As a person of faith and a parent, you probably want to pass on that faith to your children. Or maybe you’re not a very religious person at the moment, but you still hope you have some kind of faith that will help your child when they grow up.
As a pediatrician who works, speaks, and writes in secular spaces, I often receive pushback when I claim that God is good for children. However, as someone who has been a believer for many years myself, I have no problem with this.
I’ve seen what faith can do to a child’s character, integrity, self-esteem, and overall health. And I remain steadfast in my words: “God is good to His children.”
I believe that parents have the most power in their children’s lives when it comes to faith (and many other aspects of life). This means you have the power to encourage or undermine your child’s faith.
This may sound like an ominous statement, but it’s important to understand the spiritual role you play in your child’s life. As the Bible says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but rather bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). I think this is true not only for fathers but also for mothers.
It’s easy to encourage a child’s faith, but it’s easy to undermine a child’s faith. In my experience, parents tend to make some common mistakes that ultimately damage their children’s faith.
1. Failure to establish faith as a value
Faith is not something attached to your life. It should become the center of family life. Even if faith is something you do on Sunday, if it is not a value you carry throughout the week, your child will not be able to develop a strong sense of faith.
Let your beliefs reflect your actions. If you tend to be impatient, ask God to give you more patience. If you have a tendency to fly off the handle, trust that God will be kind to you.
One of Israel’s great prophets said it best, “O what is good, the Lord has said to you, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God?” (Micah 6:8).
Once you make faith your value, you will be able to practice what you preach.
In his book Abandoned Faith: Why Millennials Are Leaving and How We Can Guide Them Home, Dr. Alex McFarland lists “a lack of adult spiritual reliability” as one of the top 10 reasons Millennials are leaving church and religion. They find it hypocritical.
I always say this about little children, but it applies to all children. There is more to learn than to be taught. This is especially true of faith and religion. If your children see you constantly gossiping about your neighbors even though you say you’re a Christian, how can they believe that Christians really love their neighbors? she doesn’t. She’ll just think Christians are hypocrites.
Before you tell your child that you want her to have faith, make sure you make it a core value for you and your family and model the beliefs you want her to have.
2. Stay away from the topic.
One of the biggest concerns I hear from parents about teaching their children about their faith is that they avoid talking about it altogether because they’re worried they don’t fully understand it themselves.
I understand that. Teaching children about God, heaven, hell, and the contents of the Bible can be scary. But it’s worth being brave.
If you never talk to your child about God, how can they decide what they believe? How will he even explore faith and religion when the topic of faith and religion is forbidden in your home?
Strengthening your own faith will help you feel more prepared when your child asks you questions. You can do this by doing two simple things: reading and praying.
Read: The Bible itself says, “Faith begins by hearing, and hearing through the words of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Our faith in God grows the more we focus on what God has revealed about himself in the Bible and through Christ.
Sadly, many people reject the Bible without reading it. They dismiss it based solely on what others have said. I counter, “Don’t just take other people’s word for it. Read it for yourself.”
The Old and New Testaments are not a haphazard collection of different documents. They make up one continuous story.
The first book of the Bible tells of God’s creation of the world and humanity’s rebellion against God. The next 64 books of the Bible reveal God’s plan of salvation in history, culminating in the Second Coming of Christ.
The last book of the Bible gives us a glimpse of the future restoration of all things. This is an epic story, and it should be read as such with thoughtfulness, humility, and inquisitiveness.
If you’re a faith skeptic, C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity may be helpful, as it has helped millions of people. Recent books like “God’s Reason” by Tim Keller and “A Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel are also great. (Incidentally, Lewis and Strobel are both confirmed atheists, each coming to faith after honest and rigorous intellectual inquiry.)
Pray: The Bible frequently encourages prayer. For example, Colossians 4:2 says, “Devote yourself to prayer with an alert mind and a grateful heart.”
However, many parents feel unsure of how to pray due to self-consciousness, fear, or ignorance. But prayer is simply a conversation with God, and it is a conversation that God wants us to have.
As James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
If God seems far away and talking to Him feels like talking to an imaginary friend, ask Him to reveal Himself to you. When you make a wrong choice, humbly confess your failure.
When you are grateful, express it to God. Ask for help when you have a need or concern. If you don’t know what to do, ask for advice. And like any good conversation, we don’t have to keep talking.
It is not only a good thing, it is also necessary to sit quietly in prayer and listen to God’s voice.
Don’t avoid the topic of faith with your child. Don’t be afraid of things you don’t fully understand. Faith is somehow mysterious to all of us, and so is much of life. Help your child accept that mystery by talking openly about it and strengthening your own beliefs.
3. Preach instead of listen.
When a parent hears a child say something they disagree with, they feel the need to rush and convince him that he is wrong. The temptation is to preach first and listen later.
But parents, we have to reverse this. The more you preach, the less he will listen.
Then, no matter what you say about God’s goodness, no matter what you go to church or religion, God will naturally ignore you.
Show your child that you are there for them by first listening to them. If he says something about God or the church that you don’t agree with, don’t tell him so. Just be curious.
Please ask him more questions. This will help him feel known and valued, and later when he decides whether he wants to go to church or believe in God, he will remember that conversation and feel confident that he can make his own choice.
When considering passing on your faith to your children, establish faith as a core value for you and your family, don’t avoid difficult conversations about God, faith, and beliefs, and listen, listen, and listen some more.
You may not see the fruits of your labor right away, but if you practice what you preach and focus on giving your child space and permission to grow, your child will one day leave home with a strong sense of not only who he or she is, but who God is.
Related resource: Why are so many children leaving the faith?
Astronomical numbers of young Christians are leaving the faith after leaving the nest. A recent New LifeWay Research study found that two-thirds of young Christians stop attending church for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22. In the first episode of Christian Parents/Crazy World with Katherine Segars, Katherine breaks down what’s happening to young people in the church so that we, as parents, can understand how to counter this trend. Christian Parent/Crazy World is available at LifeAudio.com.
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Yuliya Taba
Dr. Meg Meeker is a bestselling author and pediatrician. To find her online parenting course or listen to her podcast “Parenting Great Kids,” visit meekerparenting.com. To submit your own question, please email ask.dr.meg@salemwebnetwork.com.
