As a new school year kicks off, Christian parents find themselves asking the same anxious question: “How can I best protect my child from harmful cultural elements while still keeping them in the public school system?”

It’s a reasonable question. Sending your child through hallways and into classrooms full of ideas that do not necessarily align with your family’s beliefs can cause some worry.

As parents, your first instinct is to protect them from any cultural untruths they may encounter. But, I invite you to shift the paradigm: instead of protecting your kids from public school, prepare your kids for public school. Essentially, preparation IS protection. And this preparation starts with intentionally discipling your kids at home. Before they ever walk through the public school doors, you have the privilege of teaching them how to recognize counterfeit by equipping them to know the real thing, God’s Truth. They will be able to live their faith, respectfully defend and share it, and live on mission for God in public school and beyond.

Here are three ways to prepare your child for public school this fall.

1. Model Biblical Behavior

One of the most effective ways to prepare our children for public school is to model the Christ-like behaviors they can carry into school. Children are constantly observing us. But isn’t it true that they learn less from what we say and more from what we do? Kids recognize the patterns in how you handle situations and will build their responses accordingly. Your daily life is, in many ways, the first testimony of faith your child absorbs.

Faith-shaping starts at home, such as by reading Scripture together, sharing a family devotional, or praying before meals. Reflecting God also happens in the subtler ways: how patiently you listen, how consistently you extend kindness, and how respectfully you interact with others, etc. Your kids will replicate these in their own relationships with teachers and classmates. To be successful at this, look at your own areas of growth: we cannot model what we are not practicing.

Cultural ideas that conflict with a biblical worldview are rooted in untruth. A child who has been grounded in God’s truth develops the discernment to recognize what doesn’t align with it and, more importantly, the confidence to respond thoughtfully rather than being swept along by it.

2. Provide a Safe Place for Questions

Before your children start school, one of the most valuable things you can offer is being a safe place for them to ask questions. Compassionate listening ears and honest open conversations create a safe space for your kids to ask anything that is on their mind. This sets up your home as the place they can come to for reliable, godly truth to help process their day.

Kids may encounter a class discussion or a friend’s comment that does not align with their faith, and instead of searching for answers from people or places that do not point toward God, they can come home and talk it through with you. Together, you can go to God’s word to find the answer.

Make sure they know you are in their corner as they navigate these experiences. Be available and quick to listen. When they bring you something confusing, resist the urge to correct right away. Instead, ask what they think and felt, then work through it together.

As culture rubs up against your children, don’t forget to provide emotional safety by putting on your “I am not surprised” face. When children know their parents engage thoughtfully and collaboratively rather than react emotionally, their confidence builds to keep bringing questions home. They resist the urge to carry their concern alone.

3. Pray with and for Your Children

Finally, prayer needs to be undoubtedly the anchor in the life of your child as they navigate the public school system. Missionary Hudson Taylor wrote, “When we work, we work. When we pray, God works.” By praying over your child and their school, you invite God to work in and through your children. Only He can perfectly protect and guide them.

It’s easy to worry about the bad influences on our kids during the day. Instead, pray passionately and specifically: ask God to place good role models and uplifting friends to speak truth into your child’s life. When we put our faith in God, we trust that He hears us — no detail of our lives is too small for His care or too big for Him to handle.

Sending your children into public school can feel daunting, especially in a culture that often seems at odds with your family’s faith. But it’s worth remembering that God is at work in the hallways and classrooms of your child’s school. I’ve heard of students praying together on school buses or engaging in genuine discussions about faith. God continues to move in public schools, especially through the quiet faithfulness of a child who has been taught to notice Him there.

This is why preparing our children is the best form of protection we can provide them. This back-to-school season, commit to preparing your students well, trusting that God will work through them and in their classrooms, so that they might live boldly for Christ, wherever they are.

Kori Pennypacker serves as the CEO for Bible2School where she oversees the mission, casts vision, and builds relationships with parents, school administrators, community leaders, businesses, and churches on the topic of the importance of spiritual training for students nationwide. She is the author of the forthcoming title, “Backpack Faith.”