What You Can Do When Your Kids Are Struggling With Faith

Posted on Jun 14, 2016 Topic : Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Natasha Crain

One day when I was getting my kids into the car to leave for church, my son (age four at the time) moaned, “I hate God.” I literally gasped. All of my past Christian parenting efforts flashed before my eyes.

Then I started yelling.

“That is a terrible thing to say! Don’t ever say that again. How could you even utter such words on our way to church? What are you thinking?”

He looked at me blankly without an answer. We all spent the next ten minutes driving in that awkward state where there’s a bunch of family tension despite the ironic fact you’re headed to church (you know exactly what I’m talking about, right?).

As I grumpily slouched in the passenger seat, I realized I needed to figure out what was really going on.

“Buddy, when you said, ‘I hate God,’ did you really mean you hate God, or were you talking about your feelings toward church?”

He groaned and said, “It’s church. I hate church.”

I continued my line of questioning. “Okay, and is it everything about church, or only some things that you don’t like?”

He replied, “No, it’s the dancing! I HATE the dancing!”

With some further discussion, I learned that the kids were spending a lot of time learning hand motions to songs each week and my son dreaded it. He found it embarrassing.

Yes, it turned out that “I hate God” really meant “I don’t like dancing at church.”

Clearly, not every faith difficulty is so easily remedied. But the point remains the same: When your kids are struggling with faith, don’t panic, and don’t immediately start trying to dispense answers. Become a detective. Find out what exactly they mean when they say what they say and why they’ve come to that conclusion. Only then will you be able to address their real concerns.