How to Explain the Prodigal Son to a Child

You get to the pigs and your child is completely with you. The son is starving, he is feeding somebody else’s animals, and even a five year old can feel how far from home that is. Then the father sees him coming and runs, and there is a party, and you close the book.

Which is where most read-aloud versions of this one end. It is also where the half your child actually has a question about begins.

How to explain the prodigal son to a child: start with who Jesus was talking to

This is not a story about a bad kid, and if you tell it that way your child will file it next to every other cautionary tale about listening to your parents.

Luke sets the scene two verses before it starts. “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to listen to Jesus. So the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble: ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (Luke 15:1 to 2)

So the parable is an answer to a complaint, and the complaint is about who gets welcomed. Jesus is not warning the younger son. He is talking to the people standing outside the party with their arms folded.

You can put this to a child in one line: “Some people were annoyed that Jesus kept having dinner with the wrong sort of people. So he told them this.”

Do not rush the pigs

The turn in the story is one sentence, and it is worth slowing down for. “Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food, but here I am, starving to death!’” (Luke 15:17)

He came to his senses. Not “he felt terrible.” He worked something out. Children who get told to say sorry a lot can hear the difference between being sorry you got caught and working out where home is.

How much of the wild living to explain

The text your child hears should be the son’s own: he “squandered his wealth in wild living.” (Luke 15:13) That is honest, it is vague, and it is enough. He spent it all on nothing, and on people who liked him while he was buying.

The older brother, later, puts it much more crudely. You are not obliged to read that line to a six year old, and if an older kid finds it and asks, the answer is short: his brother is furious and saying the worst version of it.

The running is the strange part

Let it stay strange. “So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

Two details children catch on their own if you give them a second. The father saw him while he was still in the distance, which means he had been looking. And the son never got to finish his rehearsed speech about being hired help. He was hugged mid apology.

The older brother, and “that’s not fair”

Tell the rest. When your child says it is not fair, agree with them, because they are reading it correctly. The brother who stayed has a real case: “Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.” (Luke 15:29)

He is not the villain. As GotQuestions puts it, the elder brother stands for “the self-righteous,” the religious leaders who “based their relationship with God on personal merit” and did not understand grace. He is the person Jesus was answering all along.

And the father goes out to him too, which is the detail everybody forgets. “‘Son, you are always with me,’ the father said, ‘and all that is mine is yours. But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:31 to 32)

Note that the story does not tell us whether the older son went inside. Jesus left it open, on purpose, in front of the people it was about.

What lands at each age

For a two or three year old it is one beat: a boy went far away, and his daddy ran to meet him. That is the whole story.

At four to six, add the pigs and the coming home, and stop at the hug. Fairness is not yet the question.

At seven or eight, the older brother becomes the interesting part, because this is the age of scorekeeping. Ask what they think he did next.

At eight and up, hand them the setup in Luke 15:1 to 2 and let them work out who is who. Most get there without help, and it is better when they do.

Tonight

Pick up where you usually stop. Tell the last eight verses only, the brother in the field and the father coming out to him, and then say goodnight without explaining it. It keeps.

The Prodigal Son is one of the 82 stories in Bedtime Bible Stories, written four separate times so a three year old and a ten year old each get the version that fits, with three discussion questions for the night your child wants to argue about fairness.