This transcript has been lightly updated for clarity.
Heidi Host 00:00
Have you heard of speaking a blessing over your children or speaking truth over your children? This is something that, Melanie, I think you and I talked about a few years ago, and I was not familiar with it. So today we’re going to dive into this subject and see what it means to speak truth over your children. How do you do it? Why do you do it? When do you do it? I’m excited to dig into this topic, and one that I wish I would have known a long time ago in my parenting journey.
Welcome back to Parenting to Impress your go-to podcast, to learn practical ways to love God and love others and impress this on the hearts of your children. I am your host, Heidi Franz, and I am joined by my dear friend, Melanie Simpson. Two moms who have made a lot of mistakes but have found grace and truth along the way.
Melanie, it has been a while since we have podcasted. Happy New Year. I am excited to dig in and see what God’s going to teach us in 2025.
“Speaking truth over your children” is a topic that I’ve had in the list for quite a while. I feel like it goes beautifully with Valentine’s Day and a free product that I’m going to tell you about at the end of the podcast, so be sure to be listening for that, but let’s dive in.
Melanie, what is speaking truth over your children? What does that mean to you? Is this just a Christian phrase, or is it something that anybody does? Tell me what you think.
Melanie Co-Host 01:38
It was so interesting. I asked a couple of friends to give me their feedback. What I learned from that conversation is in Christian circles we toss this phrase around with the assumption that we all know what it means. My friends said “It’s like when you have to sit your kid down and say, ‘I’ve got to tell you the truth, I’ve got some hard things to tell you.’” And then another one said, “It’s when you are helping your child combat a negative thought or a wrong thought.”
For me, speaking truth over your children is impressing – going back to that Deuteronomy verse, impressing God’s word into your child’s thought life. We are using scripture and prayer to tell our kids the truth of scripture. So it’s not the truth of the world, it’s not the truth as we believe it, it is the truth of scripture. It is the truth of God’s word.
Heidi Host 02:28
And when I think about what your friends shared, I think they were sharing the times they speak truth to their children, where we are talking about speaking truth over your children. You are telling your children who they were created to be for God’s glory. You’re reminding your children who God is and what God does. You’re making scripture very personal for them.
Melanie Co-Host 02:59
Yes, it is less about them and more about God. I want to be really clear that when you’re speaking truth over our children, it’s not to increase their self-esteem.
Heidi Host 03:15
That will be a secondary to teaching them who God is, because when they know who God is, then they can understand who they are. And in the current culture we have this idea completely backwards. We want to tell the child who they are, but that gets confusing when, with age, they begin comparing themselves to other children.
Melanie Co-Host 03:40
Right. In my mind, speaking truth over my child means, first, being crystal clear about God’s character, his attributes. And you think about resources like the Westminster Catechism, an older way of teaching kids about God and scripture. But golly, these resources are dead on. I mean, they are rooted in scripture. You can Google “catechism with scripture reference” and it’ll show you exactly where to go to tie it back to scripture. But there’s a reason that it’s so good, it’s a classic.
Heidi Host 04:14
It’s because it stood the test of time, because it’s based in truth, right. So we’re teaching them who God is and what God does. I think another reason why we speak truth over our children is because we’re helping prepare them for battle. We know that there is a spiritual battle going on. It’s talked about in the New Testament, and we want our kids to be prepared to put on that armor of truth so that when the battles come, when the lies come about who they are about, who God is about, what God does, what they need to do, they are prepared.
Melanie Co-Host 04:57
100%. We all develop some kind of way of looking at the world, some kind of perspective way of looking at the world, and it is, I think, up to us as believing parents, as Christian parents, to inform our children with a Christian worldview. Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t talk about other perspectives, so that they can articulate and understand how we come to this. But if you’re not doing it, someone else is.
Heidi Host 05:23
Very, very true. As I started preparing for this podcast, I was directed to the story of Gideon in Judges 6. And the verse says, “Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and for seven years he gave them into the hand of the Mennonites.” And we learn as we read through those verses that God raised up Gideon to be a prophet. And one day, while Gideon was threshing wheat, an angel approached him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
And this begins a conversation between Gideon and the angel, where Gideon is replying with negative thoughts, refuting what the angel is saying, and the angel continues to speak truth over Gideon. Gideon is learning from the angel who God says he is and who he is going to become.
When I declare truth over my children, I am declaring the truth of who they are going to become, that God sees them and how God created them to be. If I have a child who maybe is not there yet, I am declaring it over them, this truth, because I know, with the Lord’s help, with the surrendering of their hearts, it can be true.
