Life can be tough when you’re a kid.
Like if you get a bad grade on a test or have a mean substitute teacher. When there’s a rainy day—because then you don’t get any outside recess. Times when bullies pick on kids, or when fights happen. When teachers give you a ton of homework on a busy night—or on any night, I guess. When you go outside to play and nobody else is around to do anything with you. Or if you come home to an empty house. It’s real tough when your parents go through a divorce, my friends tell me.
Kids hear some rough things, too!
Like mean comments about the clothes you wear—because they don’t come from popular stores. Rude remarks because you look or sound different. Pressure for you to work faster from a teacher. Sometimes it’s hard when the whole class laughs at someone who gives a really wrong answer—or when other dancers make a person feel bad about doing the wrong step. Nobody wants to feel stupid or clumsy. Do you?
Some kids feel like their best isn’t good enough—according to their parents. And there are times when parents have bad days and then lose patience with their kids. That never happens at my house (ha ha!).
All kids have their ups and downs. Some more than others. So why am I telling you all this?
Well, because I want to ask you a favor—please talk with your kids.
Maybe all the stuff that I described doesn’t happen every day. But each day has its own challenges; that’s for sure. So kids need a person who they can share anything that’s on the minds with. They need to hear loving words so they don’t believe all the rough stuff that they hear everywhere else. And you are the person that needs to tell them those words. If you’re not that person, who is?
So talk with your kids. Tell them the words they need to hear.
Erin Staal, age 11, regularly volunteers in children’s ministry as part of a worship team and in the Toddlers room. Erin also enjoys dancing, writing, and laughing with her dad David (age unimportant), who serves as the director of Promiseland, Willow Creek’s children’s ministry.
Excerpted from Words Kids Need to Hear, by David Staal (Zondervan, 2008).
Copyright © 2008 Promiseland.
