This episode of the courageous parenting podcast is part two of the last episode in which we shared the first five of the ten tips for parenting six to eleven-year-olds biblically!
In this episode, we will be sharing the other five tips for parenting six to eleven-year-olds biblically! If you haven’t listened to part one that is okay! You can jump on part two without needing to hear part one first but part one does discuss the first five tips which are very important for you to hear if you are a parent.
In part one we discussed character development, discipleship, responsibilities, living a disciplined life and friendships! So those were the first five topics that we talked about and in this episode which is part two we will discuss the other five, so stay tuned!
These ten things that we discuss in this series are things that you as a parent need to be navigating well with you six to eleven-year-olds so that they go into their teenage years yielded to you and your authority but more importantly, yielded to God!
There are a lot of changes that happen from ages six to eleven both physically, mentally and emotionally and our approach to parenting must change as they are changing otherwise you will find parenting more difficult than it needs to be. A large part of getting this one point down is your relationship with your kids because you can’t know how to best parent your kids if you don’t have a good relationship and a solid understanding of where they are in their walk through life.
Even if your kids are not in this age bracket that we are focusing on all of this is still relevant and can be of great help to your parenting if you approach it correctly. Understanding your children and having healthy relationships is essential to parenting children of any age!
So let’s dive in!
5 Tips For Parenting 6-11 Year-Olds Biblically:
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Your Relationship
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Their Thing
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Purity
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Education
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Identity In Christ
1. Your Relationship
- This first tip impacts all the rest, and that is your relationship with your child or children. This applies to any age, but right now we are specifically focusing on children ages six through eleven, and this is the age when children start having opinions and start to create preferences and categories of things that they like and things that they don’t like. We as parents have the responsibility to delight in our kids as they are doing new things, and as they are becoming better at things that may have been more difficult for them in the past and as they are making new friends. All of the things that our children go through during the ages of six through eleven (and they go through a lot) changes our relationship with them.
- As your kids grow they begin to desire deeper relationships and conversations with you but as parents, it is our job to proactively invite it they probably won’t try to bring it up themselves because they don’t know how to. A lot of the time what happens is parents don’t catch on soon enough when their kids are desiring a deeper relationship and they miss out and potentially mar the relationship.
- Just think about how much you have grown and changed over the years. Think about how much better you know your spouse, and how much you both have changed over the years you have known each other. The same thing is happening with your kids! We are all humans, we all grow and change and you as the parent need to invite and anticipate that change, you need to encourage it, call it out in your child and be excited about it.
- If you were your child, would you want to be communicated to the way you communicate with your child? Would you want to be coached by you? These are really important questions that you need to be asking yourself because it’s not just about you liking your child. After all, you would like your kids all day long but what if they don’t like you back? This relationship, this two-way appreciation from child to parent is built in the six to eleven-year-old age range.
- Do you know what is in the hearts and minds of your kids? The assumption is yes, but if you are assuming then you are probably wrong. You need to have deep conversations, and you should be initiating the conversations! A lot of the time even though your kids desire deeper relationships they don’t know how to start deep conversations. The key to having a deep conversation is this, and we’ve said it before but we are saying it again. The key to having a deep conversation is asking three deep questions. If you ask your child how their walk with God is they might say it’s “good” but then you can ask “what does good mean?” and then they answer and you have the opportunity if needed to ask a third question about something specific they said. If your child answers your first question with a simple answer, don’t think that means they don’t want to talk. Sometimes they need to be nudged to go deep and sometimes they might actually be testing you to see if you actually care, because if you actually care you won’t be satisfied with a simple answer.
- If you don’t pursue God are you going to know him? No. if you don’t pursue your spouse, then you are not going to know your spouse. If you don’t pursue your kids, then you are not going to know your kids.
- The point we are making is that if you get the relationship part right then these next four tips that we are going to talk about are going to go so much better because if you don’t have trust in your relationship there are certain things that you just won’t be able to really talk about with your kids.
- Ephesians 6:1-3 says “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
- This is a key scripture to teach your children. It’s important that we explain to them the why behind obeying their parents, yes they should obey because God said so and that should be enough but don’t we all want to know the why behind things? It says to obey your parents because if you do it will go well with you and you will live a long life! You were given parents as a blessing! And you should treat them as such.
2. Their Thing
- Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
- We were all created for good works. We all have a God-given purpose and it is our job as parents to guide and help our children to understand and find their purpose.
- It is so important that your kids know that they are valuable and that they contribute in a specific and unique way to the family perhaps at church, in other relationships or in their education but they have specific things that are called out in them so that they can know that they are valuable and that they have “their thing”.
- It’s one thing to read about being valuable in the bible and another totally different thing to have it actually called out in you. So many children from ages six to eleven are so depressed and it carries into their teenage years and only gets worse.
