Kids are heading back to school. To help you equip children for lifelong learning and success, we have provided the following keys adapted from Cheri Fuller’s series entitled “Equip Kids for Lifelong Learning.” 1
5 Keys for Lifelong Learning
- Build Responsibility: Kids who learn responsibility tend to be more competent and successful at school. Empower children by encouraging self-reliance and responsibility.
- Curiosity and Learning: Use opportunities in real, everyday living to give your kids problem-solving practice. Take your kids’ questions seriously. At the same time, don’t feel like you have to give all the answers; it’s valuable to help children think through the question and ask, “What do you think about that?”
- Home Matters: The top way kids learn is by imitation. The example we set in being interested in learning about the world around us, being persevering, patient, and optimistic about our challenges at work or home, will help children develop the determination to keep going despite frustrations.
- Learning is Fun: Discovering and tapping into kids’ special interests is a key to helping them become lifelong learners – it’s an effective way to help a child love to learn because you’re plugging into something he or she wants to know. Ask questions, listen well, and notice what your child gets excited about doing and takes pride in.
- Major on the Majors: Consistent focusing on what children have done wrong rarely works to improve learning or motivation. It’s important that kids know they’re accepted and loved not just for what they do, but who they are.
Back-to-School Prayer for Teachers
Take a moment to ask the Lord to refresh your heart to His purpose as you make these words your own prayer: 2
“As I step into a new academic year, restore my spirit. Renew my passion for sharing Your wisdom and nurture my compassion for those You put in my charge. Transform me as I seek to transform: Guide me as I seek to guide; open my mind and heart as I seek to open minds and hearts to the Good News of justice and peace. Help me listen more deeply to the world and to your Word, so I can walk with my students, attentive to the Wisdom that calls us all to the Kingdom of God.”
As you begin the new school year, remember the exhortation to “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6). The primary idea behind the phrase “train up” is to provide a systematic or complete training process. God wants His children to know the Scriptures from childhood.
Kids Need God
As children head back-to-school, they’ll be exposed to a variety of ideas. Children ask, “What is God really like?” Much of what kids hear about “god” does not even resemble the God who reveals Himself in the Bible.
Children need to know that God delights to reveal Himself to all who seek Him. Knowing the Lord personally and enjoying His greatness is the highest privilege of every Christian. The Bible is the one inspired place to find out about God—His personality, His attributes, His Names, and His character.
A child’s basic outlook and attitude toward life is shaped by the way he or she pictures God.
Practical Idea
Introduce children to our awesome God. Each week, explain and discuss one of God’s attributes, names, or character traits. Encourage children to know God truly and intimately. Just as a jeweler delights in each facet of a beautiful diamond, love for God will grow as you examine each aspect of His character with your kids.
Your kids can experience lifelong learning as they achieve balanced growth in Bible knowledge, Christ-like character, and faithful conduct. These DiscipleLand resources can help:
- Nursery curriculum: for infants, toddlers, and two-year-olds
- Preschoolers (ages 3-5): kids discover what God is like through 200 different Bible stories
- Kindergarten children (ages 5-6): kids meet 48 Bible heroes and heroines
- Elementary curriculum (grades 1-6): helps children establish solid foundations, experience victorious living, and build essential life-skills. Choose from these options:
- Core Bible: provides 6 years (24 quarters) of sequential Bible curriculum
- Adventure: topics motivate kids to pursue their discipleship journey
- DiscipleTown: equips children with essential discipleship skills during kids’ church
Click here for your free Resource Catalog.
1: Cheri Fuller, “Equip Kids for Lifelong Learning” Web. 2012.
2: Jane Deren, “Back to School Prayer for Educators” Web. 2012.
