Children ask questions — thousands of them — and we don’t always know what to say or how to answer. This is especially challenging when the questions are on hard topics like evil, loss, or tragedies and disasters. Thankfully, the mom and daughter team of Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson have thought through the issues from their unique perspective, and have crafted responses based on biblical truth and grace. Their book is titled Answering Your Kids’ Toughest Questions, and Jessica joins us to share help and wisdom. Here’s where this provoking discussion takes us:
In addition to all the time moms and their kids usually spend together, Jessica also home schools her children. So there are plenty of opportunities for communication! Have Jessica’s kids asked the same questions that she did at their age?
Do we as parents tend to “over-answer” or “under-answer” a tough question? Jessica says we do both all the time. Sometimes, when it comes to a particularly tricky question, we think we need a perfect answer. She says that we sometimes just need to stop out-thinking ourselves.
Jessica believes we need to foster an environment where our children know that it’s okay to talk to us about anything. Granted, there are some subjects that we need to be age-appropriate about and go into further detail as they get older. But we have to be able to talk to our kids. In an information age, if we’re not going to share information with them, Google is only a click away.
We hear some samples from the book about suggested responses at various ages. Jessica reflects on the factors that go into crafting our responses to our younger and older kids. Is it a matter of less or more content – or are there other facts to consider?
It’s practical wisdom for some of our trickiest moments as parents, on this latest Connecting Faith.
