Families, it’s hard to believe it’s fall already! Time to plug in the new school calendar, sports schedules, church and other activities. As you’re doing this, plug in some God time for your kids, too. Our main job as parents is to guide our kids to God. So it starts there. “Start
children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6.
Establishing daily faith-based routines, while challenging at first, is integral to building a solid foundation for our kids. To do this we need to lead by example. Here are a few observations from what we did with our three kids, learned from the example of Christian parents ahead of us.
What kids see us doing matters, so be mindful of what they are seeing. For example, my first two kids saw me reading from my Bible. My third child more often saw me reading from my iPad. Even though I was reading my Bible on the iPad, it wasn’t visually obvious to my son. So he wasn’t seeing the same example as my first two kids.
Pray together daily. As we waited for the Kindergarten bus in our neighbor’s driveway, we would pray together. In later years when we drove to school, we would pray on the way and when our two older girls would get out, my 4 year old son would say “God Bless you Abby! God Bless you Madi! If they didn’t answer, he would yell it louder until he got a response. Then as we drove away Timmy would say. “See! Madi heard that time because she answered!” He needed to know that she heard God’s blessing over her. He had witnessed that habit being fostered in the previous years and now it was his turn.
What goes in comes out. As you know, families spend a lot of time in the car. When our kids were younger, we only played Christian music in the car. It’s amazing how easy it is for kids to absorb the Word of God through song. An added blessing is hearing their sweet little voices praising God, as their young minds memorize the words so easily. Also so cool when they connect the dots and say “I know what they’re singing about. It’s in the Bible!”
While there are many ways to incorporate God into your daily family routines (breakfast devotions, after school snacks Bible stories, picking a family member to bless each week), the most important thing to do is just start. Get into the habit of adding one or two and see what works for your family. Our kids enjoyed it and I’m sure yours will too!
“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7.
God bless you and your family, Miss Martha
Comments