The Learned

 Question: My 4.5 year old distrusts everything we say although we never lie to him. He argues every time we say anything, insisting that we are lying. Answer: That’s a very smart 4.5 year old. Sounds like he’s been lied to before, not by you but by someone else. And that he was hurt, and that caused him to distrust anyone. It sounds like he is scared and confused, and doesn’t know what to believe anymore because he’s trust has been betrayed.  Perhaps try telling him that some people do lie, but not mommy and daddy, and not this family, and see whether he can argue with that. Perhaps he will, and show you instances of the time when someone did lie to him. Then you know where it came from and deal with it. If nothing comes up, you can continue with statements that ‘Christians are not supposed to lie either’. And see if anything comes up then.

 Question:  6 year old weaning off melatonin. Takes 2 hours to sleep. Help.  Answer: My theory has always been early to rise, early to bed. Can you get him to wake up at 5 or 6am?  If the house is noisy, I usually play wave sounds to drown the noise. If you have a Google Home with you, that’s easily done. Other than that, any phone will do. You can either get a sound app or play it on YouTube. Also, just make sure he has had enough for dinner which means some healthy carbohydrates (not the bleached ones). Healthy carbs are like potatoes and brown rice. If your child is on a strict veggie and fruit diet, he might be too hungry to sleep. Another way is try praying or worshipping really long. After praying about an hour, he should be sleeping. If that still doesn’t work, then play some Jesus Image worship. They usually go on for 2 hours. If you can find one session that makes him sleep, make sure to remember which one it is! If not, just hold him to sleep every night fo...

 Emotional Expressions are really expressions of the heart and not the head. For example, the more we try to hold back a tear, the more gushes down. And the most genuine of smiles come without you even noticing until much later. Laughter are like tears, which burst the very moment you try to hold it in. And arrows that pierce the heart is what you get if you don’t express anything at all; while the underlying truth is that the world itself will fail to contain the entirety of what you really feel in your heart.

Question: Grandparents practicing favoritism towards kids and grandkids — to run away or get close anyway? What if one is a step-dad? Answer: Wow. That’s a lot to take in.  I don’t know if a step dad is considered a parent and therefore if the ‘honor your parents’ applies to him. Hmmm.. food for thought. My guess is that he is technically not, so I wouldn’t be so worried? That being said, I do think it is great if we can all be a happy family. At least for the honoring your mom part. And I guess honoring him is how you honor your mom?  It’s really sad to experience favoritism in your family and more sad to be the less favored. However, how your mom treats your younger siblings have many reasons. It’s always easy for parents to be mushy with the youngest but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you more. Different people express love to different people differently. That doesn’t measure love accurately at all. Love carefully hidden is worse than open rebuke. Proverbs 27:5 Persona...

Question: How to teach kids to read? Answer: Two common ways: Phonetics and Word Recognition. Just do both and you’ll be fine. YouTube ABC Phonetic songs for the Phonetic part. Teach him to write his name and pronounce it by alphabets. Then work on Word Recognition: start with easy words like articles, “a, an, the” then conjunctions etc.

 Question: I'd like to hear from those of you who keep the Jewish feasts. What denomination are you, what are your reasons, do you still celebrate the "regular" holidays? Also interested in any resources you might have on the topic. Answer: Yes, we celebrate both Jewish and mainstream, except Halloween. We are interdenominational, apostolic and prophetic. Also, we celebrate Passover and Resurrection Sunday instead of Easter. The reason is because God says so. Exodus 12:14, 17, 24. Leviticus 23:41 New Testament:  https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/gods-holy-day-plan-the-promise-of-hope-for-all-mankind/gods-festivals-in-the-new-testament And the reason why the Jewish feasts were removed was because of Constantine. He removed all the Jewish feasts because he blamed the Jews for murdering Jesus and wanted nothing to do with them. Today, we know that is so wrong. Jesus Himself is a Jew. I’m sorry it’s a wiki but it sums up everything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

 First off, Children Ministry is not a baby sitting service. It is a children’s church, and therefore do not need to be the same time as the service. I prefer my kids to be in the church with the congregation.  Having said that, younger children need to be nursed. And personally I prefer to nurse in a separate room myself. A lot of churches’ nurseries are still incompatible unless it is a mega church. But if you go to a mega church for the sake of their facilities and programs, you will feel very dry, and will feel like there is no point going to church either.   The teenagers could help out with the younger kids if you have a large family. A youth group is not the answer. If anything, can only make things worse. A lot of youth who go to a youth service at the same time as the main service never fit in again once they are too old for the youth group. And they drop out of church.  If I were you, I’ll put all my kids in the main hall throughout the service. That’s...

Question: My Catholic mother-in-law asked me to read Matthew 28:19-20 because she is concerned that my last 2 babies haven’t been baptized with Holy water. She made me question what happens if something should happen to my babies when they aren’t baptized 😔 Answer: Baptism is about leaving the old life behind. Romans 6:4 Babies don’t have a past, so there is no need for baptism yet. Secondly, real baptism means being fully immersed in water. John 3:23 (much water was needed). Matthew 3:16 (Jesus arose from the water.) Acts 8:38 (They went into the water). Not sprinkled. Babies are too young for that. And Jesus himself was 30 years old when he was baptized. And the Bible never mentioned baptizing babies.  Thirdly, baptism is about dedicating one’s life to God which means that a child must acknowledge this and willingly and consciously make such a decision. Watch Jesus Image baptisms, especially of children, to understand how this is done. Nevertheless if she still insists, feel fre...

  Question: As a Christian mom who is not doing “Santa” with her kids, how do you approach the topic with young children? Answer: The truth. Santa was a good guy many years ago who just wanted to give children presents, especially those who could not afford it. But after he passed away, instead of following his example to give unfortunate children presents like he did, children became obsessed with receiving presents from him instead, and plenty of folktale followed as if he lived in the North Pole with a bunch of elves, etc. so we must not get distracted with Santa during Christmas but remember that it is Jesus’ birthday, and don’t forget Santa’s example in giving presents to underprivileged children. Also, all the kids in my family give presents to each family member. So there’s a ton of presents every Christmas. Don’t need one from Santa. The best presents are from mommy and daddy or grandpa and grandma. Each family member including kids gives a gift to each family member. Becau...

Question: Can a Christian not go to church? Answer: Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together Hebrews 10:25 The cross is a picture of the horizontal and vertical relationship that we have: our vertical relationship is our relationship with God, the horizontal relationship is our relationship with one another. The church is a spiritual family. There is power when the generations come into alignment with each other. There is power in inter generational worship. Do not hold back your kids from the corporate worship and the presence of God and the power of God. If you are not experiencing the presence of God in the church you are in, I suggest you find one that has the presence of God. Where are you located?

I have always believed that parents are also mentors in the real world. That means, expose them to Daddy’s job. Use this opportunity to take them to his workplace and see firsthand how things are run. Take this opportunity to expose them to the area that he is involved in, that is his passion, and also other areas that touch on his skill and hobbies, whatever he is interested in, be it in fishing, fixing the car, etc. Dads love to be heroes, so let him bring them into his world.