Melanie Co-Host 07:01
100%, and I think it’s important to make those clarifying points. This is not a “Speak it and it will happen” activity. This is not sending good vibes into the universe. This is rooted in scripture. You are looking at that child and saying “This is who God says you are and will become.” It’s going to be God’s grace that changes this child’s heart.
We can build the greenhouse, we can put in the fertile soil, we can water these plants, but at the end of the day, it’s God’s work that’s going to make this child’s heart turn towards Him. We still have a job to do, and so speaking truth over them is giving all those good nutrients to that soil. It’s making sure it’s watered regularly.
Heidi Host 07:41
Yeah, very true. I think of it like stepping stones. Our children are going to be walking across this stream, across this river and sometimes the river isn’t very calm but those stepping stones we are placing before them so, as they go through the journey of life, they can step on that firm foundation. Another thing is, we speak truth over our children because it silences the enemy. You think about what Jesus did when he was tempted. He spoke the truth of the scriptures and it silenced Satan. We want to fill our homes – and if you’re a teacher, fill your classroom – with truth and silence the enemy.
Melanie Co-Host 08:33
And sometimes that enemy is the enemy in our own minds. Having scripture, learning how to memorize scripture to be able to counter those negative thoughts that we all struggle with. But I think in particular these kiddos that are coming up in this generation of so much technology exposure. They’re just bombarded with things all day long. They need to be able to have that at their fingertips, and it starts with us teaching them so.
Heidi Host 08:57
Melanie, when do you speak truth over your children?
Melanie Co-Host 09:02
Well, the first and easiest for us was always bedtime. You read the stories, you tucked them into bed. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. You just literally can pray scripture over them. We incorporate it into our prayers and meals. When you are already naturally together. Those are perfect times. But then, Heidi, how did you expand from that?
Heidi Host 09:21
One of the things that I do with my niece whenever we leave. We don’t live near my brother and his family, but whenever we leave I give her a hug and I say in her ear, “You are loved, you were created in the image of God with a hope, a future, a promise.” And I whisper that truth into her ear just as I’m saying goodbye. Everybody else thinks it’s just a long, awkward hug, but no, it’s actually a purpose of me speaking truth into her. Yes, it actually has a purpose. That is me speaking truth into her.
I also like to speak truth over my children in the car. I know some people like to speak truth into kiddos where they’re face to face, with the child repeating what you are saying. But when you have teens, I think that’s a little harder to do. With teens I think it is better when you’re not looking at each other. Sometimes it kind of takes the pressure off of it. So, car rides are great. As I’m dropping them off at school, I will say a prayer over their day and include this truth about who they are and what they can do at school.
Melanie Co-Host 10:45
Even when my kids are not at home, I will go into their rooms and just pray over their rooms Because, let me tell you, the older they get, they’re teenagers. They kind of want their privacy and they’re having their thoughts that they’re thinking and just praying that the Lord would make this home a place that is safe and secure and where we can have these conversations.
Heidi Host 11:09
Absolutely. My husband will go in the hallway outside the three bedrooms where our kiddos are and pray in the middle of the night, speaking truth over our home.
In review, we’ve talked about the what, the why, the when, and we’ve already kind of started this. But how do we do this? I’m going to say, it is going to look differently depending upon the age of your kiddos, when you started doing this, and how comfortable you feel.
Melanie Co-Host 11:38
With younger the child keep it short. That’s why bedtime is great. We were big fans of the Westminster Catechism for Kids. The first question is, “Who created you?” The answer is God created me. It’s that simple. We would memorize these, helping them at a young age remember, again, who is God and who am I. Meals, car rides, throughout the day speaking those verses out loud and sometimes, having them fill in the blank, or yell the answer back. Those were really fun conversations in those preschool years.
Heidi Host 12:15
I love that. I’m just going to give an example from Priscilla Shire that she shares in several of her books. I Surrender All that she just wrote. It’s in her Gideon study as well. For me, it helps to hear what other people do and then I can make it my own, and so this is one that she speaks over her three sons.
“You are a man of integrity, character and honesty. You love the Lord with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength. You will put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the enemy. You will bless the Lord at all times and his praise will continually be in your mouth. You are the head, not the tail. You are above, not beneath. You are a leader, not a follower. “
If you have ever prayed the scriptures – which we have a podcast on, I will put that in the show notes – but if you have prayed the scripture, you hear a lot of Bible verses in Priscilla’s blessing. “You love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” That comes from Matthew as well as from Deuteronomy. You will “put on the full armor of God so you can stand against the schemes of the enemy” comes from Ephesians. What she has done is chosen key points from scripture and then she has put them together. She is saying you will bless the Lord all the times and his praise will be continually in your mouth. That is not meaning that her children are perfect, but she’s speaking that truth over them.
