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39: Faith-Filled Parenting: How To Talk To Your Kid About Their Faith Questions
196 Plays3 years ago
Jill Devine asked Hannah Lang and Laura Fleetwood to be a part of this new series about Faith-Filled Parenting. Hannah is the Director of Children’s Ministry at Messiah St. Charles. Laura is Jill’s spiritual mentor and mom to two teenage daughters. Hannah will tackle the elementary age (birth-5th grade) and Laura Fleetwood will tackle the secondary age (6th-12th grade).
Resources from Hannah:
- Article: Get Ready for the Questions Coming Your Way
- Authentic Faith Development Timeline
- Parent Conversation Guides: Faith
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Normal Goes A Long Way is brought to you by Messiah St. Charles: https://messiahstcharles.org/
Use my special link https://zen.ai/normalgoesalongway and use Normal Goes A Long Way to save 30% off your first three months of Zencastr professional. #madeonzencastr
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Transcript
The Stigma of Christianity
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members-only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way.
Jill Devine's Faith Podcast
00:00:17
Speaker
I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The Normal Goes Along Way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect.
Parenting and Faith Dilemmas
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to The Conversation. We are wrapping up our Faith-Filled Parenting series with
00:00:45
Speaker
this episode, some could argue that it might be the toughest topic to tackle. I will say that sex is not easy to tackle, death isn't easy to tackle. But we, there's this responsibility as parents that we have. And when our kids come to us with certain questions, it's hard. And I think this particular question and topic might be the hardest in my opinion.
00:01:13
Speaker
I'm Jill Devine here with Hannah Lang and we are going to tackle faith questions. So how do you talk to your kid about their faith questions? And the reason why I feel like it's hard is
00:01:30
Speaker
Like I said, as a parent, if you have set this foundation and you've been going in the same direction with one another or with your entire family, and then all of a sudden they question it, this could be anything. You could love...
00:01:47
Speaker
chocolate chip cookies your entire life and make them every day with your family. And then one day they're like, no, I don't like chocolate chip cookies. And I know this is probably a really bad analogy, but I'm just trying to pull something out. But then you're like, I'm disappointed. Oh my gosh. I thought that was our thing. That's how this feels to me. And so I don't know if it's a very difficult conversation on the elementary level. I,
00:02:17
Speaker
could probably guess and Laura's going to tell us how that conversation is on the secondary level. I can envision that those questions are obviously a little bit more deeper, not a little, a lot more deeper, a lot more to be prepared for.
Handling Children's Faith Curiosities
00:02:33
Speaker
But as a parent who is going on their faith journey and has questions and I have little ones
00:02:43
Speaker
I think questioning their faith is even saying or asking questions like, who is God? Is God real? Where do I begin with that, Hannah? Yes, I think. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, we do get a lot of interesting questions in the preschool and elementary years.
00:03:02
Speaker
because kids have a very active imagination, and they're learning about everything for the first time. I have lots of fun questions that I feel in pre-social elementary quiz. Okay, yeah, is God real? Okay. Right? You know, do squirrels go to heaven?
00:03:19
Speaker
If you see, I mean, I had a child who was very concerned about the roadkill they saw on the side of the road and wanted to know if those girls could happen. You know, questions that were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark and why don't we have them anymore? Questions like, why is the Bible so boring and hard to read?
00:03:38
Speaker
Great question. Sure. There you go. Being honest. And some version of that question you could get from a third grader or from a 13 year old or from a 30 year old. Right. Yes. So when you when you're talking about questions of faith, I think one of the important things to remember as a parent specifically is that how you answer questions will determine if your children will continue to talk with you about faith questions.
00:04:04
Speaker
Okay. All right. Tell me how. Tell me more. I know that that's a popular saying. Tell me more. Tell me more. Right. So I think our role, at least in the preschool and elementary years, is to awesome
00:04:22
Speaker
Well, I like to say turn it around on them a little bit. Like if they say, what is this? I tend, I generally say, well, what do you think? And just see where their heads at. Um, cause you don't want to jump in with a really lengthy or complicated explanation if, um, especially if you don't have, if you don't have one, we don't want to make anything up. Oh my gosh. There's even questions about like what, well, you know, in those toddler years when, why, why, why, why?
00:04:46
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Hannah, I'm not even joking. I know you can't see this, the listener, but I wrote down why question mark circle. How do I answer when they say why? Why did God make the sky blue? Or why do you have to clean up your room? Or why do I have to clean up your room? Why can't polar bears live in the desert? Why? Why?
