Obeying Parents-Story for Kids

We all struggle as parents to know how to best teach our kids obedience. We’ve all felt the embarrassment when a child pitches a fit in the grocery store over wanting some item you don’t want them to have or when they ignore the direction you give them in front of your friends at church. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to teach academics to kids who just won’t listen and cooperate with us. We’ve all been there.

It’s easy to react to our kids instead of remembering what our God-given responsibility is. It’s not just to get them to be more compliant to us and thus make our life easier, but to teach them to recognize and deal with sin in their hearts. When they learn to obey us as parents, it is training them to have obedient hearts to the Lord later in life and THAT is why it’s so crucial.

Kids learn so much more effectively when they are given a story to help them relate to the experience of others. Kids will forget information, but they won’t forget stories. Over our many years of training our 14 kids, we’ve found stories to be super effective in teaching obedience.

Bible stories: I Corinthians 10:11 in speaking of the Israelites, it says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” In other words, events/stories from the Bible were written so that others coming later could learn from the consequences, experiences, and lessons that God used to teach the Israelites.

Psalm 102:18 says, “Let this be written for the generation to come, so that a people not yet created may praise the LORD.

“We are to teach our kids lessons from people’s stories from the Bible, moral stories from our lives or lives of people we know, and true stories of obedience from history-real people who made real choices to be obedient. This was our aim with our kids and we have created resources with stories that do just that for you to use with your kids. It wasn’t easy coming up with stories as we were raising the kids at the same time. I would have loved to just be able to pick up a book to help me out, so that was our intent on creating these resources to make your job easier with lessons we knew to be effective.

So, I’ll briefly share some examples of those stories with you so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about.

•Crossroads of Character: Learning to Make Wise Choices contains everyday life stories covering 12 basic character qualities EVERY child needs to know. One of those is obedience. For this, we tell the story of two of our grandsons who went with Granddad for a fun day at the farm. They grapple together with a moral decision to obey or disobey as they wait for Granddad to come back with the tractor. They face the temptation to go feed the horses’ grass but have been warned not to go close to the horses as the fence is electric and may shock them. When they choose to cheerfully obey, they are later rewarded by Granddad taking them for a ride on the horses. This story provides you with a simple kid-friendly definition for obedience and a Bible verse as well as a real-life example.

Also in this book are 11 more examples of character choices. (appropriate for ages 3-12)

Purchase Crossroads of Character

12 more character qualities providing for each a story from the Bible, a moral story from real life, and a true story from American history. For example, they learn joyfulness from Paul and Silas and Fanny Crosby, compassion from David and Mephibosheth and Florence Nightingale, and attentiveness from Samuel in the Bible and Lydia Darragh during the War of Independence as well as real-life stories from kids their own age.(appropriate for ages 5-12)

Here are some more stories we provide about obedience:

contains a story about Sergeant Alvin York during World War I who started out as a conscientious objector and ended up receiving the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Legion of Honor medal for silencing 35 German machine guns and capturing 132 prisoners in an amazing and heroic way thus illustrating obedience in a way kids won’t forget. This is one of 45 true stories illustrating character to kids and adults as well. (ages 7-adult)

offers youth devotions providing short answer questions to look up the answers from the Bible to see what God’s Word has to say about obedience. It’s not just something mom and dad are telling them to do -see what God has to say about obedience (and 44 other character traits)and the blessings of choosing it. This study also gives you several application questions we called “If”s” to prepare your kids in advance for real-life situations involving obedience that they will face, guiding them to choose wisely.

So, I hope this provides you with the practical help you need to teach your kids why to obey and how to obey and concrete examples of those who have made the hard choices and received the blessings of obedience in their lives. Enjoy the stories!!