Ever wonder how to impress upon your children the importance of knowing who they are in Christ?  At a young age, children are told they are many things either by words spoken over them or impressions they have from life experiences.  These words impact their self-esteem and directly influence how they handle life as a whole.   

Self-esteem expert Jack Canfield, of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame, notes that 80 percent of children entering the first grade scored high on the self-esteem inventory. By the fifth grade only 20 percent of the children were scoring high. And by the time they graduated from high school that number was down to just 5 percent.  Furthermore, Canfield says that in a survey of 1,000 parents and 1,000 teachers, 72 percent of the parents said teachers were responsible developing a healthy self-esteem in kids, while 78 percent of the teachers said that parents were responsible. 

So how do we ensure that our children grow up with a healthy self-esteem?  The answer is quite simple…we must teach them about who God says they are.  Their value cannot be based on what social media or their peers say they are.  They need to know that God created them in His image and what He thinks of them matters most.  And…He thinks they are incredible! 

Too often I have heard negative self-talk from the mouths of our youngest kids.  To help our children understand their true worth, we introduced a poem to help children understand that God loves them and has made them for a special purpose.  Each week in KidZone, we start our times together with this important declaration.   I encourage you to start your days with it too.