00:05:12
Speaker
I just, I always laugh because I know the right thing is not to say because I told you so, but I'm getting to the point where I'm saying that. Right. And then I remember one time, an old boss of mine.
00:05:28
Speaker
when before I had kids and he would talk about this and he would say, you know, after the wise, I would finally just be like, because it's God's way. He's like, that shuts him up all the time. And I was like, what? He goes, you can't trump God. And I said, oh, I guess I could do that. So am I supposed to, whenever I say you need to put your shoes on because we have to go to school. Why? Because God said so?
00:05:55
Speaker
I don't know what to do anymore. You know what? I'll give you two secrets. Two secrets that I like to say. So when it comes to kids questioning why you're asking them to do things, like put your shoes on a clean your clothes road, a great answer might be, well, God made me your mama and
Parental Authority and Faith
00:06:13
Speaker
I'm supposed to take care of you, and God wants me to take care of you, and this is how I'm taking care of you. Or God made me your mama, and I need to do a great job. I'm trying to do a good job of being your mama, because God made me your mama. Or in the Bible, God says you need to listen to your mama.
00:06:31
Speaker
Like, you can leave it at that. Done. God says you need to listen to your mama. But here's my other secret. OK. When a kid asks me why, why, why, why, why, or I get a complicated question maybe in the older elementary years that I don't have an answer to, my favorite Trump one, my Trump card, is I'm going to add that to the list of things I'll ask Jesus when I get to heaven.
00:06:51
Speaker
There you go. Because if I don't know the answer, I'm reminding them that God knows all the answers. Or like, I wish I could ask God that right now. How about you ask God? But I love the, I'm gonna ask him when I get to heaven. I got a whole list of things I don't understand. I do love that. I love that. That's my secret trump card. I love that so much. At the end. Yeah, please use that. Please use that. I'm going to. There's no question about that.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, is there even anything else to say about this? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I do have some good guidelines. I have some good guidelines because when you're in those preschool and elementary years, you might have some concrete questions that they're asking about Jesus. Like, why did this story happen? The Bible? Or why, why didn't Jesus do this? Or why is the, you know, why are butterflies purple? You know, those concrete questions, which you might have an answer to. You might not. We talked about how to do that.
00:07:45
Speaker
But I think it can be kind of scary as a parent when you start to field those questions about, is God real?
00:07:58
Speaker
They're deep thinkers. They really are, especially in those older elementary years, like third, fourth, fifth grade. They are going to ask questions that might unlock some questions for you. And when that happens, that can be scary sometimes. Yes. Even if it's big questions about our theology. Because some of those things don't seem to make a big difference. Why did God make the sky blue? I don't know.
00:08:24
Speaker
But then there's some harder, more serious theological questions like, well, if God knew that Adam and Eve were going to sin, why did he put that tree in the garden anyway? Right.
00:08:37
Speaker
Okay, so there I have that question totally. There are some deep hard theological questions that can feel scary because I've experienced where a child's asking a question. I don't have a satisfactory answer or it's something that I'm wrestling with personally as well. You can start to feel a little bit nervous because
00:08:55
Speaker
I mean, first of all, I don't want to give them the wrong answer. Second of all, I don't want to shut them down because I don't want them to think that asking faith questions is wrong or bad. And thirdly, I want to encourage them to keep exploring it. Because I know that we can trust God. We can trust God's character. We can trust God's word. But those big picture truths don't always answer the specifics of what kids want to know.
00:09:24
Speaker
So I do have an article that I'd love to reference. Please. So it's called getting ready for the questions that are coming your way. And it offers just a few ideas to keep in mind to help you be prepared when you get a tough faith question.
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00:11:13
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Importance of Open Faith Dialogue
00:11:28
Speaker
Got it. All right. So first of all, I want to remind you questions are good. It's good that kids are asking questions because A, they're coming to you, which means that they trust you and they want to keep having conversations with you about faith. But B, it also means that it gives you a chance to invite your kids into discovering something together. So you can explore those questions together. You can read the Bible together. You can call up Pastor Jim together. I think questions are a really good indicator that they're really processing what they're hearing. OK.
00:11:57
Speaker
Okay, number two, don't freak out. Don't freak out, don't freak out. They want to show that you can trust, you can be trusted with hard conversations, right? You can freak out on the inside. Just don't freak out on the outside. If you freak out on the inside but stay calm and collected on the outside, they'll know that they can keep communicating with you about these things.
00:12:21
Speaker
Um, I personally experienced asking some hard faith questions when I was in middle school and was shut down pretty quickly by the person that I asked. And I thought two things. I thought one, well, I'm never asking them anything ever again. And number two, I felt shame because I thought I shouldn't be questioning God.
