Everything your child engages in is worth their time and your time, if you participate in their life. Children feel very well how quality the time is that you dedicate to them, and whether you are present in this time spent together. If you are near the children, but your thoughts or attention are somewhere else, then this is not what they expect from you. Little ones need not only your presence, but also your involvement in their activities.
One of the most beautiful ways to express your love through time is reading useful and interesting books together with your children. This is an activity that not only brings you closer to your children, but also broadens their horizons, enriches children's vocabulary, teaches them to construct their speech correctly and competently, forms their worldview, develops imagination and erudition, and teaches them something they never knew before. If you think you don't have the right voice, or you have poor diction, don't worry about it. Your children don't know about this, and to them you will be the best reader in the world.
Reading is not only spending time together, but also physical contact. You can seat a little one next to you or on your lap, hug them, stroke them, kiss their head when they look at the book. The child will let you know what physical contact suits them most, or will show that it's better not to touch them.
Depending on age, children should receive simpler and more colorful material for learning and gradually move to more complex material. But when there are older children, and the whole family gathers together, don't be afraid that the little ones don't understand anything. Be assured that their memory works better than you imagine. And although they don't understand the meaning of everything they hear, they are interested in what interests their older siblings.
Children's inheritance of home culture and family values works in an amazing way. It is passed from the older generation to the younger and forms a certain family identity.
Joint reading of spiritual books with subsequent discussion of the read topic forms a way of thinking in accordance with the parents' faith.
Although the Bible is a complex book that can be constantly read and new revelations found in it, it is also useful for small children. We don't know how the Holy Spirit works in children's consciousness, and how He presents heard truths to children's imagination, but the fact that children understand and remember more than we imagine should be remembered and taken into account.
Unlike computer games, television, and watching movies and cartoons, reading useful and spiritual books is a beneficial activity in which spiritual enrichment of the child's mind occurs, the ability to understand others and construct correct speech is developed, analytical thinking develops, reflection on plot and character behavior occurs, memory is trained on names, titles and events. During reading, children's consciousness itself draws in young imagination those images about which it hears.
With calm reading there is no imposition of artificial pictures and plots that don't exist in life. And the Holy Spirit, through the prayers of parents and children themselves, can reveal imagined images to young listeners in the right light.
Spiritual books were written to form certain values in the reader, to give examples of virtue, humility, patience and love. They teach good and call sin evil. Through them God's law and the importance of its fulfillment are revealed to the child, examples of obedience and punishment of the guilty are given, motivation for imitation is instilled.
A child knows how to enter into the plot and begins to empathize with the heroes of stories, to live through their feelings and emotions, which helps them better understand their own feelings too.
Contact of the child's mind with God's Word makes the child's mind more developed and erudite.
Spiritual books are usually written to reveal important topics more deeply and consistently. And this gives more complete information about what is being read than can be seen in television programs. When parents ask questions about what was heard during reading and listen to answers, then such practice teaches the child to analyze what was read and draw conclusions.
Reading forms intuition, perseverance, patience, attentiveness, prudence and the ability to concentrate on one thing. And children's questions about what was read speak of their interest and desire for deeper assimilation of the material covered. Children learn to think and reason.
Reading spiritual literature does not cause aggression, does not lead to stress or mental disorders, but rather calms and gives confidence and peace in God.
Jesus taught that in the days of His Second Coming people would not think about the main things.
Parents should also understand that the purpose of reading is not only to gain useful knowledge and skills, but also to know the One True God and Jesus Christ whom He sent, which will allow them to learn to love one another.
The time comes when a child learns to read themselves and can already independently choose books and study them. Here it's important for parents to establish control over what children choose for reading.
Fairy tales, detective stories, fantasy and adventures carry a completely different ideology and nullify the understanding of good and evil. They teach that luck and success come not from obedience to truth, but by chance or luck, or through cunning and deception. Violence, murders and other types of evil are sometimes presented in such an enticing way that the reader perceives such behavior as something good and begins to imitate it.
Just as God forms the mind under the influence of what is read, so Satan has his arsenal of literature to destroy and corrupt, and to form the mindset of a sinner. Any elements of evil can develop fear, anxiety and other mental disorders in children's psyche. And if children receive such material for reading from parents or with their consent, then spiritual things will soon be displaced from children's consciousness, or everything will be so mixed in the young mind that there will be no distinction between good and evil.
Imagination built on fictional stories will be unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.
As a rule, negative heroes have the same negative habits and behavioral patterns, which are absorbed by the young reader as an example to follow, and superficial plots lead to frivolity and make the mind incapable of perceiving spiritual values.
Recently, unfortunately, there are many books for children that teach magic and Satanism, debauchery and perversions, so parents' task includes keeping under control everything that is offered to their children, as well as children's visits to those places and societies where such things may be read.
Trusting relationships help quickly identify the evil with which your children have nevertheless come into contact, and explain to them how dangerous and harmful it is to listen to and read such things. The world is full of evil, but those who fear God have much that is good and useful for teaching and instruction in righteousness. And God keeps those who do everything to be at peace with God.
Questions for Reflection
Please read 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Proverbs 1:8-9; 4:1-2; 13:20; 22:6; Colossians 3:16; Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Ephesians 6:4; Psalm 118:105; Isaiah 54:13; Joel 1:3; Matthew 24:39; Ecclesiastes 12:11-14, in light of this lesson. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind? What did you understand from this lesson? How can joint reading strengthen the emotional bond between parents and children? Do you think physical contact is important for a child during reading? How does reading develop a child's imagination differently from watching television or computer games? How and through what does reading form moral values and understanding of good and evil? Why is it important to discuss what was read with the child? How to choose books that truly develop the child? How to recognize negative influence of literature on a child? How do reading spiritual books and proper nutrition affect a child's academic performance? Daniel 1:20 How can you motivate a child to read independently? How, without prohibitions, can you teach a child to choose useful books? How can reading be turned into an engaging family ritual?