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Making Golden Moments

iStock_000008684810FBYou are the most important person for your child’s understanding of God and the world. This series offers easy ways to get soul-pleasing conversations started:

Conversation Starter #10
God gives children a remarkable curiosity, doesn’t he? It’s an engine that powers their brains with new information. Conversation Starter #10, SHORT AND SIMPLE, focuses on giving the best answers you possibly can. The secret: Keep your answers short.

Pre-teens and teens often will ask about the technical, apologetic aspects of faith to either prove or disprove what they’ve learned so far. They’ll invite more of a discussion or debate. Younger children go for the spiritual jugular. Where does God live? What is Hell like? Who gets in Heaven? They don’t want an exposition, either. They want the answer clean and short. You can thank God for that.

Even adults have limited capacity for a lecture about life. It’s the one- or two-liners, morsels of profound information that stick with us the most. “Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus said, for example.

Practice your brief answers to the biggest questions your child might ask.

Conversation Starter #9
Life is complicated in an unpredictable world, even for a small child. By five years old, most children have had an experience with loss or sacrifice. Often such times can be both happy and sad, feel good and bad. That tension is natural in life, particularly the life of faith. And weathering it with people they love helps children build resilience and deepens their walk with Jesus.

Grownups don’t always have answers. But you can spend casual time with a child, and ask him questions about how he feels. You can lend a sympathetic ear when he decides to tell you. And you can pray together for God to help you understand and get through a challenging time.

The Hello, Good-by Window is a wonderful picture book that addresses the tug of conflicting emotions. Check it out from the library and read the book together with your child. Ask why the girl character might be happy and sad at the same time.

Conversation Starter #8
To hear a child say, “I love you,” is like music for the human heart. But we grownups know that love takes many forms through our daily decisions to love. Acts of service, deference, respect, politeness, hospitality, grace, mercy—are all love in action. You can NAME LOVE and help your child understand its broader meaning. Point out his loving actions. “You show sweet love for your puppy when you pet her gently like that!” “Oh, thank you for picking up that toy for your friend. That was very loving.” Our board book All of Me That You Can’t See was created to support awareness in this way.

Connecting your child’s actions with love helps you to reinforce many important qualities, like obedience, by emphasizing the deeper significance of an action. Along the way, your child will grow to understand your motivation in life, too.

Conversation Starter #7
One of life’s hardest spiritual truths, which Jesus submitted to, is that all gain comes through some measure of cost or suffering. It’s not exactly fodder for an enjoyable dinnertime, but examples of this principle abound in nature, and Spring is the prime time to find them with your child. Newly growing plants grow through the death of a seed. And of course the very hungry caterpillar transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

Use a blanket or sleeping bag to play BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY and let your child curl up in it to “rest” for a while. Then, when he thinks the butterfly is ready, help him unzip and burst out to fly around the room. Talk about what happens in his “cocoon” or read a book together about it.

Planting a seed and watching it grow is one of the joys of childhood. Start with an easy plant, like grass (even a chia pet!). Talk about what happens to the seed in the dirt, and the impact of light and water. Graham Blanchard’s board book Little Seed: A Life was created for such an occasion. As you do things like this together, even saying a statement as simple as, “It’s true in our life, too, that hard times can bring good things,” will plant a connection in your child’s own heart for fuller understanding later.

Conversation Starter #6
Create some time just to hang out with your child in the next few days, whether you’re taking a walk looking for treasures like leaves and rocks, or you’re driving someplace with the music off. Ask your child, “What do you think God is like?” Sometimes the answers are funny. Don’t worry about correcting. This is a moment for thinking and reflecting, not teaching.

If your child is too young to really answer, just say something about one of God’s traits, like, “God must be so powerful to make all of this.” Let things be quiet and sink in. Sometimes a great conversation is knowing when to say nothing more, and letting the fragrance of truth linger without being distracted, stifled or cut short by too many words.

Conversation Starter #5
You can start now sharing the language of faith with your young child by explaining what a symbol is. The Bible abounds with symbols from creation that have spiritual meaning even a child can understand. And these symbols—like water, seeds, light, and heart—form the language of faith. Start with the heart, one of the earliest symbols children learn. If your child is a baby or toddler, simply clasp your hands to your heart and say, “I love you with all my heart.” See how your child responds. It might become a regular exchange you have, as your child mirrors your actions.

When your child is old enough, make heart maps together. Draw big hearts and then draw things inside that you love, in proportion to how much you love them. Don’t be surprised if a family pet is the largest picture in your child’s heart! When my daughter and I made heart maps together, I said, “God is in my heart.” And she said, “But we can’t draw Him!” We chuckled together about that. So I drew a cross, symbolizing His love for us.

Conversation Starter #4
Explore WORD MEANINGS, with your child as young as possible.
—It’s good to have books with some words a notch above your child’s understanding. When you see a word your child might not know, for example “body,” ask him, “Do you know what body means?”
—Let him answer, and if needed offer your definition with as few words as possible. “Your body is your arms, legs, and all the parts of you that you can touch and move.”
—Allow a quiet pause to let that sink in, then ask, “Does that make sense?”
—Or move on if your child moves on. By doing this routinely, you become the person your child looks to for meanings. You’ve demonstrated yourself capable.
—You’re also nurturing curiosity, demonstrating that it’s OK to stop and ask questions and wonder.

And eventually as you read, if not already, your child will ask you first, “What does that mean?” The benefit is that your child learns meanings about life from you. And along the way you get to nurture your child’s soul with very basic truths about life the way God made it.

Conversation Starter #3
Use your child’s natural curiosity—and exercise your own—by playing I WONDER in a variety of situations to connect your child’s life with God. For example, in December play I WONDER about Jesus’ first days. Symbols of Christmas and Jesus are all around. If you see a nativity scene, or have one in the house, you could study or hold the pieces, and say, “I wonder what it was like to be God’s Son born in a barn.” Leave pauses for your child to wonder or respond, too. You could say, “Some of the first sounds Jesus heard there were farm animals! I wonder what sounds He heard?” You both can moo or baa or cluck. Have fun with it! Recall a time your child has seen similar animals. Remember that conversations with children are usually brief. Let your child change the subject when she is ready.

Conversation Starter #2
Get your child’s view of God on a solid path by asking DID YOU KNOW questions. It’s a way to share information without lecturing. And you are inviting a response, which might lead to your child’s own questions. You could ask, “Did you know that God is everywhere?” If your child is a talker, pause and see what he says. That might be enough for one day! Or, you might add, “Because He is Spirit,” and leave it at that.

Conversation Starter #1
Play a game of GOD MADE. Pick a good time, like driving in a car or during a snack. You start with an example like, “God made trees.” Pause and see if your child offers an example. If not, offer another one, “God made cats.” Some children will jump in with their own ideas. Others might need to be asked: “What do you think God made?” The possibilities are endless, and sometimes funny! Have fun with it and don’t worry about correcting them. You’ll know when a child is ready to do something else. Maybe next time, she’ll start the game. Let us know what happens!