Parenting with Grace and Truth is a timely book for to parents who desire to live and lead like Jesus. You will be drawn to the "grace and truth" concept because our culture idolizes serving self over others, which makes it incredibly difficult to raise children from a biblical foundation.
In twelve chapters, author Dan Seaborn explores the notion of what parenting would be like if you handled the delicate balance of speaking truth into your children’s lives, while loving your kids with a heart full of grace. Parenting with Grace and Truth will help parents discover that every aspect of parenting is satisfied through the person and character of Jesus Christ. . .a must-read for parents of all ages!
Parenting with Grace and Truth is a timely book for to parents who desire to live and lead like Jesus. You will be drawn to the "grace and truth" concept because our culture idolizes serving self over others, which makes it incredibly difficult to raise children from a biblical foundation.
In twelve chapters, author Dan Seaborn explores the notion of what parenting would be like if you handled the delicate balance of speaking truth into your children’s lives, while loving your kids with a heart full of grace. Parenting with Grace and Truth will help parents discover that every aspect of parenting is satisfied through the person and character of Jesus Christ. . .a must-read for parents of all ages!
Parenting with Grace and Truth: Leading and Loving Your Kids Like Jesus
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Parenting with Grace and Truth: Leading and Loving Your Kids Like Jesus
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Overview
Parenting with Grace and Truth is a timely book for to parents who desire to live and lead like Jesus. You will be drawn to the "grace and truth" concept because our culture idolizes serving self over others, which makes it incredibly difficult to raise children from a biblical foundation.
In twelve chapters, author Dan Seaborn explores the notion of what parenting would be like if you handled the delicate balance of speaking truth into your children’s lives, while loving your kids with a heart full of grace. Parenting with Grace and Truth will help parents discover that every aspect of parenting is satisfied through the person and character of Jesus Christ. . .a must-read for parents of all ages!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781683221562 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Barbour Publishing, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 582 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Parenting with Grace and Truth
Leading and Loving Your Kids Like Jesus
By Dan Seaborn
Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Copyright © 2017 Dan SeabornAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-68322-156-2
CHAPTER 1
The Truth about Developing Good Character in Your Children
Christians are called to emulate Christ's character. Therefore we are going to take a look at Jesus' life and how He loved and then learn how to practice that same philosophy in developing good character in our children. The first thing we should notice is that our parenting style has to move from being authority driven to love driven. Wouldn't you want to be compelled to action by love instead of authority? As a father of four children, I learned how to shift from an authoritarian-truth style of parenting to a godlier and more grace-filled approach without ever compromising the godly standards I believed in. I will share the ways in which this has worked for me — as well as some of the ways it has not. We will analyze together why it is more effective to parent with truth and grace than with truth alone. For me, this shift in approach took away the burden of parenting as an obligation and turned parenting into an opportunity. It moved me from being intrusive to being inclusive.
To understand Jesus' character, we have to look at the Word of God and see the ways in which Christ's character models truth and grace. Many parents today struggle to understand the delicate balance between the facts — truth — and the Christlike manner in which we can enforce those facts — grace. Most kids don't like the facts. If you spend your time reeling off fact after fact to your children, eventually they are going to stop listening. That broken-record approach has not proven successful in most situations. But if you learn how to parent the same way Jesus parents us on this earth, with a pivotal combination of truth and grace, the paradigm will shift and character will begin to emerge.
Our children develop character in their lives by emulating our behaviors and by responding to how we discipline or encourage their behavior. Developing good character in your children is not easy, but it can be done. The goal is to help your children establish character traits that will assist them in the process of maturing into strong, capable adults who can successfully manage their lives with Jesus Christ at the center. While there is no patented formula that will produce the character you desire for your children, you can start by instilling the character traits that represent the values you want your children to emulate — honesty, gratitude, forgiveness, respect, and generosity, to name a few.
Character is about how your children behave or, more specifically, about how they react or respond to situations. It is a personal code of conduct that develops as your children grow and mature. Instructing children to be honest and then expecting that outcome isn't enough. You have to show them. A child won't know how to treat people with respect until you have modeled this approach. No child will be naturally inclined to forgive, but a child can learn how to forgive by watching you. Before people live by the truth, they have to see the truth in action and recognize its value.
