Rich Watson resides in Hope Mills, North Carolina, near Fort Bragg. He served in the United States Air Force for 20 years and has an education in psychology, with other degrees in education and social sciences. He has been happily married for 25 years and has four amazing children, a soon-to-be son-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and an awesome granddaughter. Since his retirement from the military, he currently works for a veteran service organization in their mental health department. He and his team provide resiliency-based retreats for individuals, couples, and families. He joined the Church in 1996 and has had the pleasure of serving in varying leadership roles, some of them multiple times. (One of the “benefits” of moving so often during his military career.) These include ward mission leader, elders quorum president, high priest group leader, Young Men presidency, branch president, bishopric, high council, and more. Rich has also shared his insights in a Leading Saints Podcast, “Ministering to Veterans in Your Ward.”
Enter Rich…
If you have ever taught Primary, you’ve probably had a multitude of Sundays where you have left church wondering something like, “Did anything I say actually get through to them?”
Between the laughing, bathroom breaks, and wildly off-topic questions about anything ranging from dinosaurs to outer space, it can feel like your carefully prepared lesson barely made it past the first five minutes.
You’re not alone in that feeling. But here’s the hopeful truth: even when it looks like nothing is sinking in, your influence is far greater than you realize. Seeds of faith are being planted, often in ways you won’t see until years down the road.
While you are waiting for those “years down the road” moments, it’s important to remember that influence doesn’t begin years later—it begins right now. Every smile, every testimony shared, every gospel nugget repeated is shaping a child’s spiritual foundation.
The impact of a Primary teacher isn’t measured in one Sunday, but in the quiet consistency of showing up and pointing children toward Christ week after week.
The Long Game of Influence
Teaching in Primary is more like training than testing—you don’t see immediate results after one practice, but the repetition builds strength over time. Just like an athlete or a soldier trains in small, simple drills that eventually add up to being ready, Primary children are being prepared through simple, consistent gospel experiences. These gospel truths often work quietly in the hearts of children, long before they’re visible. Your influence may feel small in the moment, but it builds over time.
Alma reiterates this concept when he states,
“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” (Alma 37:6)
Children don’t usually leave Primary with polished doctrinal dissertations ready to go. But they often leave with something far more important: a growing familiarity with the Savior’s voice, an understanding that they are a child of God, and the assurance of being loved. This comes through repetition, through small gospel nuggets, through the consistent love of a teacher who shows up for them.
Here’s the key difference: with adults (andragogy), teaching often relies on life experience and self-direction. With children (pedagogy), it’s about steady guidance, repetition, and structure. That means your role as a Primary teacher is less about delivering one perfect, polished lesson and more about emphasizing and layering simple truths again and again.
Educational theory calls this spiral learning, revisiting simple truths over and over in different ways as a child grows. Today it might be a coloring page about prayer, next year a scripture story, later a testimony of a teacher. Each builds on the last, layer upon layer, until those truths become part of who they are. In this way you are contributing to a long-term foundation of faith. Even if you can’t see it yet, those small, steady efforts will echo years into the future. While influence grows slowly over time, what children feel in the moment matters deeply, it’s often the difference between gospel truths sinking in or sliding past.
The Child’s Perspective
When we think back to our own childhood, regardless if we were members of the Church at the time, chances are we don’t remember every detail of a lesson we were taught, or the exact wording of a scripture. However, we likely do remember how certain people made us feel. For most children, a Primary teacher isn’t just someone who delivers a lesson, they are often one of the first consistent examples of Christlike love and teaching outside of their immediate family.
In what is one of my favorite quotes to share with teachers, Maya Angelou said:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
For a child, being greeted by name each week, being listened to (even when their comment is wildly off topic) and being included in small responsibilities creates something powerful: belonging. Belonging is a basic human need. In Maslow’s hierarchy, after food and safety, one of the most essential drivers of growth is belonging. For Primary children, that belonging isn’t just about friendships or being part of a class. It’s one of the earliest ways they experience the love of God.
In Matthew 18:5, the Savior teaches that
“Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.”
When we look a child in the eye, call them by name, and bear a simple testimony, we’re teaching them something far greater than any lesson manual could ever provide, we are teaching them that they matter, that God knows and loves them, and that they are loved at church.
A Primary child may not walk away knowing every doctrinal detail, but they can walk away with three simple anchors:
- I am a child of God.
- Jesus loves me.
- I belong here.
And the simple fact is that those truths can and should become the foundation for every future gospel lesson they will ever hear.
Of course, knowing how important your influence is and how much children need to feel loved doesn’t mean you’ll see instant results. That’s where patience in gospel teaching comes in.
