Savoring Childhood - by Grace P Pouch (Paperback)

About the Book

"Help Children Embrace a Slower, Gentler Pace of Life. Imagine being stuck on a crazy merry-go-round that won't stop. You're spinning endlessly. You can't pause, focus, or catch your breath, and it's starting to get scary. This is the reality for many children today, caught in the frantic pace of life. Forces beyond their control rush them along, skipping important transitions and cutting corners on meaningful processes. Children are moving so fast that there's little room for God in their thoughts or on their calendars. As a result, they're left struggling to establish roots in community, reliable morals, or any kind of relationship with God. The good news is it's possible to help children experience life at a slower pace. You can push back against the demands of our superficial, artificial, automatic, and always-on culture. In Savoring Childhood, Grace Pouch offers small steps you can take to help children experience life at a pace where friendship with God has the time and space to flourish. Drawn from an average family's experiments with resisting the rush of life and applying spiritual formation wisdom from voices such as Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, this book presents practical ways to slow things down so that children (and the grown-ups who love them) can experience and savor the world at a soul-sustaining pace. With Savoring Childhood, you'll learn how to resist the formation of spirit-harming habits and appetites, set a pace that supports freedom, connection, and depth, and nurture skills for healthy relationships with God and others. God designed childhood to be abundant. Slow down and reclaim a childhood where kids can flourish. Savoring Childhood is your invitation to slow things down for the kids you love and to cultivate the conditions they need to flourish"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Small Steps to Help Children Flourish in a Hurried World

Many children today are caught up in the frantic pace of life, rushed along by forces beyond their control. When kids grow up too quickly and experience life at top speed, they are left distracted, anxious, and struggling to find depth.

The good news is it's possible to help children experience life at a slower pace. In Savoring Childhood, you'll learn how to push back against the demands of our superficial, automatic, and always-on culture as you walk through five essential ways of slowing:

• Slow gratification
• Slow schedules
• Slow media
• Slow consuming
• Slow growing up

Drawn from an average family's experiments with resisting the rush of life and spiritual formation wisdom from voices like Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, Grace Pouch presents practical steps to slow things down so that children can grow deep relational roots, inward character, and a flourishing friendship with God.

With Savoring Childhood, you'll learn how to

• identify what's moving too fast in kids' lives;
• set a pace of life that supports freedom, connection, and depth; and
• implement practical solutions to give children a grounded, non-anxious, and spiritually rich childhood.

God designed childhood to be abundant. Whether in your home, your classroom, or your ministry, you can learn how to partner with God to slow things down so that the children in your life can flourish.

Review Quotes

"Savoring Childhood by Grace P. Pouch is an excellent book with very helpful and practical suggestions for dealing with instant gratification, hurried schedules, high-speed and always-on media, rapid consuming, and growing up too fast. Parents and their children and grandchildren will be deeply blessed by this book and so will all of us. Highly recommended as a must-read!"

--Siang-Yang Tan, senior professor of clinical psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Christian Perspective

"Savoring Childhood reorients family life around what matters most. This book is a gift for overwhelmed parents in an unbalanced world. Grace P. Pouch creatively reimagines spiritual disciplines like simplicity, slowing, and attentive presence for everyday life together at home. Her wise insight and 'small steps' for intentional parenting offer a practical pathway toward well-paced lives of love and delight."

--Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, author of Glittering Vices

"As a parent in today's fast-paced world, I am deeply grateful that Grace P. Pouch's voice exists to guide us into the ancient and timeless teachings of Christ. Savoring Childhood is exactly the kind of text we need: a soulful meditation on how we can teach a generation--and ourselves--how to be present in the real mystery of becoming. This is a stunning and essential book."

--Joseph Fasano, author of The Magic Words

"As parents who long for a gentler pace and have worked to protect the space of childhood, we know how valuable this book is. That's why we're so grateful for Grace P. Pouch, who has gathered every day, unhurried experiments into one resource. It's full of wisdom, simple practices, and the reminder that a slower, steadier life is still possible for kids today."

--Jonathan Bailey, cofounder of Dwell and author of Dwelling in Christ, and Kori Bailey

"In our frenzied, fast-paced, attention-grabbing world, it is increasingly important for parents and caregivers to find ways to slow things down for children. Indeed, with our fully formed adult brains, we have the cognitive ability to do what our children cannot yet. When it comes to becoming tech-intentional (TM), this means putting skills before screens and prioritizing relationships. Savoring Childhood provides a guide for parents to rethink family life through a lens of slowing down, with plenty of practical and tactical strategies to do so."

--Emily Cherkin, author of The Screentime Solution

"In this sympathetic and approachable combination of philosophy and practicality, Grace P. Pouch makes a compelling case for keeping in step with the Spirit in raising children. Challenging but accessible and actually doable, Pouch's suggestions will be life-changing for both children and their parents. Savoring Childhood is a gift, one I wish I'd had when I was bringing up my own kids."

--Richella J. Parham, author of Mythical Me and chair of the Renovaré board of trustees

"What Grace Pouch offers to readers in this marvelous book is not only permission to give our children the gift of slowness but also rich insight and practical guidance to do it well. This is the book you didn't know you needed but are desperately glad you've found. Read it. Savor it. Ingest it. And let it help you get off the mad runaway train of soul-crushing busyness that marks our modern lives."

--David and Phaedra Taylor, authors of Prayers for the Pilgrimage

About the Author

Grace P. Pouch is content manager for Renovaré, where she curates and produces resources for spiritual renewal. She previously served as a seminary professor and Christian education specialist for elementary school children. Grace and her husband, William, live with their two children, Charlotte and Henry, in Greenville, South Carolina.