ARRIVING AT AGREEMENT
The first step in establishing character in children is for their parents to agree together about which values are important. This might include sitting down with your spouse on more than one occasion and mapping out a list of character traits that you jointly believe are essential to infusing positive moral fiber within your children's psyches. To begin this process, think about your own childhood and the traits that were or were not encouraged in you. What example did your parents give you? How did you learn to distinguish right from wrong?
The Word of God already provides a foundation for the kind of character we should all seek to develop. Even though adults still struggle with abiding by these commandments, if you begin to teach them while your children are young, they will have a much stronger likelihood of not straying from them.
While agreement on values may sound like a simple objective, you may find a significant contrast between what you and your spouse were taught in your respective childhoods. You might be surprised by the different ideas your spouse brings to the table. One parent may have come from a household in which generosity, respect, and gratitude were regularly exemplified, while the other may have been taught that little white lies are permissible, gratefulness is expressed for the most part on birthdays and holidays, and respect is optional, depending on the circumstance.
That first step toward agreeing on what is important to teach your children can be complicated, but with perseverance the goal can be reached. This list of values will be critical because it will be the baseline you use to educate your children over the next twenty years and beyond. Agreement is imperative; otherwise even the best attempts at training won't work. Truth will be compromised and grace misconstrued. The parent who doesn't agree that a particular value is important will overlook behaviors and won't fight for what is vital.
ESTABLISHING RULES TO DIE FOR
My wife, Jane, and I refer to our list of values as "rules to die for." We chose to call them that because we cherish these standards of excellence so highly that we would risk our lives to impart them. We went so far as to list them on a plaque that hangs on the wall just inside our front door. Anyone who comes into our house can clearly see what is important to us as a family — the truth we strive to live by.
In developing this list of "rules to die for" we did more than just sit down and discuss potential additions as a couple. We actually sought out and brainstormed with mentors or other adults who in our opinion were doing — or had done — a great job of raising their children. Why reinvent the wheel? During that time I was a youth pastor, so I was in a position to meet a lot of kids, as well as their parents. I observed these kids in an environment where their true character was displayed — without their parents watching. When I interacted with a teen whose character I admired, I sought out his or her parents for advice. Jane and I would treat the couple to a meal and then just sit back and pick their brains about what they were doing to inspire such great character in their children. Then we began to incorporate those nuggets into our own family life. It isn't that we took verbatim everything they said to us and incorporated their practices as our own, but we took all of the information given to us by all the couples with whom we met and decided together which approaches fit the values we wanted our family to embrace.
You don't have to be a youth pastor to encounter kids who exemplify the character traits you admire. Seek out friends or family members and gather their ideas for possible rules to die for. Then enlist the help of those closest to their kids to reinforce or model those ideals. For single parents in particular, this process could be extremely beneficial, though I would highly recommend this approach for all parents. This practice will help you avoid the extremes of being narrow-minded or what I will call "loose-minded" — which carries in my mind a connotation slightly different from "broad-minded." If you do find yourself solo parenting, this practice may also help to relieve the pressure of raising children alone. "It takes a village to raise a child" is true of children of single and married parents alike.
Each family's list of rules to die for will be unique. What might rise to the top in your household may not be as big a deal to someone else. For example, one family might allow their teens to watch PG-13-rated movies at a younger age than another, while still another might forbid them at any time. Regardless of what list of family values you end up with, the most important consideration is that you have developed them together and are mutually committed to standing behind them. Consistently presenting a united front to your children and not hedging on rules you have already labeled nonnegotiable is critical. Children will walk all over and manipulate parents who are inconsistent or who disagree with each other. For you as Christian parents, that unswerving united front should itself be one of your rules to die for!
STEPS TO DEVELOPING RULES TO DIE FOR
1. Identify a family or families you admire.
2. Write down two or three nuggets of wisdom they share.
3. With that information as a foundation, create your own list of rules.
COMMUNICATE THE RULES
Your rules to die for are not meant to be kept a secret. Once you have agreed on and established truths that will build character in your children, they need to be communicated clearly and in age- appropriate language. The most obvious way to communicate your values is to speak them verbally to your children. Certainly you can be creative in the presentation, but find a setting where you will have few interruptions and you can have their undivided attention. You will also need to reiterate and reinforce your rules from time to time. These rules will, directly or indirectly, be the stuff of conversations with your children throughout your lifetimes, but your greatest opportunity for getting this message across to them will be while they are still young and living under your roof.
