Learning memory verses can be a big part of cultivating your kids’ faith. Read on to learn about how our family has been practicing this skill and get a great list of scriptures you can memorize together. You might also like this post: 10 Easy Bible Verses for Kids To Improve Behavior.

Ben White

The high-pitched wailing of my five-year-old daughter pierced my ears one morning.

(I was resting and trying to fend off a nasty chest cold, but of course, mamas don’t get sick days when the kids are at home.)

She burst through my bedroom door with tears flowing freely, pleading her case before me about how her brother was treating her unjustly.

I did not have the energy or the will to be judge and jury at that moment of which Legos go where. But it was either suffer through that or suffer through screaming, so I trudged down to the playroom.

God must have been feeling for me at that moment.

While it was tempting to yell at the offending parties and just shut down the whole operation, I opened my Bible and read a scripture instead:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. —Colossians 3:12

I talked about each of the words and asked my kids if they knew what they meant. They quietly listened and thought about it. Then we calmly talked through the situation and resolved the argument quickly with very few tears.

The passage came to mind because the kids and I memorized it last month, and it was very familiar to us. This was just an opportunity to show them how to put what they had learned into practice.

That’s one of the reasons I think there’s so much value in memorizing scripture with your kids. When they’ve already stored biblical truths in their memories, it makes your job easier as a parent when you’re teaching them how to live.

They already know the why (i.e. God’s people treat others with kindness) so you can just show them the how (i.e. not screaming at your brother).

Finish reading 10 Simple Bible Verses Kids Can Memorize over at Equipping Godly Women, which includes practical memorizing tips!

Want a printable list of these memory verses for kids? You can download it from my collection of free resources for Christian moms.

Click to Access Scripture Lists

Do you do memory verses with your kids? What helps your family learn them?

Get the printable

Do you use positive parenting behavior words? Share some in the comments or on social media!

If I had a dollar for every time I saw some alarming headline about how today’s youth is leaving the Christian faith in droves…I’d have my kids’ college paid for.

But it’s true, and it’s alarming. Faith for kids, especially once they’re out of the house, is challenging in our current cultural climate.

I don’t have to read the latest statistic to know it. I can see what happened to many of my friends who said they were Christians in high school and college. And I can see what’s happening with some of my friends’ older children now.

They don’t need or want church, the Bible or anything related to it.

The faith of their parents didn’t stick; the kids never fully made it their own.

If you’re a Christian with kids in the home, you are almost certainly asking yourself in this climate, “What can I do to help them choose their faith over the world when they’re grown?”

I have a somewhat unique perspective on this question, as I was not raised in church. I chose to follow Jesus when I was 19, over 300 miles away from home, in an urban university climate that was somewhat hostile to the idea.

So when I think about how I want my kids to make the same choice, I don’t have the childhood experience to rely on.

My husband is quite the opposite in his experience. His journey began at a much younger age and he grew up immersed in a vibrant culture of faith in his extended family, homeschooling community and church.

In him I have the unique opportunity to observe the full picture of raising godly kids, as someone who never had that experience herself. As my husband leads our family spiritually, he explains why we do what we do, and I can see the fruit of those choices in his relationship with his own parents.

Our kids are going to make their own choices, and as it is clear in the Bible, they can choose to leave the faith even if we do everything right. (Likewise, as in my case, kids can have little to no biblical instruction in the home growing up and still turn out all right!)

But at the same time, I believe there are several things we can do that will help our kids make their faith their own—for the long term.

Photo by Joseph Gonzalez on Unsplash

Faith for Kids: 3 Ways To Help Them Make It Their Own

You can finish reading this post by clicking over to Three Ways To Help Your Children Make Their Faith Their Own at Equipping Godly Women.

Want more Christian parenting tips? Check out these related posts:

10 Easy Bible Verses for Kids To Improve Behavior

Spark Your Kids’ Love of The Bible with 3 Simple Habits

How To Help The Perfectionist Child

And don’t forget, one of the best places for advice is from other moms! Join the Wiping Noses for Jesus is Legit Facebook Group for encouragement and support.

