Christmas Afternoon: Three Kids, Three Tablets, and the Children's Bible Still Wrapped Under the Tree

1:12 AM. A Blue Glow Under My Son's Blanket.

At 1:12 in the morning I found my 6-year-old under his blanket with the tablet.

Just a blue glow in the dark and his eyes, wide open, not blinking.

He didn't even hear me come in.

I pulled the blanket back and the video was still autoplaying. Some cartoon I had never seen.

A character screaming at another one, "You're so stupid, nobody likes you."

My son laughed.

That's the moment I knew I'd lost something.

I'm the Mom Who Says She's Careful. Here's What I Actually Do.

I'm 34. I have three kids. Noah is 6, Lily is 4, and Jonah is 2.

I'm the mom who says she's careful about what goes into her kids' heads.

I say it at church. I say it to my sister. I post the verse about guarding your heart.

And here's what I actually do.

Every night from 5 to 6 pm, while I cook dinner, I hand them the tablets. And I let it play.

I've never previewed half of what they watch. I just needed forty minutes where nobody was crying.

That's the truth.

Two weeks before I found Noah under the blanket, Lily said something at dinner.

My husband asked her to pick up her fork. She looked right at him and said, "Whatever, loser."

She's 4.

She didn't get that from us. She got it from a cartoon I let play while I chopped onions.

My husband looked at me. I looked at my plate.

The Picture I've Never Shown Anybody

And then Christmas came.

Last Christmas we did it big. Each kid got a tablet case, new games, a stack of toys. I also bought a children's Bible. Nice one. $29.

I wrapped it and put it under the tree with everything else.

Christmas afternoon, I took a picture I've never shown anybody.

Three kids. Three tablets. Three faces lit up in the glow. On the living room floor, still covered in torn wrapping paper.

And in the corner, under the tree, the Bible.

Still wrapped.

Nobody had even opened it. On Jesus's birthday.

I sat on the stairs and looked at that picture for a long time.

The App, the DVDs, the 300-Page Bible: Nothing Stuck

I'd love to tell you I fixed it right away. I didn't.

I tried a Bible app. The kids tapped past it to YouTube in about a minute.

I tried Bible cartoon DVDs. They only work in the car, and Noah said they were "for babies."

I tried reading the big children's Bible at bedtime. 300-something pages. Long chapters. Noah fell asleep on page 2 and Lily asked for the tablet.

I started to think maybe my kids just weren't interested in Jesus. Maybe that's just how kids are now.

My Mother-in-Law Put a Little Stack of Books on the Coffee Table

Then my mother-in-law visited in March.

She brought a little stack of thin, bright picture books. She didn't make a big deal of it. She just put them on the coffee table.

Noah picked one up on his own. I Am Brave.

He brought it to her. He didn't bring it to me. He brought it to his grandma.

And he said, "Can you read this one?"

She read it. Then he said, "Again."

Then Lily climbed up and said, "Now read the Kind one." I Am Kind.

I stood in the kitchen doorway holding a dish towel and watched my kids beg for a book about Jesus.

No tablet. Nobody asked for the tablet for an hour.

I asked her where she got them. She said, "The With Jesus Series. There are 11 of them. They're short, so they actually finish them."

That's what got me.

Short. One story. One real little-kid problem. Being scared. Telling the truth. Being nice when you don't feel like it.

And in every single one, Jesus is right there with the child. Not a lecture. A friend in the story.

Plus a verse at the end so I can actually talk about it.

Week 2: "One More Jesus Book"

I'll be honest, I was skeptical. I'd already thrown money at this problem. The app. The DVDs. The giant Bible.

But 11 books were $59. Regular price $165. That's $5.36 a book.

Free shipping.

So I ordered.

Week 1. I put the tablets in the top kitchen drawer from 5 to 6. I put the books in a basket by the couch.

Night 1 was rough. Jonah cried. Noah asked for the tablet four times.

Night 3, Noah came into the kitchen holding I Am Calm and asked if I'd read it after dinner instead.

Week 2. Lily asked for "one more Jesus book" at bedtime.

Not "five more minutes." One more Jesus book.

I wrote it down on the back of a receipt so I would never forget the date.

Week 4. Noah, my 6-year-old, started reading them to Lily by himself. Sounding out the words. Lily hanging on every one.

