When we become interested in a topic, we begin to explore it, play with it.

 

Then we question and listen to someone who knows about it—but not for too long! If we get bored or if the information is too overwhelming, we will lose interest and our desire to learn will fade away.

 

But if the listening time was successful, then we want to talk about what we learned. That talking helps us to organize our thinking, share our excitement with others and internalize what we heard and experienced.

 

Then we need to master that learning through exploring more, playing more, and finding even more delight in our topic.

 

We could very simply say that the learning process is Play, Listen, Talk, Repeat.

 

This is how you learned to play sports, grill a steak, and use your smart phone. It is how our children most effectively learn to talk and read, interact with others, and grow in their faith.

 

Unfortunately, many times children stop listening and tune us out because we don’t take the time to get to know them or play with ideas with them, we try to force them to care about things they haven’t yet developed an interest in, or we simply love the subject matter so much that we talk too long and don’t watch for signs that our kids have heard enough.

 

A friend told of her child in the car with her husband. The child asked a simple question about Jesus and the child’s father was delighted! He started talking . . . and kept talking . . . until the child covered her ears and cried out, “No more Jesus!”
 

How can we honor this natural learning process as we teach children?

 

Start by slowing down, listening, and enjoying being with them.

 

We all learn best from people who we trust and know well. Plan activities that children enjoy that introduce topics we want to talk about and create interest in them. And don’t worry when things don’t go perfectly. We all learn from our failure—and when we let kids see how we handle things that don’t go well, they will learn as well.

 

Someone once said, “It is a sin to bore a child with the gospel.” Let’s ask God to set a guard over our mouths and to fill us with wisdom and awareness of our children’s needs and natural ways of learning so that we might be able to speak the good news of God’s great love in ways that will draw our children to Him instead of setting up barriers between our children and God.