Patience in Gospel Teaching
As we have been alluding to, one of the hardest parts of teaching, especially in Primary, is not seeing immediate results. You pour your heart into a lesson, only to be met with blank stares, constant giggles, or a child raising their hand to ask if Jesus had pets. It can be wildly discouraging, but Alma teaches us that spiritual growth doesn’t always happen on our timetable, and it is more like a seed:
“If ye will nurture it with much care it will get root, and grow up, and bring forth fruit.” (Alma 32:37)
When a seed is planted it does not sprout overnight, and neither do testimonies, in adults or children. What can often feel like a wasted lesson can become one more layer in a child’s foundation of faith. The Savior was consistently patient with how he taught the disciples. They almost always misunderstood Him, they constantly asked the same questions over and over again, and on rare occasions even fell asleep when He needed them most. Does that sound familiar to those of us who have taught Primary? Yet He kept teaching, kept repeating, and kept loving them until they were ready to understand.
Patience in teaching means being faithful in the small things: showing up consistently, bearing testimony, and trusting that what you’re doing matters, even when you don’t see the results. Patience reminds us that growth takes time, but that doesn’t mean our efforts are passive. There are simple, intentional ways to “water the seed” every Sunday.
Practical Ways to Make a Lasting Impact
If we can begin to think of our lessons like a spiritual bank account for each child, then perhaps we can see how each Sunday offers opportunities to make small deposits into a child’s testimony. Here are a few practices that may seem simple in nature, but over time they add up to something powerful:
- Call Each Child by Name – A child’s name is tied to their identity. When a child hears their teacher use it with warmth and consistency, it reinforces that they are seen and valued.
- Bear a Simple, Personal Testimony – When it comes to children, I love the phrase “Too long, they move on.” A testimony in general doesn’t need to be long. However, when talking with children even one or two sentences of “I know Jesus loves us” gives children something they will remember.
- Give Small Responsibilities – Let them pray, read a scripture, hand out papers, or hold an object for a lesson. Small acts of trust build confidence and belonging.
- Repeat Gospel Nuggets – Be consistent with repeating short, memorable gospel truths that children can carry with them (which we stated earlier): I am a child of God. Jesus loves me. I belong here.
- Connect the Lesson to Real Life – Work hard to show them how the principle of the lesson applies outside the classroom. “When you’re scared at school, you can pray,” or “Helping your brother is a way to follow Jesus.”
Take it a step further by giving a simple challenge they can try during the week, as a way to grow their testimony. For example: “Ask someone in your family to pray with you and see how it makes you feel.”
The following week, take a moment to ask about their experience. These small challenges create opportunities for children to live what they’ve learned and prepare them to build their own testimony through action.
At the heart of all these practices is trust. Children learn best when they feel safe, loved, and respected. If they trust you, they’ll listen to you; if they feel dismissed or talked over, they’ll tune out. Put simply: developing trust with the children you teach is what opens the door to learning.
These five simple actions outlined above don’t require an exorbitant amount of preparation or overly polished presentations. What they require is consistency, presence, and love. Over time, they shape how a child sees themselves, their Heavenly Father, and their place in His gospel.
Encouragement for Teachers
Teaching children is sacred work, but it isn’t easy. Some Sundays you’ll feel like you barely hold things together, and others you’ll wonder if anything you said mattered at all. When those doubts creep in, remember this: your calling is not about perfection, it’s about presence.
Children don’t need flawless lessons, they need a teacher who smiles at them, calls them by name, and shows them what discipleship looks like in real life. They need someone steady enough to remind them that church is a safe place where they belong.
So, measure your success differently, success is NOT a quiet classroom or a perfectly followed lesson plan, success IS the child who feels noticed, the one who whispers a prayer during the week because of something you said, or the one who simply knows they are loved at church.
The Savior’s promise is sure:
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)
You may not always see the results, but the Lord does, and He sees you.
Your Quiet Power
Primary teachers, please, never underestimate the quiet power of what you’re doing. The children may not always give you the head nods, the answers, or the reverence you hoped for, but you are shaping lives in ways you cannot yet see.
With that in mind teach every lesson as if it’s the one they’ll remember twenty years from now. Keep it simple, keep it centered on Christ, and keep showing up with love. If you do that, the Lord will magnify your efforts. He will take your small and simple acts of faith and turn them into testimonies, confidence, and belonging that last a lifetime.
And one day, whether in this life or the next, you’ll see that none of it was wasted. They will remember, I am a child of God, Jesus loves me, I belong here.
