Preparing Our Children for Spiritual Battle

Charisse Tierney shares how something as simple as allowing young children to pour their own milk helps arm them with confidence for the spiritual battles they will inevitably face.

Wait and Watch  

My 6-year-old daughter opened the pantry doors and scanned its contents. It was a stormy summer morning. She and I were the only two awake, the rest of the house enjoying the lullaby of raindrops and the extra sleep of summer mornings.  

“I want cereal.” Her big brown eyes fixated on the top shelf. My daughter had my full attention. I could have easily prepared her breakfast while she aimlessly lolled about.  

But instead, I waited and watched.  

With a smile, she reached up on her tiptoes and pulled the box of cereal down herself, looking somewhat surprised at how tall she was getting.  

“Let’s see how full the gallon of milk is,” I suggested.  

She glanced at it and decisively said, “I think I’ll need some help with that.”  

Make It Possible  

I poured some milk into a spouted measuring cup and placed it next to the bowl she had gotten for herself.  

“I think you can do all of this from here,” I said, and I left to take a shower, demonstrating my complete trust in her abilities as I turned my back to her and walked upstairs. 

It takes a lot of restraint not to do things, if not everything, for our young children. It is only through standing back and observing them, really watching them, really getting to know them, that we realize how quickly their capabilities grow.  

It is only by standing aside that they will gain the strength they need to be warriors in this world.  

Allow Them to Face Their Limits  

By allowing children to come face to face with their limits and then stretch them little by little, they gain an innate understanding that they can do hard things. They understand that doing hard things sometimes results in success … and sometimes results in failure. But doing hard things always results in a greater knowledge of oneself and a greater confidence in the purifying results of the fire of being tested.  

A child who pours her own cereal believes in her ability to do the next hard thing. A child who cleans up the milk she spilled and tries to pour it again learns resourcefulness, humility, and perseverance.    

These are all essential qualities as we send our children onto the battlefield of good and evil. Spiritual warfare is real. It’s sneaky. It preys on vulnerabilities we didn’t even know we had.  

The best preparation we can give our children for facing this is helping them to know themselves as well as possible. They need to know their strengths and weaknesses, when to ask for help, and when to admit mistakes and seek forgiveness.  

And they need to experience the unconditional love that awaits them regardless of their successes and failures. 

This is why I left my daughter to prepare her cereal, knowing that I might walk back in to a puddle of milk on the floor, or a pitcher of milk left out to spoil, or a saturated wad of paper towels in the trash can with a sticky spot left on the floor as evidence of a mishap.  

But I came downstairs after my shower to see a bowl with only a slight glaze of cinnamon-sugar milk remaining in the bottom, no big messes, and a content 6-year-old watching TV. She looked up at me and smiled, fully armed for any battles the day would bring. 

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Copyright 2025 Charisse Tierney
Images: Canva