00:12:39
Speaker
And I think that was a pretty unhealthy response because then it made it more complicated for when I got older and started asking some tough faith questions. And I wondered if God would be upset with me for doubting or for questioning or for not just blindly believing everything, even though I had a doubt of a little bit of confusion or something in the back of my brain.
00:13:05
Speaker
Well, and I think that this too ties into everything that we have talked about in this series that not just faith, but any one of these topics, if you just are open and talk to them, it's going to open that door. Right, totally. And even if you don't know how to respond, responding with honestly by saying, I don't know, that's a great response. I think it builds trust.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It builds trust. And then another thing to think about is get help or ask for help or know who you can ask questions to if you get some hard faith conversations. Hopefully our listeners have a relationship with either a spiritual mentor in their lives or a pastor or certainly our pastors are great at answering tough questions because no one person has all the answers.
00:13:57
Speaker
I don't have the answers. You don't have the answers. Our pastors don't have all the answers. But collectively, I know I can trust my pastor. And that's also sharing with your kids. You can go to the Bible. You can go to Pastor Jim. You go to Pastor Chuck. You can ask your Sunday school teacher. And just reminding them that it's OK to ask tough faith questions. And there are people that want to walk alongside you and figure it out. And sometimes you
00:14:21
Speaker
get it with someone else. You could say the exact same thing in a different way and it just hits, it just resonates. So yes, that's important. Absolutely. And then finally, just reassure your kids that you want to keep having these conversations with them. Maybe you're proud of them for asking tough questions.
00:14:44
Speaker
or that's a really great question, that shows me that you're really taking this faith thing seriously. That's so cool that you wanna learn more about God, even encourage them to have those questions. That's how they're gonna learn, right? And like we've said, if you keep those lines of communication open and pray, pray, pray, pray that God will give you the words to say and never stop praying for your kids.
00:15:05
Speaker
And we will have this linked as well on our show notes and at normalgoesalongway.com. I want to thank you, Hannah, for everything that you provided. All of the encouragement and the equipment that we need, equipment as an equip and equipment. It's been nice to hear your perspective and it's been nice to know that even though someone like you who
00:15:33
Speaker
is much further along on their faith journey than me, it's still a journey for you. And you still have those questions for your kiddo. And so that makes this mama feel better about where I am. And yeah, great resources. So thank you. My pleasure. So our last topic, getting Laura Fleetwood's perspective now on how to talk to your kid about their faith questions.
00:16:02
Speaker
So with Hannah, the littles, that's probably not too in depth, that's what we discussed. You know, they're asking what we consider very minor questions. But when they're in the secondary age and they're really starting to focus on the things that they've been taught. Yeah, they can wrestle. Yeah, is there really a God?
00:16:29
Speaker
Why is there so much hurting in the world if there is a God? Do all religions lead to the same destination? Those are actually questions that some of these secondary age kids are asking. Yeah. And let's be honest, they're questions that adults are asking. They're questions that we ask throughout our life. So it's normal. I think that as a parent, if your teenager comes to you and starts to
00:16:58
Speaker
Bring up these subjects and say, you know, I don't know if I really believe what you believe that just knowing that that's a normal part of their Developmental process to question as they're separating themselves From you and they're developing their own view of the world. It's actually a good thing because they are Gonna make their faith and their walk with God personal and it's always surprising
00:17:26
Speaker
supposed to be personal. Like that's the whole point, right? So again, it's listening with a non-anxious presence and not freaking out that, oh my gosh, my son is not going to be a Christian anymore. It's giving them space to ask the questions and not feeling like you have to have the answers. It's embracing that faith is in large part a mystery.
00:17:51
Speaker
Which is hard. Which is hard. It's having trust that God is going to work in their unique faith journey. It's being a model of your own faith. And regardless of the questions they're asking, being a faithful, you know, a tender at worship and they're seeing you pray and they're seeing you remind yourself of the truth of God's word by studying your Bible and
00:18:20
Speaker
I think it's good to encourage a variety of reading from Christian and non-Christian sources.
00:18:30
Speaker
I'd like to bring something up and I know that I have her permission and yours, but in case you missed it, Laura's daughter was on episode 28. Two public high school students discuss their faith walk and Audrey surprised me because obviously I know her and I know you and I know she comes from a very
00:18:58
Speaker
faith-filled background. And listening to her speak about her questions with faith surprised me, which is an assumption I shouldn't have made. But I thought, oh, because she has walked along this path with Jesus, with parents who support her and answer those questions, why would she have questions? Why?
