Caring for the Souls of Children: A Biblical Counselor's Manual

I am a volunteer children's church teacher at my local church. This book has been very helpful to me, allowing me to think through circumstances that may come up in my future, or circumstances I am presently helping kids through. It is very well done and I would recommend it to anyone else in children's ministry.

This is a great tool for teachers and others who work with children. So many helpful tools in this one book!

What an insightful and encouraging 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 has provided me with practical tools that is rooted in the truth of the gospel.

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.

I'm thankful for New Growth Press, editor Amy Baker, and the other authors of Caring for the Souls of Children. This book will be a resource that I frequently visit throughout my teaching career and working with children in church ministry. This book has helped me not be fearful of the challenging, unknown situations that will undoubtedly arise, but trust that God's word is sufficient (2 Tim. 3:16), will not return void (Is. 55:11), and he will continue the work he has started in us (Phil. 1:6).

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 disabilities (chapter 15).

With chapters contributed by many different counsellors, this book gives a great overview of the many issues facing children today and is full of practical and biblical wisdom coupled with many years of experience between all the counsellors. Each chapter not only speaks to the counsellor, but I also appreciated that each chapter also addressed parents. This book was so helpful to me as the parent of three teenagers. I loved that the sections to parents applied to me as a parent reading, or could help me in my counselling to speak to the parent’s needs directly.

Also included in many chapters were helpful charts, lists, practical ideas to use during sessions and of course, each chapter included a Bible passage to work through with the children. I see myself turning to specific chapters for ideas when needed.

I appreciated this book’s wide range of topics. Nothing was shied away from, including many hard topics that kids face today. Anxiety, cutting, suicide, abuse, disabilities, divorce, and more are all covered with wisdom and grace. “Wisdom is knowing what type of intervention they need, while wisely, consistently pointing them to greater faith.”

This great resource speaks to many situations that children face, and provides biblical counselors and parents with tools and advice to address them pastorally and with care.

Beginning by addressing foundational and methodological issues and developmental stages, it encourages counselors to reach out to children with gospel truths and comfort. This provides a framework, which is then used as the focus turns to numerous specific counseling issues that are addressed by different authors.

Children and their relationships includes leading children to Jesus, the relationship with parents and friendships. Children and their emotions, included helping those who are anxious, angry, dealing with shame, and what to consider after a suicide attempt. Children and their bodies covers talking about sex, sexual identity, children who self harm, and those with a disability or disease. All were balanced, helpful, compassionate and contained wise advice. Finally, children and trauma covers abuse, children of divorce, facing grief and death, and children not living with their biological parents.

Some observations:

* Each chapter is structured around an example of a child and their situation, which is then used as springboard to consider the wider issue. It’s a helpfully concrete way in to considering the issue being addressed.
* Numerous authors refer to the Psalms as a way in to talking with children and giving them the language they need. This reflects the reality that children can gain as much truth, comfort, instruction and wisdom from Scripture as adults, and we should desire to lead children to these truths and help them find ways to absorb them and apply them to themselves.
* Every chapter has a ‘word to parents’, making this book extremely accessible to carers as as well as biblical counselors. These assist parents to reach out and care for their children, while being aware of their own struggles.
* You shouldn’t read this and then expect to be fully equipped to counsel children. This would be one of many resources you would want to have before you proceed. However, the wisdom and insight contained within will encourage those who counsel children (both ‘officially’ and ‘unofficially’) to consider how the gospel impacts all aspects of a child’s life and circumstances, and how to journey with them to see the Lord is for them and with them.
* Similarly, it’s true that God’s word is indeed sufficient, but it needs to be applied wisely, well and appropriately. This book is a help to that end, but not the only resource and skills you would want. Some chapters (eg the one on abuse) really only started to address the issues, rather than being comprehensive.

In conclusion, this is a good guide for parents, caregivers and counselors as they reach out to children, helping them to see God is at work, is in control and loves them, through the complexities of life.

I received an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pastoring and counselling people is tough! It’s hard to know what to say at times and it’s hard to know when to listen and when to speak. Counsellors are a huge blessing to the church and with their professional expertise they can be a great help. Many pastors are learning not eh job as they go, pulling on different resources and helpful tips to help us along the way. One of the hardest ages to care for pastorally, in my opinion, is children. Here is a resource that will help with that. Whether you’re a pastor, a parent, a teacher, a friend or a family member, this book will be a great resource to have on your shelf.

Too often we think that children are too little to think through what the Bible teaches and how it changes lives. It’s so easy to simplify answers to children’s questions because we think that the same answers we would give adults are too complicated. This all transfers over to how we care for them and pastor them as well. Here’s what Amy Baker says about that

“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.”

The book is split into two parts. In the first part the foundations and methodological issues for counselling children are presented. In the second part specific issues or areas are addressed where children may need counselling. The book address four broad subject; children and their relationships, emotions, bodies and trauma. Under each brand category there are multiple chapters written by different counsellors to aid the reader.

This book covers so much ground it is quite remarkable. One of the things that I like about this book is that it’s a collaboration of different authors and counsellors. Each chapter is written by an expert, or experienced, person in that field. Another thing I really liked about this book is the importance that it puts on God’s Word for counselling.

The number of different authors of the chapters is one of the reason that this book is such a helpful tool. Pages of experienced pastors, authors and biblical counsellors equipping the reader to sensitively and faithfully care for the soul of a child.

I’m really thankful that I read this book and would highly recommend it to parents, people in ministry and those who are thinking about pursuing a career in biblical counselling. If you want to seriously consider how you can care for children in some of the very relevant but difficult areas of life today, I suggest that you get this book. Each page is full of wisdom and valuable insights that will help to equip you to counsel children, ask the right questions and go to the right Scriptures.

If a young child came to you for counsel, how would you help them? Do children need a different kind of advice than a teenager or an adult? Caring for the Souls of Children’s core thesis is that their struggles, desires, and hopes are no different than adults’. Children struggle with the same desires as adults, are lured by the same lies adults fall prey to, and find hope in the same source as adults find hope.
The first part of the book explains foundation and methodological issues involved when counseling children. This includes key elements when counseling and an awareness of the stages of childhood development. Part two addresses specific counseling issues that children face. These issues are in relationships, emotions, their bodies, and trauma.
Given the nature of the book, it is only possible to briefly address each of these areas. Caring for the Soul’s of Children is an excellent starting point to address the issues children face and how to counsel them biblically