I recently received an email from a dear brother in Christ. He’s the father of a young family and he and his wife are getting ready to read Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart. He was wondering if I had any other book recommendations or counsel for him. Here’s an edited version of my response:
The first thing I’d say to you is this: there’s no substitution for good models of godly homes. Some things can’t simply be taught. They have to be caught. Which is to say, there’s no substitution for growing up in a godly home.
If you’ve not grown up in a godly home, you are fundamentally twisted in your understanding of what a home should be. And twisted men and women have a tendency to twist sound biblical principles and see them in the light of their own twistedness. Especially when they read them in books or even hear them in sermons. They’re missing the filters they need to help them translate and apply what they are taught in a healthy way. That’s one of the many reasons why the church is so important in discipleship.
For many young couples, telling them to raise their children to be godly is like telling them to make bricks without straw. What does that even mean? Where do I start? Huh? Giving them good resources on parenting is the equivalent of giving them a big pile of straw to work with. Which is a good thing. But the problem is actually much deeper than that…
The real problem is they’ve never seen anyone make a brick before. In fact, they might not even know what a brick looks like. They’ll do better with straw than without it, but unless there are experienced and skilled workers around that can show them how to make a good, solid, lasting brick, you might be in for a surprise when you see the finished product.
All that to say, as much or more than you need to read and pray and study, you need to spend time in the homes of families in your church that are worthy of imitation—that offer you something to aspire to. Because as good or bad as either of the homes the two of you grew up in were, I have no doubt that what you’re aiming for is something altogether different, something you never had. You need to seek out as many opportunities to “catch” godly parenting as possible.
There’s one last thing I’d say—and this follows closely with our conversation a couple weeks ago and my recommendation of Reforming Marriage to you. The bedrock of Christian parenting is a happy and holy marriage. It doesn’t matter what you read or think or apply about parenting if you don’t love your wife and if she does not honor and submit to you. If your marriage isn’t healthy, if you’re not consistently working towards being a better picture of Christ and the Church, there will be no health in your parenting. The very first priority in raising godly children is cultivating a godly marriage.
If your home is a garden and your children the plants, your marriage is the soil. You can have the best tools in the world, the best seeds, the right amount of sun and shade and water, but if the soil isn’t rich and fertile it’s hopeless. And most modern American homes are like gardens planted in the wake of a nuclear meltdown. The marriages (if they even remain intact) are radioactive and the children grow up with two heads, glowing in the dark, and thinking that anything approximating “normal” is an exotic monstrosity.
So healthy kids start with healthy marriages. Which, among other things, means your wife needs to feel more like a wife than a mom. It means that you have to be making sacrifices to provide and protect her and the kids. It means you need to lead and act in your home as the authority that God has called you to be. It means that your wife’s respect for you and submission to you must be real and evident, obvious and sweet.
I can’t say it enough: a healthy and happy marriage is the seedbed for happy and holy children. It’s prerequisite. It provides the security and the freedom they need to flourish. And it establishes the reality of the Gospel in your home in such a way that your kids can’t escape it.
Marriage is meant to be a picture to your children and to the world of the Gospel—of Christ and His love for the Church. And your marriage is the best indicator of how much you actually believe the Gospel. Don’t lie to your children. See to it that they’re not growing up in the home of hypocrites.
Of course, there is so much more that can be said here. But having said all of that, there are some excellent resources I’d like to point you to. You’ve already mentioned Shepherding a Child’s Heart—which is a great place to start. Let me add a couple more books to your list:
When Pastor Tripp came and did his seminars at ClearNote a couple years ago, he told us Instructing a Child’s Heart is just as important, or more important, than Shepherding a Child’s Heart. One of the very important things that Tripp does is draw a distinction between formative and corrective discipline. Shepherding a Child’s Heart emphasizes corrective discipline. Instructing a Child’s Heart emphasizes formative discipline. So it’s helpful to have the two of them side by side.
Doug Wilson’s Standing on the Promises is also a very helpful book that makes a good companion to his Reforming Marriage. He’s more to the point than Tripp, focuses more on parenting in faith, trusting God’s promises for your children, and creating a family culture that honors God—what Tripp calls “shaping influences.” Helpful.
Ginger Plowman’s Don’t Make Me Count to Three is another good book. I haven’t read it, but Amanda likes it a lot. She says the strength of the book is that it’s written by a mom for moms, and is much more focused on being practical—what does it actually look like to work out the principles of Shepherding a Child’s Heart? Plowman also has a chart of discipline issues, helpful Scriptures to apply, and good things to say to your kids called Wise Words for Moms. We know a lot of moms that keep this in the bathroom or wherever they most frequently discipline their children.
Finally, Rachel Jankovic has an excellent book called Loving the Little Years. It’s not really a practical book on parenting. It’s just an encouraging read for moms of small children. I read it and loved it. It helped me grow in my appreciation of Amanda and all of her hard work. And Amanda was greatly encouraged by it. Jankovic is Doug Wilson’s daughter and she’s written some awesome articles on motherhood here: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/authors/rachel-jankovic
