Do You Study the Bible With Your Kids?

by roybatty 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  roybatty

  When we were JWs, studying with our kids, pumping their little minds with the WT's teaching was a top priority. I remember studying the WT with them, then the biblereading, then the bookstudy, the the Great Teacher book,etc. It seemed like it never ended. Anyway, at dinner time I try and read something from this booklet called "The Upper Room." It's about the size of the Daily Text booklet and has the same basic idea but what's better is that it's a collection of experience from readers. Nothing heavy. Some of them are actually pretty good.

  I still think that there is some benefit with spending a few minutes reading something along these lines with the kids. So the other night I make them turn off the tv, sit down and eat dinner. I open up the booklet (insert *groan* from the kids) and I start reading this text. It's from Psalms and it's about being thankful. The experience is about this poor college student who has nothing but then remembers his relationship God and this gives him something to be thankful for. (While I'm reading this I'm thinking "he's probably thankful for the beer money God gave him"). lol. Anyway, I want to have a discussion with the kids about being thankful so I tell them "we're now going to say what we're thankful for. I'm thankful that I have two great kids. What are you two thankful for?" My son says "I'm thankful that I'm not ugly like my sister" and my daughter says "I'm thankful that I'm not an idiot like my brother." I just roll my eyes back and say "go and turn the tv on." lol

  I'm just wondering what others do along these lines. I want my kids to have knowledge of the Bible but I dreed the routine we had as JW's.
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  FlyingHighNow

  Tried to but my kids are ADHD and they would always successfully end the studies. Good for them. I sang to them and did other things with them that they fondly remember. I don't think they fondly remember the JW studies.

  Flyin'
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  gumby

  I'm an old Dfed bastard and my kid is grown and won't talk to me cuz I'm a heathen apostate bastard!

  Gumby
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  Corvin

  Gumby, you are a heathen apostate bastard. I like the way that rolls off the tongue. Let me try it on me now: I am a heathen apostate bastard. Hmm . . . I really like how that feels. I think, Gumby, that you might have stumbled on to some transformational vocabulary that might be of good use in helping those who leave the org to recover much faster. Thanks.

  My exwife made our kids sit at the kitchen table, yardstick in hand, and she would smack the kids if they sighed or even rolled their eyes. That heathen JW witch.
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  Purza

  Nope. I had a hard time studying with her when I was supposedly doing good. She is not interested and was relieved when I told her we weren't going to the memorial last night.

  I just know that if she wants to study religion in school I would be open to having her do that -- so she can choose for herself (not be forced into something her parents believe in). (btw, she is 13)
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  wheres caleb?

  Not the JW way. I talk to my daughter about God's goodness and that goes way beyond anything that she ever received at the meetings.

  My daughter told me that my conversations with her are better than any talk she ever heard from a CO or DO. So much for whatever qualifies as 'spiritual maturity' among conditional self-serving hacks.
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  HadEnuf

  Our studies were always a losing battle. We have one son with ADD and he couldn't concentrate on ANYTHING for more than two seconds. The study would always deteriorate into a free for all with the youngest spending most of the time in the bathroom for a "time-out". To this day I think he poops at the exact same time every day as the time that we had the study! HA!!!!!

  What a joke those studies were. Today if my kids were young I would just get a good story book with great pictures (none of that armageddon crap) from the Bible and read to them for short periods of time at night before bed...talk to them about Christ and what he did for us...and then read "normal" stuff. NO PRESSURE like when you're a JW.

  Just my 2 Cents!

  Cathy L.
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  Mulan

  We did, sometimes for long stretches regularly, then we would slack off for a few months. It was torture for them. I just knew it.
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  reganashe

  I thought about it and I feel to preachy about it. It just doesn't work well for me
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  Stefanie

  No. I learned from the first two not to torture them that way.