Volume 8, Issue 1, October 1998

CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS LEARNING

All of us, especially children, have a spiritual need for love. Later they will learn to love but, first they must experience love received.

Children also need to feel secure. Security is not just a comfortable feeling of safety; it is the atmosphere that allows a child to act, to think, to ask questions, and to grow.

"Let us go on loving one another, for love comes from God . . . . for God is love."
"If we love one another God does actually live within us, and his love grows in us towards perfection."
I John 4:7, 12

Few Bible stories are suitable for young children, but the child will receive impressions of the Bible from the attitudes of the adults towards it, and from the copy of the Bible in the home. The child should learn the sections of the Bible dealing with love and grace. Words such as love, joy, kindness have little significance to small children unless they are applied to situations within his or her own experience.

Do not use biblical stories merely to entertain children. Their meaning becomes lost along with the television fantasies they observe every day.

Children develop religious learning and grow spiritually through the teaching aids of prayer, music, pictures and art, conversation, worship, the Bible (above), and relationships with others.

Adolescent children learn when they are ready to learn, when they want to learn, and when they see a reason for learning. What they learn must interest them, challenge them, make them happy while learning.

Much learning at this stage is sharing knowledge and experience.

Adolescents are very much aware nowadays of scientific knowledge and the search for physical laws. They need also to learn about the spiritual laws of life and the universe. Our task is to show how these laws match.

Children at this age love to "belong." They know what belonging means - their family, their gang or community, their school, etc.). It is very meaningful to know one belongs to the community of the people of God.

Concepts of right and wrong, moral and spiritual values, codes of behaviour, are important to the learning and developing of growing children and young people.

In the senior teen years young people are characterized by independence, yet they are concerned about injustice, wrongs, social and moral problems. They wonder about life. They are often lonely and uneasy. They are unsure about themselves but, want to be accepted. They are growing up and ready to take responsibility for their lives - spiritually as well as otherwise.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.