Maybe it’s just me, but the thought of my little ones feeling or getting thirsty gives me physical anxiety. When I see other mums rushing after their children with forgotten drink bottles, begging their toddler to ‘just take one little sip’, or just straight pouring the H20 into resistant mouths – I have a suspicion I’m not the only one.

Survivalist expert, Bear Grylls, tells us – ‘Water is the source of life and we need it to stay alive. In fact, we can’t go any longer than three or four days without water. So if we ever get stranded in the wilderness, the first thing we should do is search for water.’

So while children in our society are at large, very well hydrated, I wonder in some way if the obsession with hydration in our children is down to our mortal dependance on it or is it deeper?

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well – ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. Indeed, the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ – John 4:14

It makes me wonder, what it would look like to have the same priority and urgency as we do for hydrating our babies and children physically with water as we do for teaching them how to quench their spiritual thirst.

And maybe quenching the spiritual thirst of our little ones is just as important as quenching their physical.

If you’re like me and you benefit a lot from inspiration in this area, you might like to tap into the resources offered by Faith4Families. This is a non-profit organisation that offers two unique simple approaches to family devotions: starting with ages 5 to 12, Faith Box creates a weekly family time filled with surprise, fun, family games, discussion and learning based on the ‘big promises of God’. And for older kids, Faith Talk Triggers help you have great God-centred conversations with pre-teens and teenagers.