Spiritual Growth of Children: Helping Your Child Develop a Personal Faith

by John Trent (Editor)

This lead product from Focus on the Family provides parents with a resource to help their children develop a personal faith. The book provides an overview of children's spiritual capacity and understanding at different age levels. It also includes practical advice to help parents be the spiritual “trainers” of their children through engaging activities, exercises, and projects that can be completed individually or as a family.

FEATURES

Genres: Parenting, Family, Faith, Christian, Nonfiction

451 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2000

About the author

Dr. John Trent is an award winning author of marriage and family books such as The Blessing.[1] He is the creator of the Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver (LOGB) way of looking at personalities. He is the President of StrongFamilies.com and the Center for StrongFamilies both are organizations committed to strengthening marriage and family relationships worldwide.[2] He and his wife Cindy have been married for 30 years and have two daughters Kari and Laura.

Reviews

[Mandy J. Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY REVIEW:

This thick guide walks you through all the phases you will face in the spiritual growth of your child from birth to age 12. I really appreciated the detailed plans, explanations, and practical steps of application that this volume has to offer. It's organized - which really appealed to me! - and is easy to read in portions and then refer back to in the future. I think that for a first generation Christian this is a valuable resource in raising their children in the knowledge of our Lord. While this book is very helpful and full of insight for daily practice, I think it's best used in conjunction with some great parenting books such as Shepherding A Child's Heart or Sacred Parenting in which the reason behind the application is explored in greater depth.

All in all this is a good book for any Christian parent to read and most everyone will find at least a handful of helpful tips. However, it can also be overwhelming due to it's extremely thorough nature and so I highly recommend reading one of the above mentioned books before or at the same time as working through this one.

[Deborah-Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a parent, but since I work with children in a church setting, I decided this might be a good book to read. Although much of this book is geared towards the nuclear family and explaining the importance of investing into your child's spiritual life and instruction on how the majority of spiritual training falls with the parents (which I wholeheartedly agree with), there are also little tidbits in here which are helpful for everyone who wants to understand childhood development better. This book talks about spiritual milestones and landmarks and generally what a child at various ages may be able to understand. It has also helped me become more creative in my approaches to teaching and evangelizing to children and provides a comprehensive list of resources (some of which I will further check out). Most importantly, this book teaches parents who to lay out a unique roadmap for each individual kid given their family circumstances and situations in order to move a child from knowing Jesus as a loving protector and provider to eventually being able to practice basic apologetics and witness to their friends by the time they are pre-teens.

[Mandy J. Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a "must have" for all parents - new or not so new. While it is a thick book and looks "scary" it's really quite easy to read and full of resources that you will not need to read "now" but refer to along the way. I really enjoy how it breaks down the childhood years into 4 categories and gives realistic goals and targets for what a child should know by the end of each stage. AND, what I like the most is toward the back of the book where it gives specific, easy to refer to, tips to go along with each of those "knowledge" points for each eage group. Can I just simply say this is a great book?!

[Beth Stratton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the type of book that you read cover to cover. It's a great resource with tons of good ideas about how to help children and even teenagers grow spiritually. I like it because it gives very specific examples and the author encourages you to figure out how to fit spiritual training into your particular family's lifestyle.

[Tracie Shoup · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book - would recommend for every parent in the quest to raise their children to know God.