What if your children had no sense of spirituality?
Most parents want to offer spiritual guidance to help their children learn and grow. However, it is difficult for even the most spiritual adults to understand spirituality for kids.
With the right tips, you can become a more spiritual family each and every day. Keep reading to discover our top tips for offering spiritual guidance to your kids!
1. Open Spirituality
For some families, “spirituality” and “religion” are one and the same. However, you may be able to guide children towards a religious path by focusing first on more open spirituality.
You may have regular conversations about things like the meaning of life or what legacies we leave after our deaths. This helps children to focus less on material concerns and more on the foundations of spirituality.
In time, you can shepherd them towards a more specific branch of spirituality or religion. But this first step is crucial to kick off the journey and may even protect their mental health.
2. Teach By Example
In some ways, teaching spirituality is like teaching anything else. For instance, the best teaching tool is always to teach by example.
Let’s say that you want your children to regularly attend church. If you simply drop them off, they may start wondering why you aren’t attending. But if everyone goes to services together, it helps establish this as normal, expected behavior.
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3. Discuss Other Viewpoints
Whether you want your children to be religious or simply spiritual, it’s important to discuss the beliefs of other people and cultures.
First, this helps your children learn to be more understanding and tolerant of other beliefs. That will be a valuable skill as they grow older.
Second, it helps establish spirituality as a normal and acceptable thing. Understanding there are believers all over the world may help them embrace their own beliefs.
Third, it can lead children further on their own spiritual journey. When they start asking questions about other spiritualities, they will naturally become more curious about their own.
4. Own Up To Your Mistakes
Earlier, we mentioned the importance of being a role model when it comes to spirituality. However, part of being a good role model is owning up to your failures and mistakes.
If you do not do so, then your children may think of you as spiritually perfect. While that sounds nice, they will think you are a hypocrite as soon as they notice your imperfections.
However, if you are honest about your failures, you can demonstrate what such mistakes teach you about your own spiritual journey. This teaches children how to spiritually grow instead of pretending they are constantly perfect.
5. Make Room for Spirituality
There are many different kinds of spirituality. One of the best ways to encourage spirituality in your children is to make room for spiritual practice every day.
Making time doesn’t just mean going to church once or twice a week. Instead, try to create small, daily moments of focused spirituality.
This can include reading holy texts, praying, meditating, and more. Making each day more spiritual naturally leads to more spiritual children.
6. Honesty About the Unknown
Just as it is important to be honest about your failures, it’s important to be honest about the unknown.
Chances are that you have many questions about your own faith and spirituality. You should talk about these questions with your children as part of regular spiritual discussions.
When children understand that you have questions and doubts, they will be more comfortable about their own. And you can all work on answering these questions as a family.
7. Remember Your Upbringing
You don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to spirituality for kids. In some cases, you can simply look to your own upbringing for inspiration.
If your own parents or grandparents were spiritual, you can try to emulate their own lessons. After all, if those lessons made you more spiritual, then you know they are effective!
What if they were not spiritual or if they were bad teachers? Never forget that failure is the greatest teacher. You can look at what went wrong and use that knowledge to become the role model you always wished you had growing up.
8. Core Family Values
Spirituality may intimidate children because they see a huge set of rules to follow. You can make spirituality more accessible by creating and abiding by a core set of family values.
If “helping others” is a core value, then your family can do volunteer work on the weekend. If “personal growth” is a core value, everyone can keep a spirituality journal where they record goals and growth.
By giving children a handful of key values, you can make spirituality accessible and engaging.
9. From Spirit to Activism
Volunteer work isn’t the only thing your family can (or should) do. However, we do recommend embracing some form of spiritual activism within your community.
Some children struggle with spirituality because it all seems very abstract. This can change when they see how spiritual belief can lead to positive change within the community.
And on the most basic level, helping other people simply feels good. And when children discover how awesome this can be, they may fully embrace their spiritual journey.
10. Mindfulness Exercises
Activism isn’t the only physical expression of spiritual belief. It’s also important to share mindfulness activities with your children.
Mind exercises and breathing exercises can create a more focused brain and body. And they also serve to calm children down in times of stress and spiritual crisis.
It may seem simple, but remember that nobody can feel spiritual if they are also feeling stress!
Spirituality for Kids: What Comes Next?
Now you know more about spirituality for kids. But do you know where you can find even more expert advice?
We help families like your own grow in spirituality and happiness each and every day. For more spirituality tips, check out our exclusive interviews today!