00:19:28
Speaker
And that was a really dumb thing for me to assume, but it made me appreciate her even more that she was willing to talk about those things. Sure. I mean, even the people who walked with Jesus when he was alive had doubts and questions and they got to experience him in true life.
00:19:54
Speaker
Doubting is a normal process of being human. And through our doubts, the Holy Spirit works and often makes our faith stronger because we are digging deep into questions. You know, when it comes to your kids' faith life, you surround them in the faith growing up and you pray for them.
00:20:21
Speaker
And you remind them of their baptism. You remind them that they are a child of God. They were baptized. They have that promise.
Baptism and Faith Identity
00:20:32
Speaker
And no matter what they question, that is their identity. What if a parent is listening right now or even a secondary age kiddo and they haven't been baptized? Is that an issue?
00:20:49
Speaker
Well, baptism is a physical act that has spiritual implications. You do not have to be baptized in order to have Jesus as your Lord and savior, but baptism is an event that you can point to to know that
00:21:14
Speaker
you were baptized with God's word and with his spirit and with the water. So I would say, if you have not been baptized, or you don't remember if you've been baptized, because it might have been as a child, that that would be something to talk about. Like to have those conversations and talk to a pastor about, talk to a youth pastor about, learn more about why we do baptisms
00:21:44
Speaker
For me, my baptism is a reminder, an event, a physical act that I can point to and say, I know that I'm God's child because I was baptized. So that's important to me. Let me say one way that it was put to me when we made the decision to baptize our daughters was it's just the icing on top of the cake. It makes it...
00:22:13
Speaker
even more with your relationship towards God. And that helped me understand that a little bit more too. You know, the reality is whether you have Jesus as your savior or not, you are still God's child.
Unconditional Love and Prayer
00:22:30
Speaker
Like he is your creator, whether you believe in him or not, you are still his child. He still loves you. So reminding your
00:22:41
Speaker
your kid of that, whether they're an atheist at the moment, you can still say, well, God still loves you. Yeah. That's true. He's not giving up. He's not. No, he's not giving up. And I'm going to keep praying for you. And I'm just going to trust that God's going to put the people in your life that can bring you closer to him. It's hard. I'm not going to say that it's not easy.
00:23:07
Speaker
I know of parents whose kids have walked away from the faith and it's a really hard thing. You just, you still love them. You know, you love them well. You stay true to your, your faith walk, but at some point you open your hands and you give them back to God. You know, God put this child in your life, chose you to be their parents. And then at some point,
00:23:38
Speaker
They grow into the adults that they are and we open up our hands back and we give them back to God. And that is a really hard thing to do, especially when it comes to thinking about eternal life and all of that. It can be a big weighty thing, but I would also say don't give up because God never gives up.
00:24:01
Speaker
We just don't know what the future holds, so expect the best. Pray for the best. Continue to love them and nurture them and remind them that no matter what they do or think or say, God loves them. And that's all we can do at the end of the day. We're not responsible for anyone else's faith journey except our own. The other thing that I just want to mention is that oftentimes the things that adults and teens get hung up on when it comes to Christianity
Simplicity of Faith
00:24:30
Speaker
are not the main things. Like maybe they're disgusted with the way that some evangelical churches treat LBGTQ people. Or maybe they're frustrated that women can't be pastors. Or maybe they're frustrated that this particular Bible verse is interpreted this way by one group of Christians and this way by another. So how am I supposed to know if the Bible is true? It's really much more simple than that.
00:24:57
Speaker
You can say to someone, okay, I understand your frustrations about all of that, but how are things between you and Jesus? Do you know Jesus? Do you believe that he loves everyone? Do you believe that he came to this earth to do something that no one else could do and that that is to bring forgiveness and wholeness to every single person who wants it? Jesus is not any of those other things. Those are man-made.
00:25:28
Speaker
issues that we like to argue about. Faith is really very simple. Do you believe that Jesus came, that he lived, that he ministered to outcasts,
00:25:42
Speaker
that He showed love and grace and mercy for everybody, that He went to the cross to pay the price that we could not pay to live the life we could not live, and that He resurrected as a foreshadowing of the promise that we will be resurrected and that we can live with each other in eternity in heaven. How are things between you and Jesus? It can be that simple.
00:26:07
Speaker
And that has a way of cutting through a lot of the noise that we tend to put around our faith. And of course, there's a lot more to faith, but that's the gospel. That's the central truth. And so we start there.
00:26:23
Speaker
And that's where we end. Thank you so much, Laura. This has been fascinating to hear what you and Hannah have brought to the table. And don't forget, all of the resources from every single one of these episodes will be at normalgoesalongway.com.