For parents, the first day of school is often a mix of excitement and anxiety. No matter your religious beliefs, questions start to spin: “Will my child be bullied?” “Will they like school?” “Will they get a good teacher” “What if they don’t make friends?”.

Gold Coast parent Katie Omrod is mum to Elliot, who started school on Tuesday.

“It’s quite terrifying,” she said. “One of the things I’ve found is that I’m anxious about Elliot not enjoying school. But I don’t want to make him scared by my fears too.”

Katie says that as a Christian parent, she worries just as much as any other parent, but sometimes the things she worries about are slightly different. She says helping a child discern truth might be a particular challenge for Christian parents of children just starting school.

“If the teacher or other kids or other kids’ parents are telling Elliot things that we don’t believe to be true, I think he’ll find it quite difficult to understand why they’re saying things that aren’t true, or things that his parents don’t believe. I’m just aware that those types of conversations are going to come up, and it’s hard to tell how he’ll respond to that.”

Sydney minister Andrew Levy, and his wife Jess are also sending their first child, Oscar to school this week. They too have discussed how they’ll address some questions bound to come up once Oscar starts school, like “Why don’t all my friends believe in God, too?”

“You don’t just have one conversation with a five-year-old and everything’s solved,” says Andrew. “We’ve tried to instil in Oscar a sense that not everyone will believe what he does, but that he should listen to what his friends have to say, too.

“We’re hoping he’ll be like, ‘I believe in God, maybe you don’t believe in God. Ok, let’s go play handball.’”

Jane Vaughan, a teacher at Railway Town Public School in Broken Hill, in outback New South Wales, and a Christian too, says the first few weeks of school can be tough for both kids and parents. But it gets easier.

“They seem so small and little to be sending off to school, sometimes. But children are resilient and are keen to learn new things. So parents are often more anxious than the children,” says Jane.

Jane has been a teacher for seven years – a relative newcomer to the profession – but in that time she’s had so many questions from anxious parents about the start of school – particularly in her Christian friendship groups.

“Ultimately it’s a lesson in trusting God. My mum used to remind us that we kids weren’t really hers, but God’s. And God had blessed her with us for a time. I think that’s a helpful mindset. You can demonstrate trust and reliance on God to your child with something like starting school. You want your kids to rely on God for how to deal with uncertainty and nervousness. That’s not an easy thing, I don’t think.”

Andrew in Sydney says there’s a lot to be excited about as a parent of a child starting school.

“There’s great joy and excitement about this new stage in Oscar’s life… we’re excited about the opportunities he’ll have at school and the possibilities that open up and the different people and things he’ll be exposed to; the friends he’ll meet, and the friends we’ll meet as a result of that too.”

But he also acknowledges some worries (“founded and unfounded”) that have popped up in the process of getting Oscar prepared for school.

“I guess we worry about Oscar’s exposure to different ideas, language, models of life generally that might be different – and sometimes in opposition – to things we’ve taught Oscar,” says Andrew.

“For example, the other day I made an offhand statement, something like: ‘Who knows what the weather is going to be like in a couple of days time’. Oscar overheard, and said, ‘Well, God’s the one who controls the weather.’ That’s safe and easy ground in a Christian family, and we commend Oscar for those types of answers. But at school, that answer will be odd in that context.”

Andrew says that there are always worries, as your child grows and enters different contexts, about what home lessons will stick with them.

“The things we’ve taught him about Jesus are going to start to work themselves out in his new environment, and he’ll have to start learning how to put those things together.”

In the lead up to school, both Elliot and Oscar were a little nervous.

“We talked to Elliot about whether he was nervous about school, and let him know that he could pray for God to be with him, and prayed with him then and there. He knows he can keep that in his head at any time.”

“He’ll cope, he’ll get through,” says Katie. “God’s going to look after him.”

We asked Andrew and Jess Levy to write out some of the prayers they’ve used in the lead up to Oscar starting school:

For the parent on their child’s first day:

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the gift of [my child],

It is a joyful thing to see the way you have grown and shaped them,

Please keep growing them in their love for their Lord Jesus.

Thank you for our new school

And thank you for [my child’s teacher] this year.

Please give to them a compassionate, patient and generous heart as they teach and guide the children.

Please enable [my child] to love the kids around them,

And to make some friends who genuinely love them too.

Make the school yard a place of peace and fun,

A place where sorry’s are said when wrongs are done,

Where games are resumed quickly,

And where everyone is invited to play.

Make their classroom a place of wondrous learning,

Where all the children learn about the world that You have placed them in.

Enable [my child] to honour their teacher,

And to kindly help other children learn too.

And may their trust in Jesus be fortified,

In this school.

In Jesus Name. Amen.

For the parent, to pray with their child:

Heavenly Father,

Thank you that you love us and always listen when we pray.

Thank you for [my child’s] first day at his/her new school.

We know that [my child] is a little nervous or scared,

but please help him/her to be excited and happy at all the great new things s/he will see and learn.

Please help [my child] to make new friends

And they will be a good friend to the other children they meet.

Please give them a caring teacher who will teach and look after them.

Please help [my child] to learn lots of great new things about Your world.

And may s/he know that you love him/her and are with them wherever s/he is.

In Jesus Name, Amen!