Spiritual Parenting

What is spiritual parenting?

Spiritual parenting is critical to every child's growth and development. Like adults, adolescents, and seniors, children need to sense a connection with something greater and more profound than themselves. This sense of connection leads children toward meaning and fulfillment as they grow and mature physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Spiritual growth in children is a critical part of their maturing process. It helps them to develop a positive sense of identity and self-image, builds optimism, and encourages positive thinking, empathy, hope, trust, and courage in the face of struggle. In addition, it inspires serenity in the midst chaos and confusion, value for all life, and respect for others.

Parents are the primary spiritual educators in a child’s life, both as teachers and as examples to be imitated. Spiritual parenting is an awesome responsibility and can seem like an intimidating task. But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

How to foster spiritual development in your child

Clarify your own beliefs and share them with your child - It is important to realize that, from birth, your child idolizes you, wants to be like you, and wants to make you happy. It may not always seem that way, especially when they are having a tantrum, being hard to get along with, or when they reach adolescence, but it is true.

There is a great old adage which says, “Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.” As a parent, you make the greatest impression. You provide the first and most important model for them to emulate toward becoming the people they are meant to be. Your modeling behavior is the most critical part of spiritual parenting for your child, but it is very difficult to help your child develop spiritual awareness if you haven’t done that for yourself.

Introduce spiritual familiarity to your child as early as possible - Even an infant is not too young to hear your spiritual gratitude for their presence in your life, or your love for how much your child’s addition to your life and family is a reason for joyful celebration. Just singing simple spiritual songs or playing clapping games to a prayer begins to instill spiritual awareness and concepts in an infant. As they grow older, the opportunities for bringing spiritual parenting activities into conversations with children become numerous and easy to find. 

Introduce an appreciation for the value of our natural environment, especially in the area where you live - Helping your child to appreciate the beauty, the majesty, and the value of the created world is also critical to their spiritual growth and development. Helping instill a sense of value and the need to care for the natural environment is a good way to help your child grasp where spirituality meets the real everyday environment around them.  

Don't pretend to have all the answers to spiritual questions - Your children will ask many spiritual questions that you won’t be able to answer. Spiritual parenting doesn't require knowing everything. It is perfectly okay to say, “I don’t know.” It is also okay to tell them that some things are beyond what any of us can understand or explain, but that doesn’t make them any less real. You can also use it as an opportunity to ask them what they think about their spiritual question.

Celebrate family and make it central to your life together - Family has many expressions in our culture and all of them are important. From single parent and one child, to large multi-sibling families, to same sex parents, to blended families, to multi-generational families, all are critical to a child’s spiritual development. Family has always been the primary experience for what relationship means and how we learn to live in relationship with others. Traditions and other family experiences that celebrate gathering together in a positive way help with building an awareness of a spiritual connection with near and extended family members. And those events also become a model for how to interact with others outside of the family unit. Those events may be birthdays, national and religious holidays, or observances that your family has celebrated together. You can also begin new family traditions which serve as a reminder of how important family is to your and your child’s life.

Establish some simple forms of prayer as a reminder of spiritual awareness - Prayer doesn't always have to be religious to express gratitude for the blessings in our lives. Using something like a gratitude prayer at mealtime to acknowledge the source of food, nature, and life can be helpful for children to recognize that spiritual awareness is a natural part of everyday life.  A prayer of thanksgiving for the day which can be used at bedtime, along with a time of remembering the people closest to your child, can also be a helpful reminder. The possibilities are limitless.

Make spirituality enjoyable - Have fun with your spiritual lessons. Make a game of finding the most beautiful parts of nature on a trip and have your child make up a thank you prayer for what you found. The prayer can be serious or even a bit silly as long as it expresses joy and gratitude. You can also play clapping games or make up dances with young children based on spiritual songs.

Tell, read or find stories to share with your child - Stories are perhaps the most powerful tools for helping children to grow spiritually. Look for motivational stories, inspirational stories, spiritual stories, and poetry. You can read books with meaningful stories aloud, listen to recordings of other people reading stories, and tell your children family stories. There is an old Jewish proverb which says, “God loves stories, so God created humanity because each person is a story just waiting to be told.”

