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:
- 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.
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.
Ian and Kristina Castillo met and married in the Philippines before settling down in California, USA. Ian currently works as a registered nurse while Tina stays at home with their two-year-old son. They are involved in a small Bible church in San Jose where they are being equipped to grow in the Lord and abide in His Word in their marriage and family.
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