I stumbled across the book “Spiritual Parenting” this year. Author Michelle Anthony, believes that our job as parents is to put our children in the path of God and His divine nature as much as possible, and the book promotes cultivating 10 specific environments in the home in order to do so. The environments are things like storytelling, identity, faith community, service, etc. In the chapter on the “identity” environment, she has a sub-section on “The Blessing” where she encourages parents to verbally say a blessing over their children.
She actually tries to do this with her children every day. I’ve personally started to say a blessing over my boys when I tuck them in at night. The other day, I forgot to do it and started to walk out of the bedroom, and my 3-year-old called out to me, “Mommy, mommy! Wait! Pray me to God!” It was cute and wonderful.
Beyond home life, I want to incorporate spiritual blessings into the habits of CVCKids. Each month after every Blast, we have a Blessing Station set up in the back of the room. There parents are encouraged to say a blessing over their children before they leave. There’s blessing written out that parents can refer to. It usually has to do with what we’re learning for the month, and it often includes a Bible verse.
In the preschool department, I have added a segment to the curriculum called “Blessing and a Snack.” Sunday School teachers in the 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s classrooms say a short, specific blessing over each child by name before they pray and hand out the snack. We started doing this during the summer months, and it turned out to be my favorite part of each class time, so we have continued with it into the autumn season.
In addition, Michelle Anthony (author of “Spiritual Parenting”) is involved with the David C. Cook curriculum called Tru that we used over the summer. The curriculum provides a free, monthly, digital magazine called HomeFront, available to any parent, not just those utilizing their curriculum. In each issue there is an entire blessing page, with a blessing and a verse written out that corresponds to one of the environments from Anthony’s book.
So, let’s use these resources available to us because our children will have plenty of untruths coming at them from this world, telling them lies about who they are and who they should be. We have an incredible opportunity and responsibility to speak God’s truth and spiritual blessings over our children!
