don’t present yourself to be a Christian for example and then proceed to live an ungodly life. Having integrity doesn’t mean you never sin, it just means you make a conscious effort to make your actions match who you claim to be. A Christian living a life of integrity is stronger than a Christian whose life is fractured between Christian and ungodly actions and beliefs.

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Questions for Christian Parents to Ask Their Kids

Questions for Christian Parents to Ask Their Kids - Parenting Like HannahHave you ever said “What in the world were you thinking” to a child? My guess is you didn’t get a very helpful response. Ask More, Tell Less: A Practical Guide for Helping Children Achieve Self-Reliance by Greg Warburton suggests asking the right questions can move you and your children from their reliance on your help to make good choices to their self-reliance.

Parts of this book were excellent and even introduced a couple of new ideas to me. I loved the idea of teaching kids not just to be honest with others, but honest with themselves. He accurately pointed out that often we lie to ourselves about our bad behaviors. Those lies keep us and our kids from making necessary changes. That is a perspective I don’t believe I have ever heard before and I believe it could be life changing for many kids (and adults).

I also appreciated the amount of time he put into helping parents understand the importance of really listening to your kids and asking questions that will help them reveal their hearts (my words, not his). He gives lots of examples of questions a parent could ask about a wide range of choices, attitudes and behaviors. While I believe some of his questions are not quite as open ended as he believes, they are definitely an improvement over the questions many parents typically ask.

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