5 ways to nurture spirituality in children.

1. Expose Children to Nature
Actively revealing children to nature in their earlier years can have a profound effect on their spiritual development. From nature children learn that all life is connected. When children trust that all life is connected they will appreciate and respect themselves and the people around them. Empathy, compassion, kindness, and love all grow from appreciation and respect.

How to expose children to nature
There are numerous ways but for starters - Taking care of pets; planting gardens; taking bush walks; have quiet focused times with your children so they may hear birds singing, the wind blowing through the trees etc. You can keep children aware of the changing of the seasons and the rhythms of nature. Introduce nature-celebrating rituals into your child’s life, For example you could having a winter family festival such as a party to celebrate the first rains.

2. LISTEN! Listening to your child as fully as possible.
Young children may try to communicate, but quite often they are not heard and honored. If this is the case then they will soon begin to guard their feelings and communication may become limited. It has been found in numerous studies that by the age of 10 children know it is taboo to refer to spiritual subjects in public because of the ridicule they were be subjected to by peers.
Most authors, parents, spiritual leaders interested in the spirituality of children highly recommend that you take time out of each day to hear about a child’s joys, achievements and frustrations.

How to Listen!
Take time each day to reflect with a child on the same 3 things:
1. Something from the day, which you each are thankful for
2. Something from the day that you each are sorry for
3. Something you each intend for tomorrow.
By sharing with your child they learn to feel safe and to be open. If a child does not respond to the sit and talk situation (as many crystal children and others don’t) then try communicating through “art time” (draw pictures while sitting together and talking together).

3. Encourage your child’s imagination and sense of wonder.
Imagination is such an essential tool for inner development. When we choose to celebrate the wonder of each day, life can be exciting and special, and our children will definitely remember. It is important to pay tribute to and give significance to your children’s fantasy and inventive play.

How to encourage your child’s imagination!
As adults we can make the ordinary – unordinary. So it is important to make ordinary events magical for children ie watch a storm approaching with your child safely on the verandah, have a picnic one night indoors, create a cubby or secret playpen indoors, play imaginary games, dress-up, acting out ideas and don’t forget to read spiritual books or fairy tales with wonderful messages and myths with your child.
Children especially like secret places (tents, tree houses) and secret boxes (go back in your memory and I’m sure you’ll remember having done this). And what about imaginary friends? By using their imagination children are possibly trying out different personas and may find ways to express powerful feelings.

4. Maintain regular rituals in your home even if you do not embrace a formal religion.
These rituals or events will be the meaningful expressions of your own spirituality that encourage your child’s expressions. Somewhere I read that, “a ritual can help us to sense holiness, or the possibility of holiness, in the familiar.”

How to create rituals!
They can be as simple as lighting candles or blessing the food at dinner. These family rituals and celebrations turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Once again, you might consider developing your own yearly holidays - like celebrating the change of seasons, or welcoming the full moon each month and all it represents. You might choose to declare the first Friday of each month as a good-luck day in your family. Or create an Angel day, whereby you do something for someone else (and with no expectations attached to it). As adults we quite often toast or acknowledge each other. So to should we do this with our children who equally enjoy a regular ritual of toasting – ie to acknowledge and applaud each other.

5. Encourage your child to share his or her dreams with you.
By showing a genuine interest in your child’s dreams, the child will learn to value them. Encouragement will build their self-confidence and invariably create an optimistic approach to life. Our encouragement helps give children the assurance they need to remain persistent and get through setbacks. When we encourage a child to share their dreams we are ultimately encouraging them to believe in achieving them.

Nurturing your child’s spirituality by exposing them to nature, listening to them, helping them expand their imagination, encouraging their dreams and celebrating or creating rituals with them, is a gift you can give them that will last their entire lives. In fact, this could be the most valuable legacy you leave your children.


Inspiration for this article was drawn from the readings and suggestions of:
Edward Hoffman, author of Visions of Innocence
Robert Coles, author of The Spiritual Life of Children
Doe and Walch offer 10 principles for spiritual parenting
Maggie Dent, Nurturing Kids hearts and souls