Ways to interact with your child that help to encourage spiritual development

Be careful of criticism - Be careful of criticism when your child begins to express his/her own spiritual ideas. It is okay to accept your child’s spiritual ideas as long as they are positive and consistent with a loving and life-giving understanding of spiritual awareness. There is always the possibility that your child may come to you with a negative or fearful spiritual idea. A common one is the fearful concept that God is always angry and is constantly looking to punish anyone and everyone who does something wrong.

A concept like that needs to be restored gently to a true spiritual understanding of God as love and the sharing of love. By that I mean instead of simply saying that’s wrong, and this is what is right. First find out where your child got that idea. Then gently and logically bring him/her back to a positive and healthy spiritual understanding. And pay more attention to the spirit of their understanding, and less to the actual words. They don’t have to get the religious words right as long as they have the right idea.   

Child Theology Story – Jesus and Abraham Lincoln are the same.

When my second oldest daughter was about 7 years old, she came home from school one day and I asked her, “What did you learn in school today?” She paused and then said, “I learned about Abraham Lincoln.” “That’s nice.” I said, “What kind of things did you learn about him?” She replied. “I learned that Abraham Lincoln and Jesus are the same.”  I was a little perplexed so I asked her, “How could Jesus and Abraham Lincoln be the same?” She replied, “They both had beards and they both died for what they believed.”  I suggested, “Well, that's true, but Jesus was the Son of God.” She retorted, “Yes, I know that, but you said we are all children of God. So, Abraham Lincoln is a son of God too.” I again had to acknowledge that was true, but I added triumphantly, “But, Jesus rose from the dead.” Undaunted, she interjected, “I know, but you said that we all rise from the dead.” To which I replied, “Yes, but Jesus rose first.” Without missing a beat, she said, “But you said that the first doesn’t matter because the first will be last and the last will be first.” After taking a breath, I thanked her for teaching me something new and acknowledged that, in fact, Jesus and Abraham Lincoln are the same. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and ran off to play.   

Listen closely – Children don’t always express themselves succinctly. Even if you are busy, try not to cut off a conversation with them, especially if it has to do with anything spiritual. It is important for them to be able to express their thoughts completely before adults respond.

Make time for daydreaming and imagination play – It is easy for children to be overscheduled in our busy world. They need the opportunity to look at cloud shapes and play imaginary games where good triumphs over evil to help them develop spirituality.

Encourage your child – Always celebrate your child’s efforts rather than their outcomes. It is okay to acknowledge areas that need improvement as long as they feel you are cheering them on, and know they are capable of doing great things. Celebrate their efforts and successes at least twice as much as you focus on their need to improve. Spiritual parenting is one of the best ways to build self-esteem for your child.

Acknowledge your child as a teacher – Children teach us all kinds of new things on a daily basis. We tend to miss many of those things because we don’t expect to learn anything from them. Be aware of the things you learn from your children and thank them for sharing those things with you. 

Child as a Teacher Story - Sunset Dust

When my son was about 11 years old, we were taking a family vacation and while driving, we were treated to a most beautiful sunset in the mountains of North Carolina. There were exquisite colors of yellow, orange and gold in the clouds with the green mountains below. All of us were commenting on how very wonderful the experience was when my son spoke up and said, “Those colors are nothing more than light refracting on atmospheric dust and pollution in the air.”  That comment stopped the conversation. Everyone went quiet, and tension filled the car. Before his sisters could erupt and take him out, I said, “Thanks so much for letting all of us know those great scientific facts. I had no idea what actually caused those beautiful colors.” Then, I added, “But isn’t it wonderful what God can do with pollution, dust, and light?”

Faith in beauty was restored, the tension dissipated, and everyone, including my son, got back to enjoying the sunset.

Remember – Remember who nurtured your gifts. Recall who modeled spiritual parenting for you and tell your children about them. Seek to be that person in your child’s life. There are few more important gifts we can pass on to our children than the experience of being accepted for who we truly are.

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