More parents realize that the emotional and the spiritual growth of child are as important as the physical growth, thus they put their effort to create the best environment for child’s emotional and spiritual growth. Karen Marie Yust’s book, Real Kids, Real Faith, provides how parents and spiritual communities can nurture their children together and suggests practical examples to apply to help families to recognize God’s presence in their lives.
Psalmist expresses children as a “heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him” (Ps. 127:3) and blessings from God. In the same way children are gifts from God, Yust states that the “faith is given us by God.” This means, as children are gifts of God, the faith in them is also gift from God:
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She introduces three aspects those will help parents and faith communities nurture children’s spirituality, they are, story, ritual, and relationship. Telling stories of faith and living lives in faith will become a great model for children’s own faith development and will help them establish their own “identities with God and with God’s story.” Children’s spirituality form and develop when they see adults participating faith community’s and family’s ritual regularly and consistently. The author introduces helpful examples of ways of participate in faith ritual which faith communities and families can practice together over and over because it needs discipline to become spiritual habit in our lives. This way, our children will more likely to “incorporate God’s value and God’s way of life into their lives as they move into adulthood.” Children’s spirituality nurtured when the faith communities and families living in “love with others and caring for others.” This loving and forgiving relationship in families and faith communities will teach children that they are loved and pleased as part of their faith community and “bring them together in loving