Pay Attention to Your Kids!

One of the most unexpectedly beneficial books I have read is called How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber. It is far from a biblical book, but it makes the point that many meltdowns from toddlers come from feeling not listened to and not being able to communicate.

That leads into this article, that one of the most important things we can do in our lives and for our children is focus our attention. I’m writing this article in the solitude of a café waiting for my next meeting at work, my attention is focused on writing. Human beings, despite our pride, are not—and never will be—good at multitasking. When I’m teaching or playing with my kids I make every attempt to be there fully, not pulled between work or my phone or writing. I recently attended an online conference for work and at several points I had to lock the door to the office because by dividing my attention between kids running in and the speaker on the screen led to both getting far less than even 50% of my attention.

Attention is so important in my life that I’m writing a dissertation on teaching it to the church. My primary text is Nehemiah 8, “And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law…Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people…and as he opened it all the people stood.” Long story short, the best way to hear God is by really being attentive to his Word, to remove distractions, and to realize the value in hearing, responding to, and applying it. This is reiterated over and over throughout the Bible, many preachers have pointed out that they have seminary degrees in preaching, but no-one ever receives a degree in listening, when the Bible teaches much more on listening than preaching (Boice, Piper, MacArthur, etc). Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8:8).”

The importance of undivided attention cannot be overstated when listening to the Word of God. But that is not the only place you should learn to focus your attention. When interacting with people it is important as well. A child who doesn’t feel listened to is a child who is prone to feel out of control, unloved, and hopeless. Try it the next time you have a temper tantrum, hold the child until they are calm, then work through what they wanted and see if you can’t figure out how they were asking for it. 

One of the greatest joys in our life was the day, not so long ago, when our twins learned to buckle their own car seats. This is only partial hyperbole, it truly is a burden lifted not to always be climbing into the back of the car to latch them in. On Wednesday my attentive wife pulled out of the driveway and Titus cried out, “Oh no! You’re driving!” and proceeded to lose his little mind. It took a few moments but my wife encouraged him to use his words and all he could get out was, “I’m going to die!” A little more prodding and she discovered that, “I’m not buckled!” She was then able to pull over and get the troublesome latch buckled and he did not, in fact, die.

Now, being attentive to your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, and your Saviour can play out in a million ways and I’m not going to try to—nor could I—give you an authoritative list of do’s and don’ts. But I will give you a couple and some principles.

Notice in Nehemiah 8 the full attention of the people led them to “stand up” when the Word was read. This was not, as some have surmised, “out of respect for the reading of God’s Word”, this was to focus their attention on what they were about to do. Always stop what you’re doing when something worthy of your attention arises. 

Always stand up when greeting someone, always put your phone down when someone asks you a question, pause your podcast and remove your headphones (both!) if you need to speak to someone, close out your last conversation/project before starting the next one. Don't be easily distracted from an important task or conversation.

My two-year-old is in the “Come with/Come see” stage and she lifts her little hand up and squeezes to say grab my hand! I don’t want to squash that in the least so I happily grab her hand and go see. Just because it might not be groundbreaking to me doesn’t mean it’s not important to her, and I want to be involved in her growth and let her know that I pay attention to what is important to her.

So, beloved, take every opportunity to be focusing your attention, reject multi-tasking, and love your kids by listening to them and participating in their lives.

A Brief Thought on Children's Devotionals

When it comes to children’s devotions or books on the Bible there are no lack of options, but unfortunately, finding a good one is a difficult task. Charles Spurgeon said, “It does seem to me as if some people say, ‘Here is a place of worship. There is sure to be a sermon, let us go in and hear it.’ Ah! but all that is preached is not Gospel and it is not all hearing that will be valuable to your souls.” It does seem to me that many people say, “Here is an illustrated book on the Bible for children, let’s open it and learn some truth.” But not all that is drawn or paraphrased is Gospel and not all children’s books are valuable for your children’s souls!

I'm writing this post to encourage you in my three favorite resources, and to warn you against one of the most popular.

The One Year Bible for Children – V. Gilbert Beers

First, by far the best from an under-10 year-old standpoint is The NLT One Year Bible for Children by V. Gilbert Beers. This is an illustrated book working through the Bible in chronological order over one year, it lays a good foundation of Bible stories and most importantly it continues to tell the Bible story in one contiguous narrative. Quotations are taken directly from the Bible and I’ve yet to find a devotion that was not biblical.

The illustrations are phenomenal, and I don’t use that word lightly. Even if you don’t have children I’d recommend this book purely from an artistic value. When Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River bed the painting clearly depicts dry dust coming up from the feet of those crossing. This level of detail is one that is repeated in many of the stories. It’s not my intention to tell you all of the awesome paintings in this book, but be sure there are many that will astonish you.

The application in the Old Testament is sometimes lacking, but the stories are always faithfully told. Many times the quality of the story has taken us to places that a wooden application would have constrained us in. For example, yesterday’s devotion was on the men who stayed back with the baggage when David destroyed the Amalekites. The application mentioned nothing about the different members of the body or the different members of the church or different roles we all fulfill, but that’s where we went and had an entertaining and beneficial conversation about if we were made up of only eyes or ears or feet.

The greatest failing is that Jesus is almost always left out of the Old Testament. Especially in the story of the Bronze Serpent lifted up by Moses I though that Beers should have at least mentioned that the story was quoted in John 3. I could almost defend him however, that maybe he is considering that if children know the Old Testament reference then when they are reading the New Testament they will draw their own connections instead of being explicitly told about it.

So, I recommend this book with the caveat that you need to be prepared to share the application or at least help your children flesh out the Gospel story. Each lesson is short, ten minutes or less, but the quality of the content makes it beneficial if you only read it to your children, or if that reading leads into a much deeper conversation.