Week 6. I heard Lily, mad at her brother, stop in the middle of yelling. Then she said, "With Jesus I can be kind." And she walked away.

I had to go stand in the laundry room for a minute.

The tablets are still in the drawer. Some nights they come out. But they're not raising my kids anymore.

They Needed Something They Would Actually Choose

Here's what I figured out.

I couldn't take the screen away and leave nothing there. The kids needed something they would actually choose.

These are the thing they choose.

This Christmas there is something about Jesus under our tree, and it is not going to sit there wrapped.

I'm buying the set for my sister's kids and my best friend's kids too. They have a deal right now: buy 2 sets, get the 3rd free. 3 sets for $118.

Over 75,000 copies sold.

So here is my question for you, mom to mom.

This Christmas their faces are going to be in a screen, or in a story about Jesus.

You get to choose which one you wrap.

P.S. Last week Noah asked me if Jesus can see him in the dark. I said yes. He said, "Then I don't need the tablet light." I'm still not over it.

Dramatization based on customer experiences. Individual results vary.

Why the Big Children's Bible Ends Up in the Closet

"Most children's books end up collecting dust after one read, but this collection has completely transformed our daily routine."

Lacey, parent, Amazon review

Almost every family in these stories tried the same thing first. A big children's Bible. Gold edges. Hundreds of pages. A good gift, given with love.

And almost every time, it ended up on a shelf.

It isn't the Bible's fault. It's a grown-up-sized book handed to a 5-year-old at bedtime. A long chapter, a tired child, a parent with ten minutes left in the day. The bookmark stops on page 11.

Think of it like dinner. You don't hand a 4-year-old the whole cookbook. You hand them one plate.

Little kids take in faith the way they take in everything else: one short story, one problem they actually have, one answer they can hold on to. Scared of the dark tonight. Mean to a sister this morning. A fib at school.

Grandparents who buy these books say the same thing in their own words:

"The short stories are good and allow for further conversation on the values in each book."

Lynn F., grandmother, on Trustpilot

"I'm always looking for quality easy, quick read books with Christ centered truths."

Janis N., grandmother of 16, on Trustpilot

What Families Try First, and Where Each One Stops

• The big children's Bible: loved, gifted, and too long to finish at bedtime. It waits on a shelf.
• Bible apps: the tablet is one tap away from YouTube.
• Bible cartoons and DVDs: fine in the car, and "for babies" by age 6.
• Monthly Christian book clubs: a box a month, a renewal you forgot, and a pile nobody chose.
• Single picture books from the church table: one here, one there, lost in the toy bin.
• More toys: the loudest thing on the shelf, and the gift the grandmas in these stories worry about most by New Year's.

What changed things in every story was the same: a complete set of short books, each one about a real thing a little kid goes through, with Jesus right there in the story.

A set means there is always a next one. Short means it gets finished. A real problem means the child asks for it.

How One Five-Minute Book Works at Bedtime

1. Pick the problem. Scared, angry, tempted to fib, not wanting to share. Each book is about one everyday struggle.
2. Read the story. Jesus is with the child in the story, on every page, not in a lecture at the end.
3. Read the verse. A short Bible verse ties the story to Scripture.
4. Ask one question. Point at a picture. Ask what they would do. Let them answer.

One story. One verse. One calm talk. That is the whole routine, and it fits in about five minutes.

The 11 books in Series 1: I Give, I Am Brave, I Love, I Am Calm, I Am Kind, I Am Smart, I Tell the Truth, I Am Thankful, I Don't Give Up, I Am Talented, I Share. Ages 3 to 8. Suited for most Christian denominations.

Written by a Mom Who Couldn't Find These Books for Her Own Daughters

The With Jesus Series is written by G.L. Charles, a best-selling Christian children's author who also publishes as Good News Meditations Kids. In her own words:

"I'm a mother of 2 beautiful daughters and a Christian author who publishes books under the name Good News Meditations Kids and G.L. Charles. What pushed me to write my 1st book is that I had difficulty finding Christian books for my 2 daughters that put forward beautiful Christian values and were centered on Jesus. So, I decided to write one."

That first book became a series. Today the With Jesus books have sold over 75,000 copies.