| Shepherding A Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp
Regarded by many as one of the best books on parenting, Shepherding a Child's Heart is based on the underlying principle that our role as parents is to guide our children to understand themselves and the world in which they live. To do this effectively, we have to do more than just tell our children, we must lead them through open communication, self-disclosure, living out our values - shepherding their hearts.
The book is laid out in two parts: Foundations for Biblical Childrearing (the philosophy) and Shepherding Through the Stages of Childhood (the implementation).
Tripp begins with exploring the idea that the heart determines behavior. He walks through the various influences of our children's development that affect what fills their hearts. He then reminds parents of their place of authority.
Tripp then moves into a section on goals, shifting our focus from ourselves to God. For example, rather than wanting to raise well-behaved children - because it makes us look good or because it gives us control - we want to raise children who love God so much that they want to live in obedience to Him (not just us!)
The last section of the first part discusses many different Biblical methods, ranging from communication to spanking.
The second part is intended to be a more practical implementation of his philosophy.
The key thing that distinguishes Tripp's book from most parenting books is that he rightly understands that our goal in parenting is not to produce children who are merely obedient, nor is it to produce children who are merely happy. Rather, both of these are the beneficial result of raising our children in such a way that we are always addressing the issues of the heart (selfishness, rebelliousness, discontent, etc.) rather than just working on external behavior. |
