Overview
What task is more difficult than parenting? And what could be more important? Why not take 9 months to explore what the Bible has to say about this all-consuming task?
We've assembled a useful mix of studies that looks at raising Christ-centered children, examines how to discipline them, addresses materialism, and sex. We also give you tools to decide what is best for your child's education and to think through divorce, adoption, special needs, and how to deal with parental guilt. Because of our downloadable studies and liberal policy that allows you to make up to 1,000 copies, gone are the days that you have to put in advance orders and collect money for each study book.
In this packet, we've included 38 sessions, so you are covered for about 9 months of weekly studies. And because it would be costly to order the studies individually, we've discounted them as a package by almost 50%.
Raising Christ-Centered Children (6 Sessions)
What we want more than anything for our children is that Christ becomes the passion of their lives. To help us do that, this study focuses on how we can discipline our children with unconditional love, raise counter-cultural teenagers, and overcome our parenting fears. It also examines how friendships make us better parents, shows the importance of parents presenting a united front, and teaches us how to model self-confidence for our kids.
Drawing the Line (6 Sessions)
We all want to raise responsible, respectful, and successful children, but sometimes it's difficult to know how to do that, or it seems that none of our methods are working. Parenting raises a lot of questions. How can we avoid raising children who feel they can never quite measure up? How does rescuing our children from the consequences of their choices and behaviors undermine discipline? What roles, if any, do negotiation and compromise play in discipline? Should we require our kids to do chores, and how do we do that? How do we prepare them (and ourselves!) for their adolescence? This study will explore these practical, crucial questions.
Children and Materialism (4 Sessions)
Materialism permeates our everyday life. Commercials, magazines, and the Internet blare societal values that are distinctly worldly, not godly. As a result, many of us have far more possessions than we actually need or use, and this tendency to accumulate things sends the wrong message to our kids. Ever heard the expression "values are caught, not taught"? We need to walk the truth before our children, not simply share it with them. This study brings us back to basic truths and helps you grapple with how to teach children biblical values such as sacrifice, generosity, and stewardship in an age of abundance.
A Father's Legacy (1 Session)
A father's recognition of his child has great value and incredible power. Giving blessings to our children is one of the most crucial actions a father can do to let his children hear and feel his unconditional love, which mirrors the love of our heavenly Father. This love-no-matter-what is a legacy of solid emotional growth for a man's children. What does it mean to "bless" our children? How do we go about giving children the type of blessings they need from their fathers? This study provides a foundation for understanding the power of blessings and outlines practical steps fathers can take to bless their children.
Developing the Spiritual Life of Children (6 Sessions)
Passing our faith onto our children is vital. How can we help them want to know Christ? This course discusses how to make God real to your children by teaching them how to pray, making church a positive experience, helping children make their faith their own, and using stories to make the Bible come alive.
Who's Teaching the Children? (1 Session)
Michelle Leise says that church with young children is "one long hour of multitasking. I pray with one eye on my kids. I listen to the sermon while retrieving granola bars from the floor. I sing along to hymns as I fish children's books out of our backpack." Her article raises the question: How should we teach our children about the faith? This study looks at biblical instructions given to the Hebrews and brings those principles to our present-day task.
Public, Christian, or Home School? (1 Session)
God created each child uniquely with a specific plan and purpose. Education is one tool to aid in the fulfillment of this plan. We must make choices about each child's education, considering their individual learning styles, character qualities, and God-given gifts. Every decision must be rooted in the wisdom that we seek from God who formed each child and knows them better than we ever will. What should you consider in making decisions about your child's education? How might a child's educational environment affect his spiritual life? How can you equip your child to be successful in her educational environment? This study will guide you in deciding which educational option is best for your child.
Care for Children with Special Needs (1 Session)
Jesus cared for the disabled wherever he went, and he expects us to model his compassion. The first step in developing an effective ministry for children with special needs and their parents is to communicate with the parents about their needs, desires, and practical ways the church can support them. How can the church develop strategic and effective ministry for children with handicaps and their parents? How did King David model care for his friend's disabled son? How did Jesus respond to hurting people and their families? How can we best demonstrate love and support to the parents of a child with special needs?
Abba Changes Everything (1 Session)
With all the financial and emotional barriers to hurdle, some Christians view adoption as being only for a few people who are specially called, as in: "The few, the proud, the adopters!" And indeed not everyone can adopt. Adoption agencies, both in one's homeland and overseas, generally have stringent requirements. Some of us don't have the resources to qualify, even if we want to adopt. Others of us, who do have those resources, feel called to spend them elsewhere. Adoption for many in the church falls into the category of "optional extra," good for some but not binding on the rest. However, adoption is for every Christian, because every Christian has been adopted by God the Father. Our adoption into the family of God is a central fact of our salvation. This fact affects how we relate with God, with fellow Christians, and with people outside the community of faith–including children and youth who need parents.
Teens & Sex (5 Sessions)
Few topics are more terrifying to the Christian parent than sex, since we know that we must teach our teens to go against the flow of society in this extremely tempting area. To assist you in this, we have created a course which helps you not only talk to your teens about sex, but also to mentor them in Christ and boost their confidence in him.
Dealing with Divorce (1 Session)
Many research studies tout the benefits of "good divorce," but when Elizabeth Marquardt conducted her own survey, published as Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (Crown, 2005), she found that children of failed marriages suffer deep spiritual wounds. How do broken family bonds mar the biblical picture of childhood? How does divorce affect the way children read the Bible? What can churches do to embrace children of divorce?
Fighting for Your Prodigal Child (4 Sessions)
This study will encourage you as you fight the heart-wrenching spiritual battle for your child. Written by a parent with a prodigal child, this wise author reminds us that parents of prodigals learn to face a different reality. We're in the middle of a battle with our own child, while grieving the loss of a dream. But to survive and move forward, we first have to face the hard realities. This course deals with those realities as it encourages us to set clearly defined boundaries, develop new strategies of praying, and focus on the promises of God. Consider doing this course with others who are struggling with a prodigal.
The Myth of the Perfect Parent (1 Session)
According to Leslie Leyland Fields in "The Myth of the Perfect Parent," Bible-believing parents have imbibed the philosophy of John B. Watson, an early 20th-century psychologist who boasted he could train any child. Christians often follow the same kind of behaviorism, giving it a Christian veneer with selected Bible verses. And yet many children in evangelical homes are not "turning out" the way we hope or expect. Our expectations of parenting are clearly off-kilter and need to be rethought.
Total number of studies - 14
