Savoring Childhood: Practical Wisdom for Slowing Down

by Grace P. Pouch

Publisher:

IVP Formatio

, 2026

Overview

Small Steps to Help Children Flourish in a Hurried World

Many children today are caught up in the frantic pace of life, rushed along by forces beyond their control. When kids grow up too quickly and experience life at top speed, they are left distracted, anxious, and struggling to find depth.

The good news is it’s possible to help children experience life at a slower pace. In Savoring Childhood, you’ll learn how to push back against the demands of oursuperficial, automatic, and always-on culture as you walk through five essential ways of slowing:

• Slow gratification
• Slow schedules
• Slow media
• Slow consuming
• Slow growing up

Drawn from an average family’s experiments with resisting the rush of life and spiritual formation wisdom from voices like Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, Grace Pouch presents practical steps to slow things down so that children can grow deep relational roots, inward character, and a flourishing friendship with God.

With Savoring Childhood, you’ll learn how to:

• Identify what’s moving too fast in kids’ lives;
• Set a pace of life that supports freedom, connection, and depth; and
• Implement practical solutions to give children a grounded, non-anxious, and spiritually rich childhood.

God designed childhood to be abundant. Whether in your home, your classroom, or your ministry, you can learn how to partner with God to slow things down so that the children in your life can flourish.

Key Features

• Offers a gentle, counter-cultural manifesto for parents living in an era of “hurry-up” development and digital saturation.
• Transitions from high-level philosophy to the “grit” of daily life, offering realistic ways to decelerate a modern household.
• Argues that the primary gift a parent can give a child is a “spacious presence” that allows the child’s natural wonder to flourish at its own pace.

Contents

• Beginnings

Part I: Slow Gratification

• Sweet Countdowns
• Stretching
• Time Machines
• Long-Term Projects

Part II: Slow Schedules

• A Palace in Time
• Tidying Up
• Speed Checks
• Singletasking

Part III: Slow Media

• Offloading
• Snail Mail
• Library Carts
• Record Players

Part IV: Slow Consuming

• Simple Tastes
• The Creative Option
• Heartfelt Gifts
• Revival Skills

Part V: Slow Growing Up

• Animal Friends
• Reading Down
• Counterpoints

Praise for Savoring Childhood

In our frenzied, fast-paced, attention-grabbing world, it is increasingly important for parents and caregivers to find ways to slow things down for children. Indeed, with our fully formed adult brains, we have the cognitive ability to do what ourchildren cannot yet. When it comes to becoming tech-intentional (TM), this means putting skills before screens and prioritizing relationships. Savoring Childhood provides a guide for parents to rethink family life through a lens of slowing down, with plenty of practical and tactical strategies to do so.

—Emily Cherkin, author of The Screentime Solution

As a parent in today’s fast-paced world, I am deeply grateful that Grace P. Pouch’s voice exists to guide us into the ancient and timeless teachings of Christ. Savoring Childhood is exactly the kind of text we need: a soulful meditation on how we can teach a generation—and ourselves—how to be present in the real mystery of becoming. This is a stunning and essential book.

—Joseph Fasano, author of The Magic Words

What Grace Pouch offers to readers in this marvelous book is not only permission to give our children the gift of slowness but also rich insight and practical guidance to do it well. This is the book you didn’t know you needed but are desperately glad you’ve found. Read it. Savor it. Ingest it. And let it help you get off the mad runaway train of soul-crushing busyness that marks our modern lives.

—David and Phaedra Taylor, authors of Prayers for the Pilgrimage

As parents who long for a gentler pace and have worked to protect the space of childhood, we know how valuable this book is. That’s why we’re so grateful for Grace P. Pouch, who has gathered every day, unhurried experiments into one resource. It’s full of wisdom, simple practices, and the reminder that a slower, steadier life is still possible for kids today.

—Jonathan Bailey, cofounder of Dwell and author of Dwelling in Christ, and Kori Bailey

Product Details

• Title: Savoring Childhood: Practical Wisdom for Slowing Down
• Author: Grace P. Pouch
• Publisher: IVP Formatio
• Print Publication Date: 2026
• Logos Release Date: 2026
• Pages: 224
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Christian children › Religious lif; Christian children › Conduct of lif; Children › Religious aspects--Christianit
• ISBNs: 9781514011171, 1514011174
• Resource ID: LLS:SVRNGCHLDHSLWNG
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2026-05-04T20:55:05Z

About Grace P. Pouch

Grace P. Pouch is content manager for Renovaré, where she curates and produces resources for spiritual renewal. She previously served as a seminary professor and Christian education specialist for elementary school children. Grace and her husband, William, live with their two children, Charlotte and Henry, in Greenville, South Carolina.