Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Children of God

My husband and I were raised in two different religions, he was raised Catholic and I Methodist. However I don't feel like they are that different, they both have the same foundation of God and his son Jesus Christ. I decided after having our first son Tyler Christened that I would convert to Catholisism. The classes I went through brought me closer to the lord.
Right now my husband and I are in a Bible study with a group of other parents. We are watching a video series called Sheparding the Child's Heart by Ted Tripp. The series has been very interesting thus far and gets me to thinking each week about teaching our children about the Lord. This weeks lesson was about the goals we set for our children. This was a tough week...the topic presented was very heavy.

What are the goals we set for our children? Do get a good education? To be in lots of activities to gain skills? To be an Olympic athlete? To be good? To have manners? To know and love God?
Well Ted Tripp mentioned how we fill our children's live's with so much "stuff". Dance class, swimming lessons, baseball practice, toys, video games all things that take up time away from their primary purpose of being a child of God.
This lesson made me feel really guilty. No my children aren't in sports yet, they aren't in school yet, they don't play video games yet, but Tyler does have too many toys....way too many toys. And he also spends way too much time with the TV. I need to start limiting how much he watches. We do read lots of books and sing songs.
I think his point, which he took to the extreme, was that we need to pick one goal(God) and focus on that and everything else will come from that. I feel like our kids need a balance, not too many activities, not too many distractions and God in their lives.
But I have the question how do we nurture our toddlers? How do we teach our children to know God? Here's what I do with Ty now, we pray at meals, we pray together at bed time, we read his bible and sing bible songs and he attends church with us each week. What do you other mom's out there do to nurture your children?

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