Teaching your children about the Easter Season can be a very special and meaningful time. During the next 40 days, use these devotions as a way to connect with your family and share together how God is working within your lives in ways parallel to the stories that you will read about. You may consider having a family breakfast together a few minutes earlier than your typical week day or make a point to have dinner together. Whatever it takes, gather together and use the devotions that will be posted Monday through Friday and talk about God and his relentless love, forgiveness, and mercy.

Here are some tips to help you and your children make the most of your time together:

• When you read the devotions, be sure you highlight the scripture within the devotional. Maybe have one of your older children read the scripture before you begin the story.
• Ask your children if they have experienced something similar to the story they just read. What do they remember feeling?
• Guide your children to draw on their own experiences of God’s love and forgiveness—but allow them to share their heart in their own words.
• Don’t be afraid to share your own experiences—remember that you are modeling for your children what it means to have a relationship with God.
• Pray together and take turns. Letting your children pray in the safe environment of home will  give them the confidence to pray in other settings as they get older.
• Most importantly, ask yourselves and your family what God wants to teach you with each devotion.

Keep the focus positive! It’s easy as parents to want to correct your fidgety daughter or seize the chance to point out that this lesson is about the very thing you were trying to explain to your son just last week. Family devotional is probably not the time to do that.