I have to start out with a little disclaimer that I am an avid podcast listener, but I would never have thought I would be making a podcast myself. But after feeling impressed upon by the holy ghost multiple times, here I am, still a little reluctant, but nonetheless trying my best to do what my father in Heaven needs me to.
I am Alexis and I am a mother to two handsome little boys, ages 3 and 3 months, that I love with all my heart. While a mother to only my oldest, I was working on finishing my Bachelor’s Degree in Marriage and Family Studies. I had two pregnancies during that time, only one of which was full term and I graduated right before my husband and I welcomed our second little boy. That may have been one of the craziest things I ever did. And now I find myself missing the chaos, wanting to do it all again with a Master’s degree.
I had a lot of plans for my life that looked completely different than the life I have now, but Heavenly Father has proved time and time again that his plans are always better, if I will just simply follow His lead. This podcast is where He is leading me now, and I can’t wait to see where it will take me from here!
T E A C H I N G C H I L D R E N A B O U T C H R I S T
Teaching our Children, let alone teaching them about Christ, can often feel like a very important responsibility that my imperfect self just can’t live up to. But guess what?! As Christie Gardiner said in her book so eloquently, “You are exactly the mother that your children need.” Also, as a side note, her book is a must read! You and all of your “perfectly designed” imperfections will provide the learning experiences that will shape your children into who Heavenly Father needs them to be. So yes! Despite what we might tell ourselves, we are exactly the mother that our children need.
My purpose in creating this podcast is to help mother’s feel inspired and motivated to teach their children about Christ. I know that as we listen to the interviews from strong women and mothers on how they teach their children about Christ, we can then incorporate those insights, ideas and practices in educating our own children, as we are impressed and guided by the Holy Ghost to do so.
One of my interview questions for every podcast guest will be “How do you intentionally teach your children about Christ?” Therefore, it only seems fitting that I, too, would be required to answer the same question.
In my weeks of pondering this question for myself, I reflected on the patterns that I use when teaching my children about their Savior. I found that I tend to teach them in three different ways.
E N C O U R A G I N G S P I R I T U A L L Y D E F I N I N G M O M E N T S
My first pattern of teaching is through encouraging spiritually defining moments. I am going to go off on a little story, but I promise that it will add to your understanding of this pattern.
Although I was a member of the church my whole life, I found myself not having an “ah-ha!” moment of clear understanding about who Christ is and what literal power He has to heal me until I was married and in my early twenties. I remember very vividly experiencing a deep emotional stress, enough that I fell to my knees in prayer and expressed out loud to my Father in Heaven that “I simply could not handle the emotional pain anymore. I couldn’t do it.” And still to this day, I think that what came next only came by way of me giving every effort I had to Him and then allowing Christ to make up the difference and fix it. Because immediately after I said those words, what felt like a weight on my chest was lifted. I no longer felt that pain that resided deeply in my heart.
That was a spiritually defining moment in my life that I will never forget. Because that night, I finally comprehended the power that Christ has to heal me - because He truly did feel that same exact pain that I had felt in my heart.
Now as a mother a few years later, I want my children to have, not the same, but similar spiritually defining moments that will bring them to an undeniable knowledge of who Christ is and what He can do for them.
While this will look different with various ages of children, we as mothers can help our children by identifying and encouraging those spiritually defining moments in their lives. For my three year old, this often looks like him dealing with some big emotions and lovingly guiding him toward truth by pointing out that Jesus has the ability to help him to feel happy, even when he is having a hard day and feeling very upset. This encourages them to turn to Christ for help, but ultimately leaves the decision to act up to the child.
H U M I L I T Y a n d R E P E N T A N C E
The second way that I try to teach my children about Christ, is by example. In my nightly prayers with them, I make it a point to repent; expressing my sadness and sorrow for my shortcomings of the day (which lately, is a lot of impatience). I ask for forgiveness. And then, just as important, I ask my Heavenly Father to help me do better tomorrow. I hope by doing this, my children will recognize that I am imperfect - that they are not the only ones who make mistakes. I also hope it teaches them that when they make mistakes and fall short, they can ask for forgiveness, be forgiven, and then given the strength from heaven to help them overcome whatever weaknesses they may face.
Repentance is a “daily transformative tool” to aid us in our journey toward perfection and I want my children to understand that concept of daily. It takes work, it takes practice to be better. And ultimately, we have to rely on Christ to become better - we can’t do it ourselves.
And I am so grateful that Christ is always willing to help me be better each and every day. Those truths are what I want to root deeply in my children, because if they know that, and they know Christ - they will be strong and be who Heavenly Father needs them to be.
P R O M O T I N G S E L F - A N A L Y Z A T I O N
The third way that I teach my children about Christ is by asking questions, listening, and learning from them. With my degree, I was required to analyze children quite frequently in their natural settings. This pattern of assessment has carried over into my parenting. When I take the time to sit and watch my children, I see Christ in them. They exemplify many more Christ-like characteristics than do most adults. For example, one that I have noticed lately is the ability of my 3 year old to forgive me when I burst out in anger from my daily frustrations. I am human, which unfortunately entails a lot of imperfections - our children really see the worst of it. But they are so quick to forgive us - especially when we quickly apologize for those mistakes.
However, the tendencies in myself are not so forgiving. If another adult were to get angry at me like I do to my child, I would feel very bitter toward them and hold it against them every time I saw them seeking wrongs to be righted.
But children let it go. They display a perfect pattern of what we should do when wronged. Let it go and give it to Christ. Because He has already paid for those sins and can help us get past them and forgive, if we choose to use and access the power His Atonement provides us.
As mothers, we have so much to learn from our children.
We also have a lot to teach their growing minds - but it doesn’t have to be done in the traditional way through lectures with a teacher to student dynamic. In my own opinion, learning is of a higher quality when introspection is involved. Therefore, we need to be asking our children questions. If you think about it, that is how Christ taught those that he interacted with. He taught them through the use of questions. I believe that when we ask our children questions, it helps them to think critically about what they know and don’t know. Getting them engaged in self-analyzing is imperative. Because it can help make Christ real to them - and the truths that they do know will be rooted even deeper in their hearts because they came to that knowledge for themselves.
Those are the ways that I try to teach my children intentionally about Christ - through encouraging spiritually defining moments, exemplifying humility in repentance, and asking questions that promote self-analyzation. Every parent will teach differently, which is why I am excited about this podcast as we will be able to hear from very different women and mothers about how they do it. I think that hearing their experiences will help to give us different ideas to incorporate into our own patterns of teaching our children.
P E R S O N A L R E V E L A T I O N
It is really intriguing to me that our prophet has stressed that we will not be able to live in these last days without the ability to hear Christ in our lives. This is even more so important for mothers because we need His help to know how to raise our Heavenly Father’s children.
I want to encourage you to increase your ability to receive personal revelation in your life. To hear his voice more clearly. Because Heavenly Father is the only one who can teach you through Christ exactly what your children need to know about Christ - to leave them strong and prepared for whatever they will face in the world.
And then it is up to us (once we receive that revelation) to act. I think acting is one of the hardest things because it requires a lot of effort. I have had the hardest time acting on the prompting to start this podcast - for many reasons, but ultimately because I knew that it would require a lot of time and effort.
Satan doesn’t want us to act because he knows that when we do act we receive power from Christ to accomplish what he asked.
Motherhood is hard, but we don’t have to do it alone. Which is why I am very excited to hear from other mothers about their experiences and what they know about Christ.
I look forward to the episodes that will come and want to thank you for taking the time to listen.
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