Caring for Families Caught in Domestic Abuse: A Guide toward Protection, Refuge, and Hope

What a great and insightful book! Navigating difficult trials are hard for adults and even more so for children. As a teacher, I can feel lost at times when helping my students process big emotions and sinful reactions that often appear in the classroom. I'm thankful to work at a small classical Christian school where the Gospel's good news is woven throughout our curriculum and everyday practices. But some situations are more severe than others, and the fear of the unknown often leaves me paralyzed. Caring for the Souls of Children: A Biblical Counselor's Manuel (New Growth Press) is an engaging and practical resource for counselors, pastors, ministry leaders, teachers, and the like to help children process and work through their specific struggles with the help of the Bible. This in-depth resource begins with a summary of foundational principles for counseling and working with children and addresses a different topical situation in each chapter. One chapter I found extremely helpful was the section on helping children with friendship. Children usually expect friendship to come and remain easy. They view friendship from an "all about me" lens. Many of their friends enjoy the same hobbies and think as they do. But how do we help our children go beyond their friendship comfort zone? How do we help them think of friendship more sacrificially? Caring for the Soul of Children helps lay a scriptural foundation for viewing friendship in the light of the Gospel. Christ was our friend when we were still dead in our sins with nothing to offer him, and yet he chose to draw us to his side (John 1:14). Sharing and modeling this with our children helps them see how the Gospel permeates how we view companionship. This chapter also had helpful sections on dealing with peer pressure and bullying, which are very prevalent in today's society, whether in person or online. Two other helpful chapters included working with anxious children and children dealing with death and grief. Because of COVID-19, many of our children have experienced the loss of loved ones, seen parents go through immense stress because of job loss and decreased finances, and shared the overnight, abrupt changes of a world in a pandemic. Caring for the Souls of Children provides excellent activities and questions to help children process their fearful emotions while being reminded through scripture of God's great care for them. By reminding them of God's unchanging promises, we help lay a framework they can carry into adulthood regardless if life brings joy or sorrow. I'm abundantly thankful for the "Word to Parents" section in each individual chapter, as well. Partnering well with parents is an important part of classical education and I appreciate the helpful tools to help bring parents into the daily conversations about our sin and struggles that are happening at school.

This is a book I'd love to have when I was studying counseling. And is a book I will recommend to all my classmates from now on. Edward T. Welch, and Joni Eareckson Tadda are authors that I have enjoyed through the years, so when I saw they were contributors and I had Rob Green as professor years ago, so I wanted to read the whole book. I have taken some courses that focus on children counseling before, the common drawings and figures you show to children, as usual interpretation is very subjective with some methods, in some courses I have taken I didn't find the ideas/methods very legit or scientific to get to a children's heart, they just consider behavior or were truly boring (treating children, pre-teens and teens as very immature creatures). Don't get me wrong, children are indeed immature, but we don't have to underestimate them, we can communicate and deal with hard issues with good communication, just as we do with grownups it is what Amy also explains. The wisdom and practical ideas this book have to approach a children's heart, their attention, and what I loved the most: how to help their own parents to help them and involve in the healing/improvement process, I totally agree with that approach (obviously when the parents have mental health and are not toxic. I found that a very valuable approach in this book. "For children, the struggles, desires, and hopes are no different than for those of us who are adults. Therefore, the counsel we provide for them should lead them to the same place—the good news of Jesus Christ". I absolutely recommend this material and can't way to see how these practices are going to improve future counseling sessions. I'm grateful for all the serious and devoted authors of these chapters. It is a good idea to keep this manual handy.

Several things about Caring for the Souls of Children encouraged me. First, I loved how practical it is. Throughout the book, each contributor provides activities and questions that will help a counselor to hear and understand a child’s struggles and also to communicate biblical truth. I particularly liked Julie Lowe’s “boat and refuge” activity (pp. 98–100) that can be used to help an anxious child name their fears and find refuge in God. Second, I was thoroughly encouraged by the intentional ways each contributor included the child’s parents into the discussion. Contributors were careful to say that many children don’t need counseling, they simply need godly parenting. So the best approach is often to give counsel to moms and dads on how to parent their kids. Every chapter in part 2 ended with a section titled “A Word to Parents.” These closing paragraphs give mom and dads wise instruction on how to further engage their kids outside of a counseling session. Third, I was deeply impressed with the contributors’ awareness of how both sin and suffering impact children. Biblical counselors can sometimes put uneven emphasis on personal agency, but the contributors to this volume—without denying a child’s responsibility—demonstrated a conviction that brokenness is bigger than sin. In Charles Hodges chapter on self-harm, for example, he describes how the endorphin rush that comes when cutting is part of what draws those who self-harm back to it (p. 197). In Pam Bauer’s chapter on children who are not living with their biological parents, she unpacks at length the trauma of loss, confusion, grief, and fear children experience when removed from their homes or given up for adoption (pp. 280–87) These are just two examples, but nuanced discussions of various struggles abound. Other favorites of mine are Jessica Thompson’s treatment of the parent-child relationship (chapter 5), Tim Geiger’s approach to talking with kids about sexual identity (chapter 12), and the Joni and Friends team’s chapter on counseling children with disability (chapter 15).

Often, in Q & A sessions, Jay Adams would be asked, "What subjects still need to be written about for biblical counselors?" His answer was always, "counseling youth." With this book, Amy Baker and company have taken a huge bite out of that need. As with any book written by many contributors, some chapters are more helpful than others, but the sections of the book written by the editor are gold. If any part of your counseling ministry includes working with children, you must read this book!

Great resource to help counsel children and teens!