- We are wired by God to make progress, to contribute, to be needed by other people and have a purpose and if your kids don’t feel like they are valuable then it will be a problem for you.
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3. Purity
- 1 Corinthians 6:18 says “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”
- So there is a distinction here with sexual sin, purity is very important. During these years, six through eleven and so on, you have to be the initiator of conversations about purity issues. But guess what, open conversations with your kids about purity cannot happen unless point number one is accomplished, and that is having a good, healthy relationship with your kids. They need to feel comfortable with you and they need to trust you, otherwise, you can be sure that your kids will not be open with you about their purity walk.
- 1 Corinthians 10:12 says “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
- The world sells the idea that you will give into temptation. Christianity often sells the idea that you will give into temptation. We are all still sinning and there is no sinless person in the world, but this truth right here in 1 Corinthians and throughout the word of God says that we always have a way out. When we sin we are making a choice to sin and we do not have to make that choice, we can choose God. We have the choice to walk in the spirit or walk in the flesh. It is important that we teach our children these things. Ages six through eleven is the time when we need to start the conversation of purity and what it looks like practically to be walking as a Christian.
- Statistically, most kids are exposed to pornography by age eight. If you want to be the first person to talk to your kids about what sex is and purity then you’ve got to do it early, earlier than you probably think is necessary. You are probably wondering what age exactly but there is no age. We are not going to give you an age. The reality is that you are the parent, you know your kids, we don’t know your kids and everyone has a different environment and kids are exposed to different things at all different ages.
- Romans 13:14 says “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
- The number one thing that you need to make sure happens during the ages of six through eleven regarding purity is that your kids feel comfortable talking to you about anything and everything. Your kids are going to be exposed to things. They are going to hear things and they are going to see things, do you want them to talk to you about it? Because if you want your kids to feel comfortable and confident about bringing these kinds of things to your attention then they need to be able to trust you.
- By the time our kids are six years old they should already be trained in how to cover their eyes even if there is a kissing scene among animated characters in a movie. Your children by the ages of six through eleven should have enough integrity that you can trust that they are turning their eyes or looking away or whatever they need to do so that they are guarding their hearts and minds!
- We are parenting our kids for today’s world and tomorrow’s world and if you are falling asleep at the wheel your kids will be exposed to things that they don’t have answers to and they will find answers from all the wrong sources if you are not proactively teaching them.
- Have standards, communicate with your kids, and make sure that you are not looking to the world for your standards but that you are looking to scripture only.
4. Education
- The fourth topic that we need to cover is education. If you think that your kids are going to come to you for advice just because you are their parents then you are wildly mistaken. You have to live the way that they would want to live so that you are the type of person that they want to get advice from and they need to trust you and feel valued by you. The older kids get the less titles matter to them and in today’s world titles don’t really matter at all. You can no longer earn respect because of your title at work or whatever it may be. Now, of course, kids should obey and respect their parents because God says to but are you worthy of their respect and obedience?
- If we as parents have a selfless heart attitude, if we have God’s heart then our desire should be to make it easy for our kids to want to honor us.
- You need to be educating your kids about the world they will be living in. courageous parenting is about equipping kids for an uncertain world. What is there that you need to teach your children so that when they go out into the world on their own they are strong in their faith and ready to be a light for Jesus?
- The goal for education during the ages of six through eleven should be to cultivate a love for learning. If your kids do not love learning it will stifle the rest of their life.
5. Identity In Christ
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
- We are a new creation when we become believers, now your kids may accept christ when they are really young let’s just say five years old but in the ages of six through eleven what tends to happen is they go through a season of questioning their faith and having doubts which are totally normal. What you need to do is be there for them, encourage them, wash them in the word of God and through that they will find where they truly stand with God and their faith will be made sure.
- Between the ages of six and eleven kids are prone to start comparing themselves with others and struggle with contentment. If a kid is struggling in the comparison trap that could be a symptom of not having a strong identity in Christ.
- The enemy hates your kids, he hates that they believe in Christ and that they are being raised by you. The enemy wants your kids to have their identity in the world, God wants your kids to have their identity in Christ and you are the God authorized leaders to help navigate that, protect your children, pray for your children and have open communication and healthy relationships with your kids.
- This is the age when you should be teaching your children what it means to be born again and have a relationship with God.
- Make sure your spouse is listening to this too so that you can have these conversations together and get a date night to really evaluate where you guys are at with these ten tips for Parenting six to eleven-year-olds biblically.
Scripture In This Episode:
Ephesians 6:1-3 – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
1 Corinthians 6:18 – “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”
1 Corinthians 10:12 – “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Romans 13:14 –“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
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