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links. See here for more information.

It’s funny how you can spend all day with your kids and yet feel like you didn’t connect with them at all. This is especially true when you’re busy getting stuff done with multiple people in the house: homeschooling, housework, chauffeuring, ministry, etc. And while you might technically be “together,” you’re missing out on a very important component of healthy parent-child relationships: quality time.

It’s different than just being together; if you’re familiar with The 5 Love Languages, it is defined as “giving someone your undivided attention.”

That’s hard to do!

But as my kids get older, I am becoming more and more convinced just how important it is to have quality time with each of them. Even if quality time isn’t the primary “love language” of you or your child, it gives opportunity for uninterrupted communication and to build memories. When they look back on their childhood, these are the times that kids are going to remember.

Here are practices our family implements to ensure we’re getting that quality time, both one-on-one and all together.

5 Ways To Spend More Quality Time with Your Kids

Keep reading the rest of this post over on My Joy-Filled Life! Thanks for stopping by!

I was vacuuming the other day and really enjoying the “quiet” that comes with that task. You know what I mean: by drowning out all the noise in a busy household, I could get a few minutes of mindless peace.

Or not.

Slowly but surely above the low, loud hum, I heard an unmistakable crescendo: screeching, wailing, screaming: “STOP IT!!!” There were crocodile tears and desperate tugs on my arms. I had to referee my kids’ fighting over how to properly put away the cards in a game of Memory.

I try not to remind myself that I did not go to college for THIS.

In my finest parenting moment ever recorded, I just stared at them, blinking. There may have been some mumbling utterance of, ”No one cares, just put the cards away,” before I turned the vacuum back on and tried to use the power of wishful thinking to make it stop.

I’m sure you know as well as I do that wishful thinking isn’t a constructive way to parent, so of course I eventually had to back track and help them talk through this truly agonizing situation.

It’s a battle all parents face: kids fighting, sibling rivalry, and just outright meanness between your offspring. You wonder how such diametrically opposing figures could possibly have come from the same womb.

Kids Fighting? 3 Strategies to Strengthen Sibling Relationships

Read the rest of the post over at My Joy-Filled Life!

A $3 pack of gum. This is the type of thing that seven-year-olds dream about, scrimp and save for, apparently.

Well, at least mine does. He schemed all week to get his little fingers and a pack of Ice Breakers (Mom doesn’t splurge for that kind of thing). It brought him joy for days—and incurred a little bit of jealousy from his siblings. But it was his, all his. He’d pop two pieces at a time, for maximum bubble surface area. He was generous with some of it, so others could experience the bubble bliss and share in his happiness.

I think managing money and possessions is an important thing for kids to learn, starting from a young age. Around the time my oldest turned five, my husband and I started talking about allowance and how we would start teaching this valuable life skill.

Some of this we’re figuring out as we go, but one principle we came to quickly was this:

We will not pay our kids to do chores. Furthermore, we don’t use any sort of reward system to motivate them to help out around the house.

Linking allowance or other rewards to household duties is a common practice in American homes, so you might find this surprising—bold, even. But I am firmly convinced that this practice isn’t a wise choice for our family, primarily because it could send the wrong messages to our kids.

I know that not everyone will agree with me on this, and that’s okay. If you practice this I don’t think you are doing something that is inherently evil. But, whether you do it or you think you’d like to, I’d ask you to take a moment and consider why we don’t.

The Value of Helping Out

With two kids who are school age, chores are built into our morning routine. Based on the day of the week, they help out with wiping countertops, putting away laundry and even cleaning the toilet (yes!!!). And most days, they do it!

In both of our homes growing up, my husband and I helped out around the house because it was an expectation. Period. If we didn’t do it or had a bad attitude about it, we had to have long, unpleasant conversations with our parents. It was not worth the trouble, most of the time.

