Shepherding a Child's Heart

by Tedd Tripp

Parents tend to focus on the externals of behavior rather than the internal overflow of the heart.

When parenting short-circuits to behavior we miss the opportunity to help our kids understand that straying behavior displays a straying heart. Our kids are always serving something, either God or a substitute for God—an idol of the heart.

Experience may tell you failure is inevitable, but experience is an unsafe guide. The only safe guide is the Bible. It is the revelation of a God who has infinite knowledge and can therefore give you absolute truth. God has given you a revelation that is robust and complete. It presents an accurate and comprehensive picture of children, parents, family life, values, training, nurture, and discipline—all you need to be equipped for the task of parenting.

The parenting task is multifaceted. It involves being a kind authority, shepherding your children to understand themselves in God’s world, and keeping the gospel in clear view so your children can internalize the good news and someday live in mutuality with you as people under God.

You may not direct your children for your own agenda or convenience. You must direct your children on God’s behalf for their good.

The purpose for your authority in the lives of your children is not to hold them under your power, but to empower them to be self-controlled people living freely under the authority of God.

As a parent, you must exercise authority. You must require obedience of your children because they are called by God to obey and honor you. You must exercise authority, not as a cruel taskmaster, but as one who truly loves them.

Children rarely run from a home where their needs are met. Who would want to walk out on a relationship in which he feels loved and respected? What child would run from someone who understands him, understands God and his ways, understands the world and how it works, and is committed to helping him be successful?

children generally do not resist authority that is truly kind and selfless.

You cannot show him these things merely by instruction; you must lead him on a path of discovery. You must shepherd his thoughts, helping him to learn discernment and wisdom.

As a wise parent your objective is not simply to discuss, but to demonstrate the freshness and vitality of life lived in integrity toward God and your family. Parenting is shepherding the hearts of your children in the ways of God’s wisdom.

You need to direct not simply the behavior of your children, but the attitudes of their hearts. You need to show them not just the “what” of their sin and failure, but the “why.” Your children desperately need to understand not only the external “what” they did wrong, but also the internal “why” they did it. You must help them see that God works from the inside out. Therefore, your parenting goal cannot simply be well behaved children. Your children must also understand why they sin and how to recognize internal change.

“What is the problem?” you ask. The problem is this: Your child’s needs are far more profound than his aberrant behavior. Remember, his behavior does not just spring forth uncaused. His behavior—the things he says and does—reflects his heart. If you are to really help him, you must be concerned with the attitudes of heart that drive his behavior.

A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable

You must help your child ask the questions that will expose that attitude of the heart that has resulted in wrong behavior. How did his heart stray to produce this behavior? In what characteristic ways has his inability or refusal to know, trust, and obey God resulted in actions and speech that are wrong?

All behavior is linked to attitudes of the heart. Therefore, discipline must address attitudes of the heart.

You must learn to work from the behavior you see, back to the heart, exposing heart issues for your children.

Are the values of your home based on human tradition and the basic principles of this world or on Christ?

You must be concerned with providing the most stable shaping influences, but you may never suppose that you are merely molding passive clay. The clay responds to shaping; it either accepts or rejects molding. Children are never passive receivers of shaping. Rather, they are active responders.

Your children are responsible for the way they respond to your parenting.

We often are taught that man becomes a sinner when he sins. The Bible teaches that man sins because he is a sinner. Your children are never morally neutral, not even from the womb.

Parenting cannot be concerned only with positive shaping influences; it must shepherd the heart. Life gushes forth from the heart.

The task you undertake in childrearing is always concerned with both issues depicted in these charts. You want to provide the best possible shaping influences for your children. You want the structure of your home to furnish the stability and security that they need. You want the quality of relationships in your home to reflect the grace of God and the mercy for failing sinners that God’s character demonstrates. You want the punishments meted out to be appropriate and to reflect a holy God’s view of sin. You want the values of your home to be scripturally informed. You want to control the flow of events so that your home is not chaotic, but well-structured. You want to provide a healthy, constructive atmosphere for your child.

you must be actively shepherding the Godward orientation of your children. In all of this you must pray that God will work in and around your efforts and the responses of your children to make them people who know and honor God.

Are you and your spouse spending time in prayer for God to reveal himself to your children? Ultimately, God initiates any work in your children’s hearts.

When we allow our children to become independent decision makers we give them a false idea of liberty and a mistaken notion about freedom. Freedom is not found in autonomy, it is found in obedience. (Psalm 119:44-45).

As a parent, you have authority because God calls you to be an authority in your child’s life. You have the authority to act on behalf of God. As a father or mother, you do not exercise rule over your jurisdiction, but over God’s. You act at his command. You discharge a duty that he has given. You may not try to shape the lives of your children as pleases you, but as pleases him. All you do in your task as parents must be done from this point of view. You must undertake all your instruction, your care and nurture, your correction and discipline, because God has called you to. You act with the conviction that he has charged you to act on his behalf.

Deuteronomy 6 underscores this view of parental responsibility. In verse 2, God says his goal is for the Israelites and their children and grandchildren to fear the Lord by keeping his decrees. The person by whom God’s decrees are passed on is the parent whom God calls to train his children when they sit at home, when they walk by the road, when they lie down, and when they rise up. God has an objective. He wants one generation to follow another in his ways. God accomplishes this objective through the agency of parental instruction.

If you allow unholy anger to muddy the correction process, you are wrong. You need to ask for forgiveness. Your right to discipline your children is tied to what God has called you to do, not to your own agenda.

Unholy anger—anger over the fact that you are not getting what you want from your child—will muddy the waters of discipline. Anger that your child is not doing what you want frames discipline as a problem between parent and child, not as a problem between the child and God. It is God who is not being obeyed when you are disobeyed. It is God who is not being honored when you are not honored. The issue is not an interpersonal contest, rather it is your insistence that your child obey God, because obeying God is good and right.

We know that there is such a thing as righteous indignation, but righteous indignation responds to an affront to God rather than an affront to us. It is easy for a parent to say, “I am right and I am angry, therefore my anger is righteous anger.” It may...

Few are willing to say, for instance, “I have prepared oatmeal for your breakfast. It is a good, nutritious food and I want you to eat it. Maybe other mornings we will have something you like better.” Many are saying, “What do you want for breakfast? You don’t want the oatmeal I have prepared; would you like something else?” This sounds very nice and enlightened, but what is really happening? The child is learning that he is the decision maker. The parent only suggests the options.

Preliminary even to decision making is the importance for children to be under authority. Teach your children that God loves them so much that he gave them parents to be kind authorities to teach and lead them. Children learn to be wise decision makers by learning from you. Parents must be willing to be in charge. You should do this with a benevolent and gracious manner, but you must be an authority for your children.