Long Story Short – Marty Machowski

The second devotional I recommend is Long Story Short by Marty Machowski. This book is for older kids, I’d say this one really works for kids over five, and that might be a tad too young. Long Story Short takes a single narrative and spends five days fleshing it out. This really drives the point of the story home and adds on it every day.

Parents, where this book is not easy is that you can’t just pick it up and go, it requires some preplanning and some sort of preparation. For example, one lesson requires you to have a trumpet or a kazoo (or anywhere in between) to blow at the walls of Jericho. I found this out after we started reading that particular devotional and had to scramble to make something work. Of course, the kids loved the trumpet played in the house and trying to make it make noise itself, but if you’re looking for a book you can just pick up at the end of the day and let it do all of the work, this book will not work for you.

I love the idea of this book and the depth, but I think five days is too long for a children’s devotional. When we pick it back up in a year or two we’ll modify it a bit, either compressing each story into three days, or intertwining them so that it’s not always the same story.

However, the emphasis on the Gospel is wonderful and it introduces children to the depth of Bible study in a way that is both fun, engaging, and most importantly, memorable.

Built Upon the Rock – Brooke Snyder

My third favorite is Built Upon the Rock: Devotions for the First Years by Dr. Brooke Snyder. Now, I have to confess that Dave and Brooke Snyder are dear friends of ours and our copy is not only signed, but was a gift. But, it is also masterfully written and comes with a passion for child rearing that is not manufactured just to write a book, but because the Snyder’s truly love their children and want them to know Jesus, and want to help you help your children known Jesus.

Built Upon the Rock is written on the premise that we don’t want there ever to be a time in our child’s life where they did not hear the name of Jesus in the home, or know the power of the Gospel.

Unlike the other two books, this is not a yearly devotional, but a collection of great ideas to teach deep spiritual truths to growing minds. However, Brooke identifies that if you take one devotional a week, it will cover a year. It has been several years since I read this book, and in writing this it has spurred me to read it again, but the truly important thing that I have taken away from this book is that you are never too young to be building a spiritual foundation.

Recently my kids were playing with playdough and because of this book I though it would be a great time to consider spiritual things. We grabbed a rock of similar size to a lump of playdough and took turns trying to form the rock and the playdough into something. Readily enough my kids learned the meaning of a malleable heart. But then we took that playdough and pulled it in every direction and learned why being too pliable, pulled around by every influence, is bad as well.

While I don’t think this is a devotion from the book, the idea of it certainly came from Brooke’s influence in my life, and for that reason I’ll be forever grateful.

In order to set your heart, dear parent, on spiritual training of your children, I recommend this book to you.

The Jesus Storybook Bible – Sally Lloyd-Jones

Arguably the most influential children’s devotional of recent times is The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by Sally Lloyd-Jones. This is one of my least favorite devotionals, and one I want to caution you from reading to your children.

First, though, the Jesus Storybook Bible does make a very good point that Jesus can be found in every story of the Bible. I know at least one person who has been deeply helped by this point and I am glad for that.

Second, some of the details are very useful, especially the mention of the little girl of 2 Kings 5:2 who sent Naaman to God's man for help. There are gleanings from this devotional.

However, the most important thing about this book is that it is NOT a Bible. It makes no effort to follow the biblical dialogue and regularly injects unbiblical language. Second, it is far from exhaustive, it spends a lot of time in the Pentateuch and a spackling through the prophets, but then BAM, you’re in the New Testament without any mention of the Bible that has been left out.

But most importantly, Sally Lloyd-Jones has arguably ridden into the lime-light on the power and credibility of her last name. Only recently has there been any discernible effort to make the distinction that she bears ZERO relation to Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Her theology, her writing, and her understanding of the Gospel fall far short of the Doctor.

Cody Libolt has written a masterful argument about this devotional and that the main theme of God’s glory, grace, and wrath is utterly missing from Lloyd-Jones’ book. I encourage you to read his article called, The Core Theme of the Jesus Storybook Bible is Wrong.

The Bible

Finally, I know more than one family who have opted to read from the source itself, the Bible, to teach children. Beloved, I think there is great wisdom in this, but also a great danger. The first time I tried to read the Bible I was sixteen and started in Genesis 1. I don’t think I got past about Genesis 5 before setting it down. Why? Because I was not spiritually discerned. Neither are our children. Keep that in mind as you take them through the Bible, they aren’t able or interested in knowing the nuances of who begot who or who married who or the exegetical jewels of the book of Leviticus, or the intricacies of eschatology.

My five year old, three year olds, and two year old don’t like steak. It blows my mind, if I cut it up really fine like it’s hamburger then they’ll eat it, but my five year old recently told her grandmother, “I don’t like steak, my daddy likes steak, but I don’t like steak.” She even made a terrible face to drive the point home...Thank God for her candor. My two year old, on the other hand, practically lives off of milk. She drinks so much milk you’d think she was a calf. This is exacerbated by the fact that she recently learned to fill up her own cup.

Conclusion

So, as you’re teaching your kids from the Bible or a devotional, keep in mind that the most beautiful fillet mignon of a Bible study served up to a toddler is going to end up picked at, discarded, and asking for a snack later. Whether you're cutting up the Bible yourself so that your kids can digest it, or you're hiring someone to help you, keep in mind that children think like children, so teach them in a way that they can grasp but that points them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I like The One Year Bible, Long Story Short, and Built Upon the Rock because they have served up the Bible in small bite-size chunks for your kids to digest, enjoy, and move towards those meaty studies that will come later in their lives.