Teaching Our Children to Walk

At an early age young children begin developing muscles and balance that will enable them to walk. How can we help them to walk physically and spiritually?

One of the most important aspects of a child’s development is learning to walk. Notice these insightful quotes from a source on infant development:

“When your infant is between 1 and 2 months old, he’ll briefly pull his head back and turn it from side to side when you hold him against your shoulder or chest. This strengthens the muscles in his neck, shoulders, and upper back. Eventually, these muscles—along with a maturing nervous system that can send messages from his brain to the nerves of his arms and hands—will enable him to push up on his forearms and lift his chest off the floor. …

“Even at birth, your baby’s body is designed for walking. If you hold your newborn in the air, her legs will move in the ‘stepping’ pattern: a toe-heel-toe motion with alternating legs, the same pattern she will later use to walk. What she doesn’t have at birth—or for nearly a year—is the muscle strength and balance to support her entire body and walk without help from Mom or Dad” (Laura Flynn McCarthy, “Go, Baby, Go!” Parents.com).

It is helpful for parents to be aware of these facts.

Teaching our children to walk spiritually

But walking physically is not the only walk parents are responsible for teaching their children. Just as there is a process that can enable your child to walk physically; so there is a teaching process that can guide your child to “walk” with God. The Bible often describes having a relationship with God as walking with God, to demonstrate that God’s way is a way of life (Genesis 17:1; Deuteronomy 13:4; Joshua 22:5).

It is our responsibility as parents to teach our children why and how to have a relationship with God (Deuteronomy 6:6). This process begins when our children witness our personal relationship with God. Our goal is for them to move from seeing our personal walk with God to developing their own personal walk with Him.

Introducing our children to God

Our relationship with God is an active part of each day as we pray, study the Bible and put into action what we learn from God’s Word.

But some parents have noted that it can be challenging to maintain and strengthen their relationship with God when a baby enters the family. Yes, things change! All of a sudden, free time is almost nonexistent. Just staying in services throughout a whole sermon can be rare for young parents. This tiny infant takes a lot of time and attention. So how do we properly care for our children and strengthen our relationship with God?

Some practical ideas

1. “We’re in this together.”

• Dad and mom need to be mindful of each other’s spiritual needs. Work together to ensure each of you has time to pray and study.

2. Study with your children in the room.

• When our children were infants, I would put them on a mat on the floor by my chair while I studied my Bible. As they got older, I added toys to their pad for them to play with while I studied.
• I occasionally played a sermon message and introduced the idea of using a “quiet voice” by whispering my communications to them during this time.
• I would tell them, “Mommy is going to study my Bible or listen to the sermon so I can learn more about God. We need to be quiet like in church.” I would add, “It is really good to learn about God.”

3. Pray with your children in the room with you.

• If my husband wasn’t able to watch our baby, sometimes I would put our little one in the middle of our bed with a pillow on each side and then I would kneel beside the bed and pray.
• At bedtime, when your children are a little older, begin a routine of reading or telling them a story based on a Bible account. Then pray with them before hugging and kissing them good night.
• When they are old enough, have them begin to say their own words after you start the prayer.

Involve the whole family

Our special Friday night activity with our young children was bath time, then climbing onto the king-size bed with dad. He would read them Bible storybooks, with a little laughing and playing thrown in, before we scooted them off to bed with prayers, hugs and kisses.

When our three children were older, my husband and I began a new Friday night activity. One child would decide what we would have for dinner and help me prepare the meal. Another child would set the table and decorate it with flowers and candles (they always looked forward to lighting the candles). The third child would help dad do the dishes. We rotated this schedule so each child got a turn.

This made them part of a Sabbath tradition and taught them that the Sabbath is holy and is to be treated as special. It is important to impress on them at a young age that the Sabbath is not like any other day.

Just getting started?

Congratulations on your new journey. Parenting is a good “work” that you have been entrusted by God to perform. Treasure it and build your own family traditions!

For more insight into developing your child’s relationship with God, read Tom and Mary Clark’s Discern article “How to Help Your Children Build a Relationship With God.”

Andrea West lives in Lewisville, Texas, with her husband, Roger. They attend the Fort Worth, Texas, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.