The Ministry of Play: Giving Children Our Undivided Attention

By Michael Scheele and Christine Temko-Scheele

Playing with a child can look unimportant from the outside.

There are bills to pay, repairs to finish, meals to prepare, laundry to fold, and countless other responsibilities demanding an adult’s attention. Compared with those things, building a blanket fort, catching frogs, reading the same book again, or entering an imaginary world can feel like mere fun and silliness.

That’s part of the problem.

We naturally create a division between adult things and childish things. Anything we classify as childish is often taken less seriously. It doesn’t seem to carry the importance of finances, work, or maintaining a home.

But play isn’t meaningless simply because it’s enjoyable.

A recent survey of 3,194 parents and caregivers found encouraging increases in the number who play, read, talk, sing, and draw with their young children each day. Daily play rose from 51.2 percent in 2025 to 58.5 percent in 2026. Daily reading increased from 45.9 to 51 percent.

Those numbers are moving in the right direction, but every activity measured remains below its 2019 level. Parents most often identified work schedules, financial pressures, and stress as barriers. National Literacy Trust

The American Academy of Pediatrics has also emphasized that play supports children’s language, relationships, self-regulation, resilience, and healthy development.

Those are important benefits, but Christian parents should recognize something else as well.

Play tells a child, “You matter to me. I enjoy being with you. I want to know your world.”

Let Yourself Enjoy Your Children

There’s a feeling parents need to allow themselves to move beyond. It’s the idea that fun must always come after the important work is completed.

The work is rarely completed.

There will always be another load of laundry, another home repair, another email, another bill, and something else that needs to be cleaned. If enjoying our children must wait until every responsibility is finished, we may discover that childhood finished first.

Time spent with our children isn’t wasted. Outside of our spiritual investments and the investments we make in our marriages, there may be no greater investment.

Not only is it acceptable to have fun, but it’s good to have fun with our children. It’s one of the joys of parenthood, and we should allow ourselves to receive that joy.

Children need instruction, correction, protection, and discipline. They also need to know that their parents genuinely enjoy them.

A child shouldn’t grow up believing that Mom and Dad were always responsible for them but rarely delighted in them.

The Quiet Moments Remain

When Mike remembers his childhood, some of the moments that remain clearest are the quiet ones.

He remembers fishing trips with his father when they caught absolutely nothing. By the usual measure of a successful fishing trip, they came home empty-handed. Yet they spent the entire day talking.

The lack of fish didn’t make the trip unsuccessful. The conversation was the catch.

He remembers taking long walks with his grandparents. There was no expensive activity, carefully prepared lesson, or major destination. They simply walked and spent time together.

As a father, Mike remembers catching frogs with his children around the pond and splashing through the mud without worrying about staying clean. Those ordinary experiences became part of the family’s shared history.

The activities have changed as his children have grown. His oldest son is now finishing a missionary internship. One of their favorite ways to spend time together is debating theological questions and sharing favorite sermons.

Catching frogs and discussing theology may seem completely different, but the foundation is the same.

A father entered his son’s world. Over time, the son also began entering his father’s.

The way we connect with our children will change as they grow. Imaginative games may become long conversations. Picture books may eventually become shared sermons. Questions that once concerned frogs, dinosaurs, or imaginary villains may become questions about doctrine, purpose, marriage, work, and calling.

The relationship developed through those early moments helps create a place where the later conversations can happen.

If You Can’t Make the Time, Work the Time

Parents are under real pressure. Saying, “Make more time,” doesn’t remove a work schedule, reduce the bills, cook dinner, or complete the repairs.

Sometimes life runs us ragged. We may not feel as if we have the option to step away from everything else that needs to be done.

If you can’t make the time, work the time.

Include your children in what you’re already doing.

Yes, it’s usually easier to complete a task yourself than to teach a five-year-old how to do it. A simple job takes longer when you have to explain each step and guide small hands through the process.

It will get better as they continue doing it.

