3. How Can I Help My Child to Understand God's Relation to the World?
Begin with familiar things.--This is very easily done when the child's thoughts of God are related to his knowledge of the things of home. You will find a splendid treatment of these relationships in the primer pages in "The Golden Book" (27-68). Give these lessons to a child who is learning to read. He will like them because the pages look just like his school book and he will be helped in his reading at the same time that he is learning truths which explain the Bible verse given at the bottom of each page. There is no better way of helping a young child to understand love for God, faith in God, the presence of God, and other great truths that are usually given in the abstract.
(The questions at the end of this chapter will be helpful in getting the child to express himself.)
4. How Can I Know the Best Bible Stories to Tell to Children?
Remember two things: that, as children develop, different types of stories appeal to them, and that every one of these types is found in THE BIBLE STORY. It is a fact that, while the Bible is a universal story book, many of its best lessons cannot be put in story form and are therefore left out of any collection of Bible stories. Consequently the child is missing much that he might profitably have. THE BIBLE STORY meets a great need of the times by bringing to children all the lessons of the Bible, some by means of simple treatments of interesting things and some by means of longer stories of its heroes and heroines.
Simple Good-Night Talks for Little Tots
The following paragraphs in "The Golden Book" contain the sweetest, most constructive lessons to be found in the whole Bible and are beautiful good-night talks for very young children. The questions at the end of this chapter are listed according to pages in "The Golden Book" and will help in getting the child to repeat the story.
| God Sees Me. | [81 G.B.] |
| What Does God Want Me to Do? | [82 G.B.] |
| What God Gives. | [85 G.B.] |
| Jesus and His Friends. | [86 G.B.] |
| Jesus Had no Home. | [89 G.B.] |
| The People Loved Jesus. | [93 G.B.] |
| The Boyhood of Jesus | [97 G.B.] |
| Jesus and Sick People. | [98 G.B.] |
| Talking with Our Father. | [101 G.B.] |
| God is Our Father. | [105 G.B.] |
| What Jesus Said about Birds and Flowers. | [106 G.B.] |
| What Jesus Said about Trees. | [109 G.B.] |
It will be helpful to the mother who is constantly appealed to by her children for special kinds of stories to know where to find them in THE BIBLE STORY.