This is just me trying to work through and figure this out. Once I let go of teaching some bible stories I was left a bit to aimlessly flounder.
I began to try and create lessons that would make my son Max feel safe because he’s struggling with fear of monsters. But I’m beginning to think this was a panic response looking for a quick fix. The lessons should be about foundation, not quick fixes- trust God and everything will be ok. What are these monsters? How does he see himself? Hard questions for a 4 year old who can’t really answer them. But God isn’t a magical vending machine and He’s not a simple cure all.
I needed to work through where they were at and what they needed so I started with some of my earlier training. I knew that they were within Piaget’s pre-operational stage but to test it I would give my oldest son one of the tests. Basically you show them two glasses filled with the same amount of water and in front of them pour one glass into a taller skinnier glass. Because they are in this stage they will say that there is more water in the taller glass because among other things they do not yet have the Conservation of matter down even though they are watching you pour into the taller glass.
Of course it didn’t go smoothly but I found my son’s deductive reasoning awesome. When I showed my son the two glasses he used his hand to measure, drawing an imaginary line between the two. He even dipped his finger into the water and tried to measure from the top. It was cool how excited he was about this. My problem was I couldn’t get the two glasses to have the exact amount of water and my son detected the subtle differences each time.
So I just took the one glass and poured it into the taller glass and asked if it had the same amount of water as the glass I poured it from. He responded no because this glass was higher. So despite his intelligence, deductive reasoning and imagination, he is still in this preoperational stage.
Think about what that means! It is perfectly acceptable for someone to pour water into another vessel and for it to have more water than the vessel it was poured from. Things just happen. There aren’t rules. What I see in the moment, the present, is often unlinked to the past or the future. In this way, life is magical. Things just happen! He isn’t thinking about “object constancy,” something we take for granted. It is completely acceptable for something to simply appear! Things can change and change instantly without explanation. This space is important because it is ripe with Faith, Hope and Love.
Unlike adults, children are already magical. They are intuitive, filled with wonder, concepts are living breathing things. Invariant representation has not taken hold of their lives. So how do I help them develop their God awareness in this magical world? If I believe that God is already at work within them, how do I help them to see/feel it?
As I ponder this space, I wonder what it means for my children’s spiritual growth. I think more of Max because although Maddox is within the same stage he is only 2 years and I’m just hoping I can keep him engaged and he can pick up things here and there as he grows with us. My hope is just to expose him as I try to reach my oldest, but I am conscious of him as well. I imagine that the songs we sing and movements will mean more to him. And as I think about that I wonder about creating my own songs or some kind of God-yoga to bring them into a bodily experience.
I don’t need to teach them to listen to their bodies because they are almost all “body” in the sense that they are intuitive and “right-brained.” I think my goal would be more to channel those experiences and perhaps help them know that they are listening to their “bodies.” The fish are the last to know about the water, they may not know that they are swimming in their body’s sensations. So how do you teach a 2 and 4 year old that they are living through their bodies and experiencing God through their bodies. I operate under the assumption that God is in them, with them and consistently speaking to them. The issue with all of us is simply being aware: developing our God-ception. But with children, it may be that they are aware and hearing but don’t know they are aware and hearing.
They are slowly losing their pure sensory experience, having it replaced with invariant representation. Concepts and ideas will filter their raw experience. As language begins to name what they know and live, they will lose the pure essence of it. They are at the place that we are working back toward. So our role will be to help them mold their words and concepts so that they can accurately hold on to what they are experiencing and not forget it. We are trying to remember God in our lives, they are blissfully living it but without a label it will disappear from conscious awareness. But we must help them put words to it and resist putting our own words to it as much as possible. Write down the story they give us and repeat it. God is perhaps the first label that we offer but maybe we can resist defining him and how He is experienced- attempting to draw that out of them? I’m not sure I’m up for that task. I wonder how Jesus was raised?
Everything for a child is experience, there is no such thing as “head knowledge,” they are too integrated and visceral for that…they have not succumbed to invariant representation- everything is too novel. They are concrete but that does not make their knowledge simply cerebral. Their “heart” is involved every step of the way.
Knowing that both my children were in Piaget’s Preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7) and this was confirmed with my oldest through our experiment gives me a little more insight into their mental world. At this stage they are able to think symbolically but their thinking is based more on intuition than logic. Corresponding to Piaget’s mental stage, Erikson points out that the primary emotional struggle at this stage is: Is it ok to be me? As parents during this stage we provide the “secure base” that they can use to fuel up, “venture out and assert their will” then return to us in order to re-fuel. In other words, they draw strength from our safety and presence, attempt something on their own and then return for reassurance and safety. This process continues as slowly that sense of confidence grows within them. According to Fowler’s stage of Faith, my children have a more experiential faith that “develops through encounters with stories, images, the influence of others…”
It is that fundamental question, “Is it OK to be me?” that I have begun to focus on and a continued awareness that attachment and belonging are fundamental. Now I have to pull it all together!
Raising Gentle Faith 