Framing: Making Sense Of Life
We’re focusing at the moment on key tools we can use to help our children become God connected. Last week Lauren talked about ‘Creating Windows’ and this week I’m going to tell you about ‘Framing’.
As parents and carers, one of the most powerful things we can do is to help our children and teens make sense of the world so they can engage with it. We naturally frame physical things for them, but they also need a spiritual framework, so they can learn to understand the world with God’s truth all over it.
There’s so much that we tell our children about the everyday things, especially when they are young. We point out the trees, the birds, we explain why bees like flowers etc. We can do the same when it comes to God. We can ‘frame’ for our children, whatever their age, where we think God is in the day to day.
Life with God can become separate and disconnected with everyday life. We want to knit these two together so they are one thing. We can do this by explaining everything. For example; we can explain what sung worship is for, and why we worship in different ways, we can explain how talking to God helps us when we are feeling worried.
We can also frame by helping them see the relationship between God and people in the Bible.
Here is an example from my family: -
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Moving house - talk about Abraham, Ruth, Joseph - knowing that God goes with us wherever we go.
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Can you think of something you have framed for your child –starting school or moving house perhaps?
How could you bring the reality of God into your everyday conversations with your child?
What frameworks might you need to start building for your child, to prepare them for something coming up? What stories from the Bible might help with this?
Our children and teens will often ask difficult questions and we can feel ill equipped to answer. Here are 4 simple questions we can ask to help us:-
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What do YOU think?
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What do we know?
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What do we NOT know?
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How do I handle this question?
Enjoy framing for your children!
God bless you
Love Caroline