Imagine with me high security manual lock. It is made in such a way that only one single key fits the lock. The key that was designed for that lock is the only one that can unlock it.Trying to open the lock using different keys does two things as I see
- Frustrate the person trying to unlock
- Damage the key slot there by breaking it.. sometimes beyond repair!
Recently I was watching a video on the GC blog that talked about the Gospel bridge. That we need to find the right bridge to get the Gospel across to our children.
Every child is unique and they have their own interests. Some love reading, while other simply detest it. Some are musically inclined where some are musically deaf. Some children come with learning difficulties. Some less attentive than the others. But all of these children need the gospel. Trying to shove the reading key down a child who has reading difficulties is tortures.
So what do we do?
- Observe your child: Often parents are trying to put to practice what they see work for another child. God gave each of these unique children to us so that we can teach and train them in the ways of the Lord. We need to understand our child. The key to this is observing the child. Is he/she inclined to reading? singing? are there any reading difficulties? what is the attention span?
- Choose the apt key for your child: Having observed our child, now we know what to use. To a child who loves reading and being read to we use the book key to teach and train them. To a kid who loves music we use songs. To one who is slow we teach it over and over again till we are sure they have got. Sometimes the key could also be a particular time slot or a combination of the two- say, the time at which something is taught and the method used(books, music, nature etc) or more parameters depending on the situation.
The right Gospel bridge/key should be used to get the gospel to the child. May God give us grace to study our child/children and work towards teaching our child and not breaking them beyond repair. Always remember that every child, even when born to same parents, are different. What worked for now may not necessarily work for the other! May we all find the right keys to our children.
