I recently read the book
Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp. I would highly recommend this book to any parent. This is not a how to book so much as a book that looks into the whys of parenting. Rather than giving tips that may or may not work for your family it gives us principles that are important for every family.
Below are some of my favorite quotes from the chapters.
Calling:
It's possible for a mom to be more worried about stains on her couch that the soul of her son...
How has the value of career success impacted your commitment to the work that God has called you to as parents?
The chief reason God put parents in children's lives is so that they would know Him.
... connect everything you require of your children in behavior and belief to the story of redemption.
... don't feel it's weird to talk about God all the time.
Grace:
... parents who admit that they are inadequate and run to God make the best parents. You see, He doesn't ask you to be able; He asks you to be willing.
I am more like my children than unlike them... and so are you.
... if you are a parent who quickly confesses wrong to your children, you will endear yourself to them and present yourself as someone who will be approachable when they have failed.
In every moment you are parenting your children, the heavenly Father is parenting you.
Do you think about, speak to, and act toward your children out of a tender heart?
Law:
Thousands of well-meaning Christian parents are asking the law to do in the lives of their children what only the powerful grace of God can accomplish.
One of the most dangerous things in your child's life is his blindness to the depth of his spiritual need.
Inability:
God has given you authority for the work of change, but has not granted you the power to make that change happen.
Threat without grace is a tool of external control that will fail to change your son or daughter in the foundational way that every child needs to be changed.
He loves our children infinitely more than we do and as evidence of that love, He has placed them in a family of faith where the story of His love will be heard again and again.
Identity:
Your belief system or your worldview is always being exposed by how you parent those who have been entrusted to your care.
... we begin to treat our kids as if they were given to us to be a living argument or case statement for the fact that we are good people and are doing our job well in life.
God didn't give you your children to build your reputation but to publicly proclaim His.
Process:
Your job would be so much easier if you were parenting a spiritually sighted person, who saw herself accurately.
... take advantage of the little moments of life to take little steps with your children.
What gets in the way of good parenting is not a lack of opportunity... What gets in the way of parenting is one thing: the character of the parent.
Lost:
... you mustn't be content with alleviating the symptoms while your children are suffering from a condition that is destructive to them and will be heartache to you.
You should never be irritated in those moments where it is clear that your children need you.
Authority:
Teaching and modeling the protective beauty of authority is one of the foundations of good parenting.
To reject authority is to reject God.
The authority that you have is ambassadorial authority.
You should never let your exercise of authority be dictated by your mood.
You want to be used of God to help your children begin to believe that submission to authority is where life and freedom are to be found.
What kind of picture are your children getting of God's authority by the way you exercise yours?
Don't tell yourself that those little moments of resistance to your authority are unimportant because the issue at hand is not important.
Foolishness:
... lasting change in behavior of your children will always travel through the pathway of the heart.
The only solution to your child's addiction to his own glory is to introduce him to a greater glory.
Are you capturing theses glory moments with a mission to rescue your children from their foolishness?
... since your children do not come into the world hungering for God's wisdom, as a parent you have to be committed to be a salesman for it.
Character:
You must emphasize the need for character development.
... the heart of your child always lives under the rule of someone or something.
The character issues in the lives of your children exist not just because they want bad things, but because they become enslaved to good things.
False gods:
Children do what they do because of what they worship.
... every day of our life is a war of worship.
Many parents unwittingly separate Christianity from everyday life as they parent their children, and in separating Christianity from daily life, they fail to make worship as important as it is.
... help your children to see and own what is motivating them to want what they want and to do what they do.
Control:
What God as your heavenly Father knows you need, He has called you to provide as you represent Him in the lives of your children.
... your children don't come into the world seeing their sin or acknowledging its gravity.
Every sin puts your children in the center of the world and makes life all about them.
It's not enough to say that your children sin. You and they must come to recognize that they are sinners.
... the doorway to hope is hopelessness.
Rest:
... if you spend your mental and spiritual time meditating on the struggle and not meditating on your Lord, you're probably going down.
Aloneness is a cruel lie that will defeat us every time.
Here's the core mission of parents: to raise up children who approach everything in their lives as disciples of Jesus.
... He wants you to know that He is exercising His authority for the benefit and success of the mission to which He has called you.
Christian parenting is about raising children who live with a "God's story" mentality.
It's not your weaknesses that you should fear, but your delusions of strength.
Is your parenting fueled by trust?
Mercy:
... your primary calling as a parent isn not first to represent God's judgement, but rather to constantly deliver His mercy.
Mercy is parenting with a tender heart.
Mercy is about being firm and unyielding and loving all at the same time.
It's natural for me to be more upset by the wrongs of others than i am of my own.
... if you forget who you are and what you need, it becomes easier to parent your children without mercy.
... grace moves toward wrong, not to condemn, but to rescue, restore, help, and forgive.
The things parents say and do in anger are invariably the things they live to regret.
... He has called you not only to parent your children but to lay down your life for them.
Parenting really is a life of holy repetition.
