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7th Anniversary and final blog
Seven years ago, the Child-Centered Spirituality website launched based upon the premise that a child’s spiritual development is as important as physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development. Regular blog posts served as a vehicle for best practices and...
Teach “thank you.” Ideas to improve kids’ skill.
The simple act of saying “Thank you” can dramatically impact people’s impression of you. It’s an important skill to teach children. A teenage girl was recently asked to babysit for a family. Her response? “Sure. Those were the only kids at the party who said ‘thank...
Parents ask: When should we join a faith community?
A milestone occurs when children enter school and their relationship pool increases and deepens. They look for ways to connect with others and with God in new ways. In grade school, you are still the one they most want to hear from about spirituality and the one they...
Understand this for better spiritual interactions with kids
Children believe in what they cannot see. They seek God. “It’s like there’s a homing device in each of my children,” a mother told me, “God looking to connect with my child as my child looks for God.” When we talk to a child early about God there is an automatic...
Pros and cons for telling kids about our past
Ask yourself 5 questions as you weigh the pros and cons of what you tell your kids about your past. Author David Sheff (Beautiful Boy) writes, “It has to do with the relationship you have with your kids, and how open are they going to be with you, and how involved in...
Children’s personal disappointment with God
As children get older, their disappointments grow larger. Hurt and angry feelings get directed at God too, often due to: Prayers not answered. Hurt by religious people. Overwhelmed by evil and suffering in the world. Many children say that unanswered prayers...
3 skills used in children’s faith development
Skill #1: Attentiveness: Notice spiritual activity in children. Attentiveness is used most often in the context of everyday life, but don’t overlook its presence here: Dreams Awe-inspiring activities Peace in hard times Out-of-control events Coincidences and...
Uniquely tailor spiritual conversations to each child
"One size fits all" doesn't make sense in children's faith development. I like my cousin's perspective. He said, "I am adopted and so are my brother and sister. Our values seem remarkably similar. We are always going to take the kitten out of the storm. That is what...
Young children’s capacity to think about God
Talk to any 3- or 4-year-old and you will find a capacity to think about God. Researcher Justin Barrett says, “They already have something like an impulse to think about supernatural beings, to account for why things are the way they are and how things work in the...
A child’s soul: under construction
A child’s soul develops like a new building under construction with scaffolding around it. Parents and other adults provide a framework for support, but the child is the one under development. The point is the child—or the building. Everybody looks past the...
Guilt without baggage makes children strong
How can we help children develop an internal moral compass– a conscience– but without the negative baggage that guilt brings? How can we help them not just have a change of actions, but a change of heart? A change of heart is the realm of the spirit Spiritual...
Security and boundaries in children’s spiritual exploration
The very idea of allowing children to develop their own spirituality can be anxiety-producing, whether a family is religious or not (after all, no one wants them joining a cult). Yet attending to things of eternal significance is a wide-open field of exploration for...
Build a child’s spiritual vocabulary
Help children build a spiritual vocabulary, using the same methods as when you taught them basic vocabulary words. When they learned animal names, you had picture books of animals, “Where’s the bird? What does the bird say?” And when you went outdoors, “See the bird?...
Kids’ conversation starters: I want to be a….
We all heard the question as kids ourselves, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Hard to say or predict but these six questions can lead you into an interesting conversation with older elementary or tween children. Questions are taken from Ralph T. Mattson and...
7 missteps interfering with childhood spiritual development
If you are someone currently helping children develop their souls, seven warning signs can tell you if you're tilting off course. Run through this list periodically and consider which areas might be interfering in the child’s spiritual development or sending negative...
Kids revisit family photos and learn
Family photos reveal much about us and the people who shaped our early years. Why not take time with your children to learn something new from them? Dig a little deeper into scenes from previous generations. With photos on the screen before you, or with photo album in...
Faith communities: safe avenues for kids to volunteer
Faith communities provide plenty of opportunities for adults and children to make social, medical, spiritual and educational contributions to society. I know two boys and their mom who filled bags of food during the pandemic and took the bags to their church's food...
God: Like no other authority figure
“It would be easy for kids to draw the wrong conclusion about their complaints by thinking that God is like other authority figures they have in their lives. Sometimes It is not safe to speak honestly to a human authority figure—especially if you want to accuse that...