Shepherding a Child's Heart

This weekend, we had the great privileged of attending a parenting conference instructed by Dr. Tedd Tripp, pastor and author of several books, including Shepherding a Child's Heart.  His writings and specifically that book have been highly influential to me over the past 4 years of being a mother.  I was so excited and blessed that he was coming to town and we quickly purchased our tickets for the Friday night/Saturday morning event. 

Although the conference didn't offer a lot of earth shattering, mind blowing information to me, because much of it is based from his books I have already read...it was a Great time of encouragement.  We did walk away with ideas to try and a refocus on our goals and objectives as parents.  Here are a few things that I felt like he drilled into us through the event:

~ We are all created to worship.  Every person on this planet is a worshiper, the question is, What are you worshiping?  You are either worshiping the almighty God, Creator and Author of life...or something or someone else.  My children WILL worship...they will either worship God or idols.  We must not allow the things of this world to blind them to awe, wonder and majesty of God.

~Children have been commanded to obey and honor their parents, and they are promised that it may go well with them and that they may enjoy a long life on the earth.  It is a blessing to them to obey mom and dad. *Ephesians 6:1

~His key verse really is Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."  We need to ask God to turn our children's hearts toward Him.  I can not speak to behavior without reference to the heart.  My child's behavior is reflecting what is going on in their heart.  We need train our children's hearts and pray that it is renewed and not just try to modify bad behavior to good behavior.  The hearts needs to be transformed.

~He spent a whole session on discipline.  How to discipline, When to discipline.  To get a full understanding, you should read Shepherding a Child's Heart...or talk to me in person (reading the book would be much more insightful though than listening to me:-).

~We must teach Godly attitudes. i.e. replace love of self with love of others, pride with humility,

~Communication is really the ability to understand the thoughts and ideas of your kids.  Draw out the deep waters of their hearts (Proverbs 18:13)

My biggest mistake happened this morning though.  I was prepping Nicole and Hannah with the fact that we were going to a different church with a different nursery.  When Nicole asked why, I told her that Mommy and Daddy were going to a class to learn how to be better mommys and daddys.  Later today, I figured out I should have said that differently.

Nicole got into a lot of trouble today after nap time (she smeared lip gloss all over the wall in several spots and over different pieces of furniture...and all over Hannah's face).  As we were talking about the incident and how she would be discipline for it, she started crying and said, "But, I thought you went to that church today to learn how to be a better mommy and daddy".  Haha.  OK, not funny then...at least not to Jeremy who was dealing with her (although across the room and behind her back, I did smile...that little smartie pants!).  What she doesn't understand yet though is Hebrews 12 (the whole chapter is a great encouragement to parents I think), verse 11 "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwords it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

I highly recommend Shepherding a Child's Heart and I also highly recommend a little pamphlet by a mom named Ginger Plowman called Wise Words for Moms.  This has come in so handy over the years as it gives you scriptures to help your children through different acts of disobedience, sin or just issued like fear.