Shepherding a Child's Heart

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Summary: I prayed as I read (and re-read) this book
Review: Reading this book prompted me to pray on a more consistant basis for my husband and me and for our children.

Mr. Tripp doesn't offer a technique or set of rules. What he does in this remarkable book is exhort the parents to love and to know their children, and to lead them to the Cross.

I found the book to be inspired. Reading it convicted me, and brought me to my kneas before the Lord. I can think of no higher compliment.

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Summary: "Spare the rod, spoil the child" multiple times in Scripture
Review: Shepherding a Child's Heart is the #1 resource used by our pastors in mentoring young parents. I would make the point that spanking is not hitting. I would also point out that Proverbs speaks over and over again about discipline via "the rod;" for example, Pr 13:24: "The one who will not use the rod hates his son, but the one who loves him disciplines him diligently." There are a half dozen more references, and "rod" is a metaphor for discipline, not a basis for out-and-out whipping. These verses serve as a basis for Tripp's argument, and that argument is that correction is a long-term kindness to a child. What is funny to me is that suddenly in the last few years we have decided that no one knew how to parent before the anti-spanking lobby became vocal. It's ludicrous - just look at the youth of today. Many, if not most, are undisciplined, reckless, and foolhardy. And by the way, this is a worldly-wise 25 year-old father speaking. Thanks, Mr. Tripp, for staying true to conventional & godly wisdom.

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Summary: Yet another colossal waste of good money!
Review: Ted Tripp's parenting advice will send your child running away from God. As a Christian mother, I was interested in a book that dealt with the heart of the child not their behavior, which stems from the heart. This book was nothing but a long winded waste. It tells you to hit you child on "God's authority" by twisting scripture to fit their objectives, and by pitting parent against child as aversaries instead of a single unit united in God's love and grace. I was never more diappointed in a book in all my life.

If you are truly interested in doing what the title suggests ans really shepherding your child's heart, buy Biblical Parenting. It delivers. We use it and I testify that it makes all the difference!

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Summary: Required Reading for Christian (and non) parents
Review: Tedd Tripp writes a lucid, thoughtful and encouraging piece. This book is well reasoned, well supported and well orgnized. Frankly, I could not put it down, which is saying a lot for me, a busy executive with an Internet Start-up. As a fairly new Christian, I found that the book really informed my method and mode of disicplining my two sons. I realized that I wasn't going it alone. Its not me against my son. My job is to act as God's agent and help my sons develop a godward orientation and understanding of the power of Jesus Christ's atoning death on the cross. If your a Christian or a seeker or just interested in how to have a fulfilling relationship with your children, this book is an outstanding and truly enjoyable read.

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Summary: I found the book to be insulting and dangerous
Review: The author makes himself out as an expert, with *his interpretation* of scripture being THE way to parent. Those who are able to think for themselves and who are able to study scripture for themselves, may find that the "truth" in how to parent is not the same as the script Tripp presents. The author seems to think that one must parent according to *his* recipe... even down to baring a child so that when a parent hits (spanks) their child, it will hurt more. It is disturbing to think that well-meaning and loving parents might buy into his scare tactics - his way is not THE Biblical way, but merely his own thoughts. While we all believe that the heart of a child matters, the way to a child's heart should be through compassion, love, tenderness... not through authoritarianism, egocentric parenting, or violence. There are much better Christian parenting books out there... Dr. Sears, for example, is absolutely wonderful. Sears puts to shame such self-proclaimed experts as Tripp.

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Summary: Foundation misguided
Review: The author of this book is clearly a man who loves the Lord and loves his children. However, a reader/potential reader should "get a second opinion" before accepting at face value statements such as "In these early years of childhood, the rod is primary...because God has commanded it."(Page 148) The second opinion could come from a Hebrew scholar regarding the fact that the word translated "child" in the quoted passages from Proverbs would be more accurately rendered "youth," or one might consult another Bible-based book by a committed evangelical, Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson.

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Summary: Practical advice from a radically different philosophy
Review: 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 obedient, nor is it to produce children who are 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 the externals.

Tripp gives some very practical advice to this end: how to recognise the "teachable moments", how to spank, the problems with strategies that don't work (e.g. bargaining or bribery). He also makes it clear that discipline only works in an atmosphere of trust and communication. I was very pleasantly surprised to see someone agree with me that in a situation where you "know" your child has done something wrong, but you don't have the evidence to prove it, the right thing to do is to encourage honesty on their part, but if necessary to let them get by with it, rather than acting on a presupposition that might be wrong and injuring the trust between parent and child. He also writes a good bit about parenting goals and strategies for different age groups (from toddlerhood to teenage).

