In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
God wants us to speak about Him to our children, we are often nervous of getting it wrong, so we tend to avoid these conversations.
Here are a few guidelines to help you communicate better with your children.
1. Children understand concrete terms and language better than they understand abstract terms and language. They need to be able to see; hear; feel; touch; taste or smell something to understand it. If you ask a three year old how she knows her mommy loves her, she will tell you that her mommy gives her food and cuddles and sings to her. This is all concrete experience.
If you ask a teenager how they know their mother loves them , they will use words like trust and respect, these are abstract concepts that children only learn to understand as they reach the age of 12 or so.
When we speak about spiritual things to a child, we need to be careful not to use too much abstract language – for example we might say to a child he must “Ask Jesus into your heart” – this is an odd concept for a child – “How will Jesus fit in my body?” “Will it be sore?” “Will there be lots of blood?” these are all normal responses to the concrete thought processes of a child. We could rather say to a child that she can ask Jesus to be her forever friend, she will understand a friend and forever is a long time and she will understand that too.
2. 1 Corinthians 2:1 “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God in lofty words or wisdom”
We need to acknowledge that our children are at different developmental levels and so we need to learn to choose words that they understand.
We can learn to understand their level of language development by listening to the descriptive words and language your children use every day. We can also make sure to get to know their world – what they enjoy; what they don’t like and what they are scared of. We sometimes need to forget about what it was like when we were children and get to know the world as it is now.
3. Acts 2:11-12 “… We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues! …What does this mean?”
When the Holy Spirit came he helped all people to hear the Gospel and understand it for themselves , whether that meant in their own language or at their own level of understanding.
We need to take every opportunity to speak about Jesus with our children. Life presents enough discussion material wherer we can teach our little ones about how Great our God is.
Enjoy your time with the children, at the breakfast table, in the car or when you are saying prayers at night.
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This article has been written by Jean Geerthsen. Jean is currently a facilitator for Evergreen parenting courses; and a trainer for All That’s Kids. She has extensive experience working with children, teenagers and families over the last 17 years as a Youth and Children’s Pastor. She is married to Klaus, and they have 3 sons ages 10; 8 and 5. Jean’s vision is to strengthen the family and bring Children and parents together and empower churches to bring the gospel to children of all ages. You can get hold of Jean at jean@geerthsen.co.za or evergreenparenting.co.za