Put Something Theological Before Your Kids
A Review of the For The Bible Tells Me So series by Kristen Wetherell
I want to continue some of my thoughts from an article I sent out last week on the fact that young children have much more capacity to understand than we think they do.
One of our favorite things to do after nap-time is to grab a few good books and read them before we get back engaged with the day.
I don’t get many full days with my daughters, but this is probably my favorite Saturday activity. I’ll come into the room, wake them up, and say, “I’m here with books if anyone wants to sit on my lap!” Both of them come running. What a gift from the Lord.
This week, we’ve been reading the For The Bible Tells Me So series by Kristen Wetherell.
It’s a series built for 0-4 year olds with rich theological truths and fun illustrations by Grace Habib. Though Crossway lists it as 0-4 year olds, I would say it’s probably for kids on the upper end of that range. My daughters turned 3 this past week, and some of the ideas are slightly above what they can understand right now.
However, this brings me to the point of the article.
What we put before our kids often shapes the type of questions they ask and what they want to learn.
I’m becoming more fully convinced of the idea of catechizing our children, at least unofficially. As parents, we have one shot with our kids. They will only be in our house for a period of time before they build their own lives. And there’s an even shorter amount of time that they’ll be hanging on our every word before they begin looking to their friends and others for how to understand the world.
I desire to set before my daughters content that stirs their affections for God, even before they know what the word affection means. This book series, as far as I can tell, does just that.
The 5 books we received and their themes are as follows:
God Cares For Me (Creation & Providence)
God Speaks To Me (General & Special Revelation)
God Rescues Me (Salvation)
God Came Near To Me (The Incarnation)
God Hears Me (Prayer)
As I said earlier, some of the concepts are high-level for our three-year-olds, but I can see their curiosity swell around the idea of Jesus being grieved when we sin against Him and walk away from a relationship with Him, yet that same Jesus making our hearts whole again when we come back in repentance. They are excited to see the little girl in the book have her heart made whole. (God Rescues Me)
And it’s been fun to see their minds awaken with the idea that Jesus is praying for them, mom, and dad right now. (God Hears Me)
In my last article on toddlers, I addressed the idea that many of us may not be outpacing our kids in curiosity. We stop asking questions, so they stop asking questions.
I believe another piece needs to be addressed here.
It’s possible that many kids may stop asking questions about the faith because we don’t put anything Theological before them that stretches their minds appropriately.
It’s the “same old, same old” stories they’ve always heard.
Just as we outpace our kids in curiosity, let’s be people who outpace our kids in theological understanding.
Next time, we’ll talk about the need to outpace our kids in obedience to God.
The For The Bible Tells Me So series is a set of theology books for toddlers. There are no bible stories in them, per se. However, this is a great set of books to help you kiddos start wrapping their minds around doctrine and theology that sets the bedrock for those stories they’re already familiar with.
I promise, even though it’s time consuming, more difficult, and you just need a break, reading these books for 15 minutes with your kids will have a far greater impact than 15 minutes worth of Bluey.
Have a great weekend.
Brandon