More importantly, working beside you may be how your child receives some of the time and attention they need. Folding towels, sorting hardware, washing vegetables, sweeping the floor, carrying garden tools, or helping with a simple repair can all become opportunities for conversation and connection.

Developing a child with love and patience is part of a parent’s responsibility. We aren’t only completing today’s task. We’re teaching tomorrow’s adult how to work, learn, persevere, and contribute to a household.

That doesn’t mean every interaction should become serious instruction.

Have fun while you work. Be silly. Tell stories. Ask questions. Laugh when a small mistake creates no real harm. Let your child experience the satisfaction of being useful without making your approval dependent upon perfect performance.

Working together shouldn’t permanently replace reading, playing, talking, and simply enjoying one another. When possible, treat it as a temporary answer to a crowded season. Keep looking for opportunities to add the silly time, the playtime, the reading time, and the quiet time.

The important thing is that your child experiences more than your supervision.

They need your presence.

Play Can Reveal What Words Haven’t

Parents can learn an enormous amount by entering a child’s world and allowing the child to lead.

Children often lower their guard when they’re relaxed and using their imaginations. A fear they haven’t been able to explain directly may suddenly appear inside a game.

A child who has been having frightening dreams about ghosts may introduce ghosts into an imaginary story. A child worried about school may create a game in which someone is excluded, embarrassed, or unable to complete an assignment. A child who feels powerless may invent a character who controls everything.

Not every detail has a hidden meaning, and parents shouldn’t interrogate a child’s imagination or turn every game into an analysis session. Sometimes a dragon is simply a dragon.

Still, play gives parents an opportunity to notice.

Listen to the stories your children create. Pay attention to the problems their characters encounter. Notice what makes them afraid, what makes them brave, and how they imagine the problem being resolved.

When something concerning appears, remain calm. A frightened or embarrassed reaction may cause the child to close the door they just opened.

You might ask, “What do you think the character should do?” or “Has anything ever made you feel like that?”

Play can give children enough distance to express something that feels too difficult to say directly.

That’s one reason undivided attention matters. We may miss these small openings if we’re only half listening while looking at a phone or laptop.

Faith Should Flow Through Family Life

Ordinary play can help build faith and belonging without forcing every activity into a formal Bible lesson.

It begins with the parents.

When our own prayer life is healthy, when we’re regularly reading God’s Word, and when our conviction to share the gospel is strong, faith begins to flow naturally through the household.

We don’t have to force a spiritual comparison into every frog-catching expedition or interrupt every game to deliver a sermon.

Children should certainly receive direct biblical instruction. Families should pray together, read Scripture, attend church, and speak clearly about salvation through Jesus Christ.

But children should also see what God’s love produces in us.

They should experience patience when they need extra help. They should see grace when they make an honest mistake. They should hear gratitude when something goes well. They should learn that joy, laughter, curiosity, work, rest, and conversation all belong within a life lived with God.

Deuteronomy 11:19 says:

“And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

God’s Word belongs within the ordinary rhythms of family life.

We teach while sitting at home. We teach while walking together. We teach at the beginning of the day and at its end. We teach through direct instruction, but we also teach through the way we respond, listen, work, apologize, laugh, and love.

When faith is truly part of our lives, speaking about God doesn’t feel like an interruption. It becomes part of the conversation.

The Time Is Never Wasted

Ask almost any empty nester, and they’ll tell you how quickly the years passed.

The games eventually change. The toys disappear. The muddy shoes become larger, and then one day they’re no longer beside the door.

We can’t stop children from growing, nor should we want to. Our responsibility is to help prepare them for the lives God has placed before them.

That preparation includes instruction, discipline, responsibility, and spiritual truth.

It also includes fishing trips where nothing is caught, walks without a destination, chores completed side by side, frogs gathered beside a pond, books read aloud, games played on the floor, and conversations that begin because a parent was willing to enter a child’s world.

Playing with your child isn’t a distraction from parenting.

It’s part of the work.

It’s part of the joy.

And the time is never wasted.