Melanie Co-Host 13:50
I love that roadmap. You can use that as a springboard starting with a few verses. And I love that again, it’s looking to the challenges they’re going to face. What are you going to need to counter those challenges, because you’re not left defenseless.
Heidi Host 14:08
The difference between this and prayer is that in prayer you are asking God for these things. In speaking truth over your children, you are declaring, you are naming to your children what God has already given them, what they have access to.
For example, let’s say my son is struggling at school. I can say to him, “Tommy, God created you to be strong and courageous. In every temptation and trial that you face. God is always with you and he will never leave you to fight a battle alone.” You see the difference of I’m declaring the truth versus I would pray, “Dear God, I just pray that you’ll be with Tommy while he’s at school. Help him to be strong and courageous, et cetera.”
Melanie Co-Host 15:03
I think we talked about that in the praying the scripture podcast episode. It is reminding them, “You are God’s beloved, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
No, how does that transition for an older child?
Heidi Host 15:16
As the kids have gotten older, it’s sometimes more over text than it is in person. When they are going into a test or they’re going to have a meeting with their manager at work, I will text them and remind them, “God is with you. He will provide the words for you. Seek Him.” It’s little bits instead of one-on-one conversations.
Melanie Co-Host 15:46
I agree. By the time your kiddos are getting into those teen years and when they are old enough to have phones, that’s kind of a blessing of technology.
I don’t know if you encountered this, but in the middle school years, preteen years, we had an opportunity to speak truth over our kids, when we would hear them say things that were not true about themselves, like, “I’m so stupid or I can’t do anything right, or I messed up again.”
Heidi Host 16:14
And that’s where those one-liners that we talk about in a past podcast. I have a free PDF on example one-liners that I’ll also put in the show notes. As a one-liner you say to the child, “Aren’t you glad that’s not true?” The child says, “I am dumb.” You reply, “Aren’t you glad that’s not true? God created you in His image.”
Melanie Co-Host 16:32
There are infinite possibilities when you open God’s Word. Once you have an idea of how to speak truth over your child, it’ll come to life as you look through Scripture.
For example, thinking about God’s attribute from Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd right. When you personalize it and tell your child when they are having a hard time at school and feeling kind of alone or lonely, “The Lord is with you in the darkest valley and the highest high. He never leaves you nor forsakes you. He is your shepherd. That means he’s guiding you, that means he’s with you and he is constantly providing for you in ways that you don’t even realize.”
Heidi Host 17:12
So, as promised earlier in this podcast, I have a free Valentine Affirmation printable available for you. The link will be in the show notes. This printable provides information on how to do this activity which consists of placing a paper heart on a child’s door for them to find when they wake up the next morning. On each heart is a sentence speaking truth over your child, whether you’re talking about how God created them uniquely or something that’s special about them to your family, or the characteristics of God. For example, “You are an encourager. You are unique. God has a plan for your life. You are a hard worker. I love how you make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” Just something special to remind that child how much you love them.
We’ve done this several years in our family and look forward to doing it each year. Even now that our oldest is in college, I will be sending hearts with him to open every day reminding him of who he is.
I invite you to check out this free printable. The link is in the show notes.
Melanie, typically on the Parenting to Impress podcast, we end with a prayer, but today I want us to do some popcorn speaking truth over the mamas who are listening today.
Mamas, You are loved. You were created in God’s image and he will never, ever leave you.
Melanie Co-Host 18:54
To those listening. God delights in you. He doesn’t just tolerate you. Right now, in this moment, He delights in you, and he loves to share His kingdom with you. He has gladly and joyfully welcomed you into the kingdom of God. It’s here on earth.
Heidi Host 19:12
God will not give you anything that he has not given you the power to handle. That child that you’re struggling with, God chose you to be that child’s mom. The issue that you’re dealing with a friend or at church or with your husband, God is going to give you the patience, the kindness, the self-control, the goodness when you seek Him.
Melanie Co-Host 19:43
God has given you a sound mind and His peace. We can rely on Him to walk through any situation. There is nothing that is too much for Him, and you are never too much for Him.
Heidi Host 20:00
Listener, I pray that you hear these truths, that the enemy does not have a foothold, but that these truths would cover up any pain that you are struggling with right now with. I pray also that these next 11 months of Parenting to Impress podcast would be encouraging and equipping for you. We are here for you. We are praying for you. You are deeply loved.
Announcer 20:31
We want to thank you for listening to the Parenting to Impress podcast. Be sure to visit ABCJesusLovesMe.com and check out the show notes for more information on topics shared in this episode. Please subscribe and share with your friends.
Read the corresponding blog post – How to Speak God’s Truth Over Your Child’s Life