The Parent’s Toolbox Recommends Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp

The author, Kristina with son. Photo by Ian Castillo

The principles presented in Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart profoundly differ from society’s approach to childrearing today. It embraces timeless truths from God’s Word and provides practical applications to guide and encourage parents to pursue a deeper purpose in discipline: to lead our children to the gospel.

Tripp outlines the purpose of discipline: “Discipline must address attitudes of the heart. Your concern is to unmask your child’s sin, helping him to understand how it reflects a heart that has strayed. That leads to the cross of Christ. It underscores the need for a Savior. It provides opportunities to show the glories of God who sent his Son to change hearts and free people enslaved to sin.”

With all the nuggets of wisdom that we’ve mined in his book, these are some that truly helped direct our approach in disciplining our son:

(PA: SHEPHERD PRESS, 1995)
1. Heart vs. behavior. “The behavior a person exhibits is an expression of the overflow of the heart”. A child’s heart determines his behavior. As parents, we are to “direct not simply the behavior of (our) children, but the attitudes of their hearts”. It is so easy to be distracted in correcting the behavior of our son because this is tangible. His words and actions are what we immediately see and respond to. However, if we only focus there, we will not be able to truly help him understand and deal with those sinful inclinations which would remain intact in his heart. We need to shepherd him by helping him identify what he did wrong and why. “Children are worshipers. Either they worship Jehovah or idols. They are never neutral… God has given children a reasoning capacity that distinguishes issues of right and wrong… This God-given conscience is your ally in discipline and correction. Your most powerful appeals will be those that smite the conscience. When the offended conscience is aroused, correction and discipline can find their mark”. In society today, many see truth as relative.  This causes concern in us wondering if our son would follow that kind of thinking and be tossed around by the different values and beliefs that are now emerging. To know that God has given each one a conscience that differentiates right from wrong encourages us to faithfully teach God’s Word.  It is always amazing for us to witness our son respond to Bible verses.  We remind him about 2 Corinthians 9:7 (“God loves a cheerful giver”) and immediately, he is able to share with others.  We ask him about Ephesians 6:1 whenever he’s struggling to obey. It’s not perfect, but we are seeing God’s Word redirect his heart on various occasions.
Kristina with son Eli
2. Parents as God’s representatives. “It is sobering to realize that you correct your child by God’s command… discipline is not you working on your agenda, venting your wrath toward your children; it is you coming as God’s representative, bringing the reproofs of life to your son or your daughter. You only muddy the waters when the bottom line in discipline is your displeasure over their behavior, rather than God’s displeasure with rebellion against his ordained authority”. Sometimes, we refuse to exercise our authority because we don’t want our child to resent us or feel that we don’t have the right to call him out if we ourselves struggle with the same sin. We fail to recognize that our God-given authority is our opportunity to bring the gospel to our little ones, helping them to understand our sinful nature and the mercy and grace of God. Submitting to our authority ultimately trains them to fully grasp their calling to submit to God’s authority. While we relent to exercise our authority, other times we tend to abuse it for our own comfort. Tripp points out, “While it is true that disciplined children are a joy to their parents, as God’s agents you cannot discipline for mere matters of self-interest or personal convenience. Your correction must be tied to the principles and absolutes of the Word of God.” There have been multiple times we corrected our son because we didn’t want to be inconvenienced. It can be as simple as not letting him brush his teeth by himself because it will waste a few minutes of our time. We’ve also had to have a major heart check whenever we train him to excel on a specific skill and find that we do it to bring pride to ourselves rather than bring glory to God. We need to train him according to what the Bible says, not based on our personal preferences and selfish ambitions.
  1. Communication and the rod. Tripp defines obedience as “doing what (a child) is told without challenge, without excuse and without delay.” To train obedience in our child, Tripp provided two approaches that needs to be done – the rod and the use of rich, full communication.
“The use of the rod preserves biblically-rooted parental authority. God has given parents authority by calling them to act as his agents in childrearing. The emphasis on rich communication prohibits cold, tyrannical discipline. It provides a context for honest communication in which the child can be known and learn to know himself”. Tripp emphasized that the rod is “never a venting of parental anger. It is not what the parent does when he is frustrated. It is not a response to feeling that his child has made things hard for him.”
Daddy Ian and son Eli on his first hike

We use the rod during these early years to catch our child’s attention, to make him understand the severity of his sin as rebellion to God’s law. If we distort the function of the rod and use it to threaten or punish our son, we will be pulling him away from Christ and the cross. We will be punishing him for a sin that Christ already died for. We use the rod to help him focus on the dialogue that we will have with him as we process the wrong that was done and understand what is going on in his heart.

Our main objective in correction is to bring out the heart issue that resulted to the wrong behavior. As our child understands his heart, we are then able to help him work through that by leading him to God’s Word. We also teach him to pray, seeking God’s help in obeying His word. We tell him that even Daddy and Mommy are not able to obey God without His help, so we always pray that He would guide us through His Word. Living out our convictions makes a huge impact on how our son receives our correction.

These three points enable us to stay focused on providing biblical discipline to our son. Ultimately, it is God who works in our son’s heart, but that doesn’t excuse us from not doing our part. God calls us to remain faithful in training our son. The approach will differ in the various seasons of his life, but our main objective will always be to shepherd his heart and lead him to God.

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