Help your children thoughtfully choose a character they would like to be, then use large paper bags or paper plates to help your children make a mask featuring that character.

Caution your children to choose well, as they will have to wear the mask and pretend to be their chosen character for a long time. If they choose to be an animal, for example, they will spend a long time crawling on the floor. Caution them, too, that other people will treat them according to the character they choose.

Once your masks are ready, put them on and go about your usual tasks, but stay “in character,” with each person acting like the character depicted by the mask they are wearing.

Since masks limit vision, don’t let your children wear their masks outdoors or for active play. For less visual obstruction, cut larger eye holes.

When your children are tired of play acting, move on to the discussion questions.

Questions for discussion

1. Why did you want to quit wearing your mask?
2. Who were you this morning when you got up?
3. Who will you be when you go to bed tonight?
4. Who am I?
5. Who was I acting like?
6. What did you like about being ________?
7. Was there anything you didn’t like about being your character?
8. Would you want to wear a mask all the time?
9. What it would be like if a dog walked around acting like a cat? Or vice versa?
10. Have you ever wished you were someone else?
11. Why do you think someone would spend their days pretending to be someone they are not?
12. What do you think God would say if you went around pretending to be someone you are not?
13. Is there anything you think God would want to change about me or you?

Key concepts

Wearing a mask or pretending to be someone you are not gets tiring after a while. Some people who don’t like themselves much actually hide who they really are from others. They think other people won’t like who they are, so they say and do things based on what they think will make other people like them.

Doing and saying things to try to make people accept you is called “wearing a mask.” It’s not a mask you can see. It means the person becomes very skilled at acting in a certain way to please others because they are afraid to just be themselves. It’s hard work to wear a mask (real or make believe) all day long. It’s much easier to be ourselves – the people God created us to be.

The only thing God ever wants to change about us is our sinful attitudes and behaviours. We don’t need to “wear a mask” to cover up our sin because God already sees it! The best news is that when we let God know we are sorry for sinning, He is pleased to forgive our sins and promises to send His Holy Spirit to live in us and make us more like Him.

After your talk, pray together and ask God to help your children see themselves as He does – as loveable and full of potential.

Relevant Scripture

1 John 1:8-9 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Galatians 5:22-23,25-26 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. . . . Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

• When someone is unkind to one of your children and is making fun of them in some way, teach your child to deflect the comment by expressing their confidence in God’s plan for them. Encourage your child to think to themself, or to say aloud, “You may not like ________ (my hair, my face, the way I sing etc.), but God made me this way and I am going to enjoy being me.”
• Use the discussion questions to help explain to your children that although others may make fun of them, they can have confidence in knowing that God considers him or her a treasure, simply because God made them. (Further intervention must be taken if a child is the brunt of regular ridicule versus occasional teasing.)
• Also encourage your children to divert honour to God whenever people make positive comments about their appearance or their abilities. For example, teach your children to say, “Thank you for noticing how God made me unique.” (For more on honouring God after a compliment, see the hands-on option “complimenting God” in the humility lesson.)
• Practice these suggestions with your children, using stuffed animals to act as “bullies.” Allow each child to practice responding confidently in scenarios where he or she is being picked on. Be sure to practice receiving compliments as well.
• Even though we know that what God thinks is so much more important, unkind words from others can still be very hurtful. Review with your children a strategy to diffuse the pain caused by comments made by other kids.

Questions for discussion

1. How can you choose to honour God with the special gifts He has given you?
2. What does a person say or do to bring honour to themself?
3. When someone compliments you about your talents or your looks, how can you give honour to God?
4. If someone makes a negative or critical comment about your looks or talents, what should you do?

Note that the ideas here are not designed to address habitual cruelty. Bullying is a serious issue and if you suspect your child is being bullied in any way, do not hesitate to intervene.

Relevant Scripture

1 Samuel 16:7 “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’ ”

Tell your children that you are going on a journey. Load a tool belt full of tools, pack a backpack with cans of food and bottles of water and fill a suitcase with heavy clothing. Have your children dress in heavy clothing as well. Then take turns carrying all of these heavy items around until your children understand what the phrases “a burden too heavy to bear” and “my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer,” mean (Psalm 32:4).

Questions for discussion

• How does it feel to wear all these extra clothes and to carry all this extra baggage?
• How can sin make us feel heavy?
• What can you do to remove extra weight?
• What can you do to remove the heaviness of sin?
• How do we feel after God has forgiven our sins?

Read Psalm 32:1-5 and explain that King David felt weighed down by his sin until he confessed his sins. Just as taking off the heavy clothing and setting down the luggage is a big relief, so we are refreshed and filled with joy when God forgives our sins. At the end of Psalm 32 David says, “Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart” (Psalm 32:11). When we confess our sins and choose to do right instead of wrong, we feel much happier than when we hold on to sin.

Other ideas

If you have read Pilgrim’s Progress, re-enact Christian’s journey, ending with his arrival at the cross where his burden (of sin) falls from his back.

Relevant Scripture

Psalm 38:4 “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.”

Begin by reading through Colossians 3:12, Galatians 5:22-23 and/or Ephesians 4:2 (see below).

Next, open your closet or dress-up box, and with the help of your children, select items to represent the character traits God says we are to clothe ourselves with: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, self-control, joy, goodness, peace, love and faithfulness. Scarves and accessories work well as you can combine them to make an “outfit.”

As you have fun dressing up in “God’s clothes,” role-play various life situations where you respond according to the character traits you are wearing. Example scenarios could include:

• a family running late for an appointment,
• two children wanting to play with the same toy,
• a parent correcting a child who is blowing through a straw and making a mess,
• a child who is teasing another child.

Relevant Scripture

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Ephesians 4:2 “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

Colossians 3:12-14 “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”