Instructing a Child's Heart

Somehow, I managed to squeeze in a little time to put up this post. In case you haven't noticed, Sandy has discovered the joy of blogging in these last few posts. We now share a new hobby!I recently finished Instructing a Child's Heart by Tedd and Margy Tripp. I discovered Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp almost 14 years ago and loved it. At the time, I did not have kids, but I was working as a children's pastor. Now as a parent, I have grown to appreciate it more as well as this one, his most recent book.

In Instructing a Child's Heart, Tripp asserts that parents need to instruct children to a biblical worldview. He calls this formative instruction. It is different from corrective discipline. He writes, "Formative instruction should be happening all the time. Discipline should be applied only when behavior needs to be corrected. If the only time we instruct is when our children need discipline, our children will not listen to our instruction for fear of the discipline...Corrective discipline is understood when it is founded on effective biblical formative instruction. Corrective discipline without adequate formative instruction sows seeds of confusion and rebellion in our children."

Formative instruction is teaching that "forms our children." It is instruction that is "before the problem instruction. Its focus is interpreting and responding to life in biblical ways. It is both planned and unplanned." It is both planned family worship (like our family Bible times every night) and spontaneous conversations about school, bugs and friends.

The book is divided into 3 parts - the call to formative instruction, the introduction to formative instruction, and the application of formative instruction. The first section explains why God calls us to formative instruction. The second section explains the elements of formative instruction - proper communication, instructing the heart, sowing and reaping, understanding authority, wisdom and foolishness, the importance of the church, etc. The last section gives practical instruction on how to carry out all of these elements.

But all throughout the book, Tripp does an excellent job giving practical illustrations of what he means and how to talk with your children. He gives many sample conversations that are both simple and profound.

There really is so much that is good in this book, but I think the simple core of it all is that Tripp helps us as parents to not just teach our kids to stop disobeying or what to do to obey. He shows us how to get to the heart of their behavior - how to talk to our kids about why they are disobeying and why they need to obey. It's about how to bring the Gospel to every situation of our children's lives and thus every situation of parenting.

Too often as parents (when I talk to parents and myself too), we seek a "secret" method, a silver bullet, that will turn our kids into the Christians we hope they will become. Or we look back and think if we had only done this, our kids wouldn't be having these problems now as if by improving our parenting methodology, we would get better "results." But Tripp wisely avoids this trap and exhorts parents to BE the Christians we want our children to be.

• "The most effective way to teach our children to love the Scriptures is to love it ourselves. They will see us longing to read it, hear it, [memorize it!] and understand it, and learn that it is valuable."
• "Parenting that exhibits a vital relationship with God in all the joys and storms of life is irresistible to children and young people. Conversely, the surest way to harden our children's hearts to God and his ways is 'having a form of godliness but denying its power' (2 Tim 3:5)."
• "They will believe that Christian faith is the genuine article if we know God - not just know about God...Our relationship with God will beckon our children to draw near to him as their source of comfort and rest."
• "Our love for God is the foundation for anything we have to say. We cannot impress our children with the fame of God's name if we are not impressed with him ourselves...We must be dazzled by God. We cannot give away what we don't have...Many say they believe in God, but too few delight in Him. Delighting in God is more persuasive than many words."

Sure this book helped me with many practical suggestions on parenting that I have been implementing right away. Sure this book helped clarify my thinking as to why I'm parenting the way I am. But most importantly, this book helped me to delight in God and His glorious splendor. I could go on and on with quote after quote, but it'd be much better if you just went out and read the book. I highly recommend it.