Likewise, we want our kids to do there chores because that is what you do when you are part of a family. It is a reward in itself; you have a home to live in, so help out and take care of it (with age-appropriate responsibilities). If my kids are doing their chores primarily because they want to get a material reward, they are missing out on a character growth opportunity. When they’re not doing what I’ve asked them to, or if they complain about it, we have a little heart-to-heart during which we talk about my expectations: that they honor and obey me, and that they contribute to our household.

I admit that it takes some work to reinforce these concepts and address the attitudes of the heart. I think it actually might be easier if I had some pretty sticker chart and weekly rewards. But it’s worth the extra effort. Some great scriptures that I recommend using with your kids include Philippians 2:5–­8, Colossians 3:23­–24 and Matthew 5:41.

“Reward Economies”

Clinical psychologist Erica Reischer, writer for The Atlantic (see this article), says that an environment in which people expect to receive something for their work is called a reward economy: “In reward economies, kids learn to trade desirable behavior for a reward.” The problem with this? It affects how kids think about relationships.

Reischer says, “Offering children tangible rewards in exchange for caring behavior can erode their innate tendency to help others.” Kids start looking at family life as an economical realm (a market), rather than a social realm. Instead of learning how to be part of a team, kids who are constantly offered a reward start wondering, “What’s in it for me?” That’s the exact opposite of what I want!

By using reward systems, we could be inadvertently teaching our kids that they deserve a reward for everything they do. I could see that causing all sorts of problems if they carry that attitude forward in life—in college, in their careers and in their relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I like accolades and I think we all need them at times, but the reality of life is that you have to give without expecting anything in return—a lot!

Battling Perfectionism

Hi, I’m Gina and I’m a perfectionist. I love keeping score and I feel horrible about myself when I don’t measure up to any standard that is put in front of me. And one of my kids is just like me.

Reward systems are horrible for perfectionists. They reinforce our pride as well as our insecurities. They don’t help us to perform our best; rather they tend to highlight where we fall short. I know we can’t avoid them entirely because we live in a world with things like grades and performance reviews. But I don’t think they’re desirable within the home.

I realize that not every child has this issue but trust me; if you have a perfectionist from your family, you want to run from this kind of system (read here for what works better).

Are Rewards Ever Okay?

Well, to seemingly contradict myself…I actually think yes. Like I said earlier, I don’t think using rewards is inherently evil, and there are in fact some reward systems built in to the real world.

Last week I was at a homeschool training class for co-op facilitators. Our trainer said that she used a simple reward system by quietly handing kids a block when they were on task and taking blocks away when they were off task. At the end of the semester they received goody bags. Throughout the year she used the system less and less. By the end of the year they hadn’t used the blocks in many weeks. She told her kids that they were doing a great job—they didn’t need the reinforcement! And she gave them goody bags because she loved and appreciated them.

I loved this example because the reward system was used for initially training good habits rather than indefinitely. It wasn’t a constant motivator. And in that sense, I think rewards can be useful: for training. For us, however, we’d like to keep money off the table and avoid making such systems and integral part of our disciplining at home. Occasional, limited use for training in new skills might be okay.

So When Should Kids Get Money?

Our kids get a weekly allowance that increases with age. It is not connected with performance; they get it no matter what (unless I’m out of cash!). They also get money for birthdays, and a rather generous tooth fairy frequents our home. They don’t get a lot, but it is more than enough for fun purchases like awesome bubble gum. Beyond that they have everything they need and then some.

Our kids will have plenty of opportunity to earn money when they get older and can get real employment. Contributing to your own home is not a job; that is real life. We like to give to our children (although not spoil them) because we love them and we want to take care of them. This is the way I believe God treats us (Matthew 7:9–11). I don’t ever want them to feel like they have to earn my love or approval with their performance (perfectionist issues!!!).

Okay, it’s your turn. What are your thoughts about reward systems in the home, especially with money?

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