Six Questions Our Children Have that Demand Answers

One of the most important things my wife and I learned during our years of childrearing was that our children were going to ask questions, and we were responsible to God to answer those questions. Some study and wisdom is required to wisely answer their questions, but answer them we must. The alternative is they will find wrong answers elsewhere.

Not all their questions will be verbalized, but they still must be answered! We found children will ask six foundational questions in the course of growing to maturity. They are, for the most part, sequential in nature. Regardless of age, these questions must be answered in order, for each one builds upon the answer to the previous question.

The answers to these six key questions will be the cement of their future lives’ foundation. When children ask these questions, the answers they receive and accept will lead them to either a worldly or a biblical, God-honoring philosophy of life.

1. Who is in control?

This first question is best answered when the children are preschool age. When children disobey, they are really asking who is in control. They are saying, “I want to be in control here, and I’m testing you to see if you will let me have my own way.”

Children must learn to obey their parents as their parents are in turn obeying God when they require their children to obey (Ephesians 6:1-4). Children will feel secure and loved when parents consistently and lovingly answer this question God’s way. The right answer to this question is preparation for the children’s yielding to the Lord’s control of their lives, making their yielding to God in salvation more likely, and as they grow older, yielding to God’s will.

2. Whom will I follow?

This next question is for school-age children up until the time of puberty. During this age of hero worship, parents are their main heroes. However, their world is slowly expanding, and they begin to see many more potential “heroes” to follow.

This is the time of teaching about the heroes of the faith, the facts of Scripture, and the need to guard their hearts and minds from those who subvert the truth. The correct answer to this unspoken question is, “I will follow those who are following God and yielding to His control.”

3. Who am I?

The third question is often asked by young people going through puberty as they are dealing with the physical, emotional, and mental changes in their bodies. The answer is not difficult: “You are who God made you to be, and He is not finished growing you yet (Psalm 139). You are loved and precious to your parents and to God (John 3:16; Romans 5:8). Teach them to trust God as they grow into the person He wants them to be.

4. Who is right?

Teenagers often ask this question. When they were going through puberty, not only did their bodies change, but also their mental thinking processes changed. When they were younger, everything was just right or wrong, but now gray is between the two. They are suddenly thinking abstractly and asking all kinds of questions.

They will often doubt their salvation, ask how we know God exists, how we know the Bible is right and true, and ask about creation. In short, the foundations of their lives are being questioned. Parents must learn to be discerning, give good answers, and not be frustrated about having to teach the basics all over again. Parents must develop the biblical discernment necessary to answer their questions by correctly applying Scripture to everyday life situations.

5. Whom will I be?

This question will not be answered by the parent, but by the young adults. However, the parent has had eighteen years to prepare them for this inevitable and life-direction answer, which is in reality a combination of all the previous answers.

6. Who loves me?

This last question is asked by children from the day they are born until the day they die. Parents must be continually answering, “Yes, son” … “Yes, daughter, I love you — unconditionally!”

Parents answer by word, by attitude, by action, by patience, and by obeying God in how they sacrifice to bring up their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). In the end, the real answer, of course, is God Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ, loves you!

Our Prayer

Our prayer for our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren is they will obey God, follow Jesus, know they are children of God, believe the Bible as their source of truth, be a discerner of both good and evil, be seeking God’s will, and “love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).