My kids are getting hard questions about faith at school and I want them ready. How do I prepare them?

“And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.”

The instructions for Passover deliberately build in a moment where the children ask what the ritual means, and the parents answer by telling the story. God designed the practice to provoke the question rather than to pre-empt it. The pattern assumes that children will ask, that asking is good, and that the answer is an account of what actually happened rather than a rule to be memorized.

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”

Peter is writing to believers who were a small minority constantly being asked to explain themselves, and he tells them to be ready with a reason, offered with gentleness and respect. Two things sit inside that instruction: there is a reason, and the tone of it matters as much as the content. A child who learns to answer contemptuously has learned only half of the verse.