Teaching Your Covenant Children the Catechism

Toddlers often cry for many reasons. One day recently, my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter was crying for some reason known only to her while my wife was cooking in our kitchen. Coming into the room, seeing my distraught toddler, I began thinking of a way to cheer her up. 

Then something truly amazing happened. I called her name and asked her if she wanted to sing “The Catechism” together. She stopped crying, turned to look at me with a big smile, and began walking as quickly to me as her little legs would allow. She quickly sat down in my lap, and I proceeded to play Brian Sauvé’s “Westminster Shorter Catechism” songs. We sang through the first three questions and answers before she got up and started playing with a toy. When I say, “we sang,” I mean that I sang the song, and my daughter swayed and stomped her feet rhythmically. 

Does my daughter understand the word “catechism,” the words I am singing, or the chief end of man? Most likely not. Does my daughter understand that I called her and wanted to spend time with her? Yes, she did. Does her face light up whenever I start singing Question and Answer 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism? Most definitely. 

Not only do children need caring parents, but children are always learning. Our world often downplays the need that children have for care and instruction.  While my child surely cannot form a sentence because she may only know a few words, she knows what her cup is, and she usually knows about where she left it. She knows how to climb up and down stairs, she knows how to eat with a spoon, and she knows when her parents say, “Want to go to bed?” that it's time to grab her blanket and begin walking towards her bedroom. 

We must remember that the brains of our children are constantly growing and changing, and they are greatly desiring to learn new things. A friend of mine recently sent me a video of their two-year-old reciting scripture verses. Another friend told me their child couldn’t say the word “God” but knew that God was in heaven, and when asked where God was, she would point upward. 

My point is this: The brain of a child is in desperate need of teaching. Our children can learn so much more than we give them credit for. The best way for children to grow is through hands-on care and teaching from their parents. You cannot hand off your kids to someone else to raise and expect them to excel at all the areas of life that you want them to. You can’t plop them in front of a screen and expect them to learn anything more than how to talk back to you, defy you, and copy what they are watching. 

Rather, parents need to be the ones who are with their children. Parents need to be the ones teaching them how to grow, how to accomplish, and how to love their God. Friends, our God has allowed us to create an immortal soul. When two become one, and a child is born, an immortal soul has been created. And while our world spurns the birth of children, we of the reformed faith embrace the births of our children, and we pray that the Lord would make us fruitful. We pray that the Lord would help us to multiply, that the Gospel be planted in the hearts of our children, and that there would never be a day when they didn’t know Jesus. 

However, it seems that in our modern world, we have forgotten that raising children does not just mean providing for their physical needs, but it also means providing for their spiritual needs. We have forgotten that being a parent means sacrificing your time, your desired lifestyle, and the things that you want to do so that your covenant children will be trained up in the ways of the Lord. 

Thus, what we must do is be intentional in everything we do. As Christians, we should already be doing this, but as Parents, we must be intentional with our children. Teach them to pray. Pray for them and with them. Read to your children as much as possible. There are many great picture books that teach theology. Show them how to do things. Teach them to climb. Show them how puzzles work. Sing to them. Sing great hymns and Psalms to them, especially ones they will hear at church. Let everything that happens on the Lord’s Day in the gathered body of Christ be a reinforcement of what happens in the home.

Will singing the Westminster Shorter Catechism to your child teach them fundamental skills for their life? No, but it will teach them theology, and if our children are taught to do everything in order to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, then they will ultimately live a more fulfilling life than many others. As Christian parents, we cannot hand over our duty of raising Christian children to anyone else, even the church. We must do the foundational work in the home. 

Does this father of one and soon-to-be two have it all figured out? Not by a long shot. But let me tell you, I have already been shocked at what I have been able to teach my toddler and what she has learned from my bad habits. Don’t grow complacent. Don’t become lazy. Raise your children to glorify God, and Lord willing, a day will come when you will enjoy Him forever…together.

Ken Wojnarowski is the Assistant Pastor at First Church PCA in Lansing, IL.