In my early years of motherhood, I desperately desired to teach my children character-building skills. However, I felt lost by not knowing the right tools to use to help me implement this vital task well. Merely surviving the day-to-day homelife of parenting little ones was mountainous, and keeping the tiny humans alive consumed all of my time. I still believed that in between wiping tears, changing diapers, and the never-ending laundry, I should be doing more. (Isn’t this a constant battle we all face daily as mothers? The feeling that we need to do more, and yet we are so tired by the end of each day by doing all we physically can.) Honestly, I was too exhausted to fill my days with anything else, so I decided, that if nothing more, I could simply find nuggets of time each day to sit down and read good books to my kids that would point them to Jesus and model His character.

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Looking back, those years were hard, and we all needed the small minutes of down-time each day, reading together and holding good books between our sticky PB&J covered fingertips. The time I made to intentionally pause, sit down, and read to the squirmy toddlers in my lap were breaths of retreat to this mama’s exhausted heart when our days seemed oh.so.very.long. Feeling their little, wiggling bodies’ calm with the cracking open of book was a small refuge of quiet and peace each day in the midst of a season that seemed extraordinarily chaotic and loud.

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I wish I could say that I’m a spectacular read-aloud mama and make up different voices for each character. I don’t. Even though I love to read, I don’t read aloud very well. I often stumble on my words and get tongue-tied. There’s nothing very exciting or unique about my reading ability, and my children didn’t (and still don’t) seem to mind that I’m not that great at it. I merely try to keep simple children’s books on hand that have godly, moral messages — and read them. After we finish reading a book together, we simply talk about its story and its pictures. Then, my kids always request me to read another book . . . and another . . . and another.
In nearly eleven years of motherhood and six years of homeschooling, I’ve tried to diligently collect good stories to keep around the house that promote the moral and godly character traits I hope my children will emulate. By keeping a constant eye out for good books through the years, over time, I’ve built up quite a collection and have discovered several books and series that have become our family’s favorites. The books and resources I am about to share are the ones that have stayed on our shelves for years with frayed edges, torn and sticky pages, and bindings falling apart. These are not only my favorite resources but also my kids’ favorites — and are asked to be read over and over again!

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Now let’s look at 6 of my favorite character-building resources!
When beginning to discuss godly character, there is no greater resource for character building than the Bible itself. My kids enjoy the NIrV Adventure Bible for Early Readers, which is a wonderful Bible and written in easy-to-understand language for kids.

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For a Story Bible to use during your morning or evening devotional time, I absolutely love the Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos. It’s a meaty read but also tailored to small children. I’ve truly fallen in love with this book, and our entire family (husband included!) enjoys when I read from it.
Another beautiful story Bible option that your children will ask you to read over and over again is the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. This poetically written storybook Bible with its sing-song language will captivate your children and quickly draw them into the heart of the story. The colorful and unique illustrations by Jago will have your children flipping through the pages so often that the cover may just come unbound (like ours did!) This book is a wonderful read-aloud choice for all ages, but young children especially love it.

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For our catechism memory, I use a little book titled Hidden in the Heart by Matt Friedeman and Ray Easley and published by Wesley Biblical Seminary. And oh-how-I-love this tiny book!!! According to Google’s dictionary, a catechism is “a summary of the principles of Christian religion in the form of questions and answers, used for the instruction of Christians.” By memorizing these catechisms, children can hide vital Biblical truths in their hearts as well as important Christian doctrines of faith. It also includes meaningful scripture passages to memorize and a section on Bible history. For such a small book, it is jammed-packed full of sound theological memory-work tailored to little learners. All Christian families can benefit from encouraging their children to learn catechisms. Something to be mindful of if you do order this book is that Wesley Biblical Seminary published it, so there is a section specifically on John Wesley. If you are of another Christian denomination and this section is not important to you, you can simply leave it out. This tiny book has proven to be a vital resource for my family and has become a book that I often give to other families.

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The Abeka Character Development Visuals with Guide is a book my children ask me to read from daily. It is simply a book of colorful visuals of kids doing the right and wrong behaviors and a guide that leads parents through a series of questions to ask their children. We like to keep this book near our kitchen table and pull out to discuss during mealtimes. It is very thin and extraordinarily simple but is an excellent resource to use to teach godly character and one that my children have thoroughly enjoyed year after year.

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And lastly, to help my children develop a global-impact perspective, we frequently read from the book Window on the World by Daphne Spraggett and Jill Johnstone. This brightly colored book is filled with stories about children who live in various countries throughout the world, maps of countries and subregions, information on different cultures and religions, and lists of specific ways to pray for the people of various countries. I like that it teaches children the importance of praying for other people in other countries. Though our children may be small, when we teach them to pray for others, we are empowering them with a supernatural tool to make a global difference in the world and minister to the nations.

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One of the greatest battles I fight daily is being consistent in staying on task to train my children. Satan just wants to rob me of all my time to do this job well. One little trick that has helped me stay consistent through the years is setting apart the same time each day to read to my children, talk about God, and answer their many questions about faith. When my children were tiny, we usually read together right after breakfast or lunch. Now that they are older, I find that reading to them before bed works best. Every family is different — and so is every season. We all just need to find intentional moments of time to train our children in the “way he/she may go.” As long as we stay focused on Jesus and the task He’s entrusted us of parenting these little souls, He won’t leave us. He will be right there, walking along beside us, helping us, filling in our insufficiencies with His sovereignty, and delighting in our best efforts. He is in all the details of the little things we do for Him daily, even the simple act of opening a book and reading to the squirmy little ones in our laps. The most important thing we can do as parents is to teach our children to love God and to desire to emulate His character. This gift we give to our children is one they will carry with them all their days — here on earth — and in on into eternity.

❤️, Macki

** I am not an affiliate of Amazon or Christian Book. I am merely passing the links of these resources onto you to make them easier to find.