How We Show Them God: Faith Begins With Story
Preschool & Elementary Years | Faith Through the Seasons of Motherhood
Your child will learn more about God from the way you respond to them when they mess up than what you teach them at church. During the preschool and elementary years, your child’s development is profound, they are learning about right and wrong, developing empathy, and just beginning to understand intentions, consequences, fairness, responsibility, and forgiveness. Your child is building stories about themselves and the world around them, and they are beginning to build a story about God. Those stories don’t come only from Sunday school. They see how we respond when they make a mistake, when they don’t follow our specific directions, how we react when they disappoint us. Our children see how we apologize when we make a mistake, how we handle our fears, or how we forgive. Our children are learning about God even when we’re not talking about God.
Faith Formation Happens Alongside Development
Children don’t develop spiritually in isolation from the rest of their development. Worship services, Sunday school, Christian values; all of these have an impact on Spiritual development. The pressure Christian mothers place on themselves can easily overlook that a child’s understanding of faith grows alongside their cognitive, emotional, relational, and moral development.
During the preschool and early elementary years, children often rely heavily on concrete thinking and stories to make sense of complicated ideas. Stories give children characters to identify with, choices to evaluate, consequences to consider, and problems to solve. Bible stories can be so powerful during this season, and the meaning your child is beginning to make from it.
Your Child Is Beginning to Ask: “What Makes Someone Good?”
In a heated moment it is easy to think that out toddler is outright defiant. They refuse to get dressed for preschool; they refuse to leave the house. As our children get older, it becomes less common for their executive functioning to just be overridden by their amygdala, emotions and tantrums. This coincides with the development of moral reasoning.
Early on, when a child’s brain is completely online and they are regulated, a child’s understanding of right and wrong can be very concrete: “I shouldn’t do that because I’ll get in trouble.” Over time, their thinking becomes more nuanced, they begin to consider: why was that wrong not to follow directions? was it fair that I had to get dressed? how does it make my mom feel when I don’t listen? What happens if I just don’t leave today; what is the consequence? This is a significant developmental shift.
And it gives Christian parents an opportunity to move beyond simply teaching children what is right toward helping them understand why it matters. We can enter into the story with our children, “What do you think happened?” “Who was affected by that choice?” “What do you think they were feeling?”” How do you think we could make it right?” We’re helping our children develop a conscience rooted in empathy and responsibility rather than simply fear of punishment; good and bad, right and wrong.
When Faith Becomes About Being “Good”
Kids need structure, boundaries, consequences, absolutely. We want them to make good choices, love Jesus, understand right from wrong. Sometimes without meaning to, Christian parents can make their kids feel like good kids are loved and bad kids disappoint God. Good behavior makes Mom happy and bad behavior makes Mom withdraw. A child may begin to internalize: “I will lose someone’s love if I disappoint them.” But there is a big difference between a child doing something bad and a kid merely defined as bad. This is the difference between accountability and shame.
Help your child see that love remains despite their imperfections and mistakes.
Despite our imperfections.
Let’s say your child breaks a valuable dish. They look to you and watch your face. You communicate so much in your reaction and response. You are human and you are disappointed that they broke the dish. You may be angry, but eventually your child needs to hear, “That was an accident. Let’s clean it up together. What happened? (with curiosity) Next time maybe no running in the house. And I need you to help pay for the dish with your allowance.
Absolutely hold boundaries when your child destroys something, lies, hurts their sibling, etc. They are guilty of those things. But don’t introduce shame and yell or react in such a way that your child doesn’t think there is room for repair. There needs to be accountability, absolutely, but sometimes we have to take a breath and reapproach the situation with our child so that we don’t leave them feeling like bad kids. These are opportunities to teach about grace, forgiveness and love, they set the culture of you home and the framework for how your child will interact with themselves when they make mistakes. Repair may be the most important lesson in faith you can teach as a parent. Help your child see that love remains despite their imperfections and mistakes. Despite our imperfections.
God is not disappointed in us!
While obedience and character matter, a child’s understanding of God can become distorted when the primary emotional message they receive is “God is watching to see whether you get it right” and a child may begin to experience God primarily through fear. For a child whose developing nervous system is already sensitive to threat, shame-based faith can become deeply confusing. Our language matters and we can teach truth while remaining connected. Sometimes sharing our own experiences of God and his grace can help us communicate that truth and grace do not have to compete.
Your Child Is Watching How You Live Your Faith
Do you try to handle something on your own or do you lean on God, on prayer and allowing those God has placed in your life to support you? Children listen to our words and they watch our lives. What happens when you’re afraid? Your child can learn a lesson in Sunday school but it is in the messiness of life where they feel the scaffolding of their secure relationship with you and they decide where to lean. Most likely your child will lean in on you first in a difficult situation and it is up to you to help them understand that your influence on their lives in not something you could do without the presence and grace of God.
The Therapeutic Question: What Is Your Child Learning About Love?
If you find yourself thinking, “I’m worried my reactions are teaching my child something I don’t want them to learn,” that isn’t a reason for shame. It’s an invitation to curiosity. How were you disciplined, corrected, or responded to when you disobeyed or made a mistake? Generational patterns are hard to change. The first step is awareness. If you learned that making mistakes wasn’t safe, then your child likely won’t feel safe making mistakes and they will feel a discontinuation of love, in the security of your relationship unless this relationship with making mistakes has been processed and explored. Therapy can be one place to explore it.
Generational patterns are hard to change.
The first step is awareness.
You Don’t Have to Write a Perfect Story
Your job is to nurture a relationship where they can encounter truth, grace, curiosity, accountability, and love and you don’t have to write the perfect story. Repair is so important, such an important part of the story.
In infancy, faith begins with safety. Our babies experience love through attachment, consistency, comfort, and care.
In toddlerhood, faith begins with wonder. Our toddlers discover the world through curiosity, questions, autonomy, and awe.
And now, in the preschool and elementary years: Faith begins with story.
Our children are beginning to use stories to make sense of morality, relationships, choices, consequences, forgiveness, and God.
They are learning from the Bible stories we read and they’re also learning from the stories we live; how Mom responds when she makes a mistake, what happens when they disappoint us, the story of love when their behavior isn’t perfect.
So yes, tell them the stories of Scripture. But don’t underestimate the story you’re telling with your life. God’s love is bigger than your ability to get everything right, thank goodness. That’s the story we’re hoping to tell, and it begins in the ordinary moments of motherhood.
Grace for the journey, healing at the root.