The book does have its flaws, though. The most serious is that Tripp does not do a sufficient job of setting the context of what we are about in parenting. Doug Wilson's Standing on the Promises does that well, and should be viewed as a necessary companion to this book. As another reader pointed out, he also does not effectively discuss how to build attachment during the early years (although he hints at it - for instance, his insistence that the child be laid across the lap for spanking is grounded in a desire to not distance the child and he condemns parenting methods that attempt to manipulate the emotional fears of children to achieve a result).

I was tempted to give the book a lower rating due to some philosophical problems with Tripp in his view of whether God promises to work through godly parenting to bring children to faith, his views of education and socialisation and so on. However, he does not work out a practice consistent with these flaws and touches on them only tangentially, so they can mostly be overlooked.

He also has a tendency to be a bit absolutist about things that aren't absolutes. For instance, he sees spanking as the only effective means of punishment in discipline. He rightly understands that the purpose of spanking is to get the child's attention so that the real work of discipline (the teaching aspect) can proceed out of the infraction, but doesn't seem to understand that with some children there are more effective means of getting their attention. I'm a big fan of spanking, but have recognised in my own daughter that sometimes the removal of privileges is much more effective.

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Summary: Not the last baby book I'll ever read
Review: There are two pretty extremely opposed camps out there, it seems, when it comes to Christian child-rearing, and interpreting the Bible. On the far end of the behavior mod spectrum is "Raising Kids God's Way," with many disciples. Then there are the extremely liberal "Do Whatever Your Heart Tells You" people (OK, I don't have any titles since I haven't gone there). This book brings quite a bit of good, solid Bibilical foundation to its approach. However, I found it to be lacking in how to practically attach to the child's heart. I preferred another book, "The Complete Book of Christian Parenting & Child Care : A Medical & Moral Guide to Raising Happy, Healthy Children" by Martha Sears and William Sears, M.D. However, this book recommends sparing the rod, and makes a very weak Biblical argument to that end (in fact, in quoting all the "disciplinary" versus, mostly from Proverbs, Sears ended up merely convincing me he was wrong). Despite this, Sears presents virtually the same approach towards spanking that Tripp does, but within a much more loving context. There is no doubt that both these books are written by committed Christians who have looked carefully to the scriptures for their guidance.

Hey, this is just my read. But from my perspective, the Tripp book taken within the basic frameword of very deep and loving involvement described by Sears seems to me to address both the need for discipline, how to administer it, but the need mostly for involvement.

Rating:
Summary: Not the last baby book I'll ever read
Review: There are two pretty extremely opposed camps out there, it seems, when it comes to Christian child-rearing, and interpreting the Bible. On the far end of the behavior mod spectrum is "Raising Kids God's Way," with many disciples. Then there are the extremely liberal "Do Whatever Your Heart Tells You" people (OK, I don't have any titles since I haven't gone there). This book brings quite a bit of good, solid Bibilical foundation to its approach. However, I found it to be lacking in how to practically attach to the child's heart. I preferred another book, "The Complete Book of Christian Parenting & Child Care : A Medical & Moral Guide to Raising Happy, Healthy Children" by Martha Sears and William Sears, M.D. However, this book recommends sparing the rod, and makes a very weak Biblical argument to that end (in fact, in quoting all the "disciplinary" versus, mostly from Proverbs, Sears ended up merely convincing me he was wrong). Despite this, Sears presents virtually the same approach towards spanking that Tripp does, but within a much more loving context. There is no doubt that both these books are written by committed Christians who have looked carefully to the scriptures for their guidance.

Hey, this is just my read. But from my perspective, the Tripp book taken within the basic frameword of very deep and loving involvement described by Sears seems to me to address both the need for discipline, how to administer it, but the need mostly for involvement.

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Summary: Horrible author
Review: This author promotes violence in children all shrouded by plattitudes of spiritual warnings that if you don't control your kids by every means possible, they will rebel and never follow God. Preposterous! There are effective alternatives to spanking and punative parenting in general and they can be carried out in the most Christlike of homes. Dr. Sears is a great resource to start with.