THE POWER OF GRACE
Now comes the tough part. Making a concerted effort to come up with the rules and enforcing them with grace will require unending work backed by extraordinary perseverance. As parents, you have to follow through on these rules consistently, no matter how exhausted or busy you are at the time of a challenge or infringement. Most parents do a great job of communicating their rules and enforcing discipline the first couple of weeks or months, but as time passes, resistance slowly creeps in and begins to weaken resolve. You may grow weary of continuously dealing with the same issues and find yourself starting to ignore or turn away when you see something that needs attention. It won't be long, in fact, before you start choosing golf or shopping over problem- solving. We've all done it from time to time. At this point, the whole system behind the "rules to die for" can begin to slowly unravel, like a ball of yarn rolling down a hill. You will need to put your foot down and stop the madness before it overtakes your life.
I am currently advising a gentleman — a really nice guy who is still unfortunately very disconnected when it comes to dealing with the realities of his family. Like most of us, he sometimes prefers to ignore things that are happening in his home because, frankly, the job can be overwhelming. Or maybe he simply doesn't know what to do. But disengagement won't solve anything; far from maintaining the status quo, this approach will likely make matters worse. I have had conversations with this individual about the importance of his accepting and understanding his role as family leader. Sometimes exercising that role entails applying truth and grace that can be tough to come by. Nevertheless, it is a vital part of parenting. He, like you and me, needs to accept full responsibility for that which is his responsibility, because his children are watching and learning from his example. So even though he may be tired or hesitant because he is unsure of how to proceed, he needs to make sure he stays engaged and continues to participate in these critical aspects of parenting.
PAYING THE PRICE
Instilling character in your child will take longer than a day or a week. It will take years of teaching, guiding, and demonstrating what is important. Traits like gratitude, honesty, generosity, forgiveness, respect, humility, loyalty, integrity, and kindness will be internalized and valued by your children only if you take the first step to ensure that they understand and embrace their importance. Once you have established your rules to die for and communicated them to your children, be ready to enforce them at all costs. If they weren't important, they wouldn't come with such a high price — the cost of raising responsible children.
The progression entails establishing what the expectations are, clearly communicating the standards to your children, modeling the behavior you want to see from them, and consistently enforcing the rules and doling out consequences upon violation.
As the parent, you are the primary enforcer wherever and whenever you find yourself with your kids. You can't relinquish or soften your role when you are in the presence of others or when you are preoccupied or exhausted or just don't feel like parenting. Integrity and consistency are key. If we establish rules "to die for" that have no real or dependable meaning, we have defeated the very purpose for which we created them.
As you consider all that is at stake, think about the Ten Commandments and God's purpose for them. These truths are standards for us to live by — God's "rules to die for"! They were designed both to develop character in us and to protect us from harm. God knew that because of our sinful nature, we would need His guidance to be written down in terms clear enough so as not to be open to interpretation. That is the view I urge you to take of your "house commandments." Your children need to understand that these standards have been identified, defined, and developed by you, not by the opinion of your children's friends or what their parents may think!
When one parent chooses to relinquish responsibility and places the blame for decisions or enforcement of the rules on the other, your authority as a parenting unit is undermined. This is true even if the two of you are no longer married to each other. It is especially critical that stepparents are on board and in agreement, or the children will be nothing more than confused. No matter what the extenuating circumstances, or even your physical proximity as parents, operating as one parenting unit is key to developing character in your children.
For that reason, it is essential that neither Mom nor Dad caves in on important guidelines to try to curry the kids' favor. Stop worrying about whether your children like you and focus instead on setting up guidelines that will help them succeed in life. Put simply, this is your responsibility as parents. You owe it to your children to teach them to make the right choices in life by serving as their example and their mentor, not their best friend.
HONESTY — THE BEST POLICY
When one of our sons was in third grade, his mother and I had to deal with an honesty infraction through balancing truth and grace. Being honest at all times is a "rule to die for" in our home. If it is also a non-negotiable for your household, you have probably pointed out to your kids numerous times: "You will get into more trouble for lying than you will for whatever the offense is you want to lie about." As a friend of mine expresses it, "If you lie, you won't get by."
This particular incident came to my attention as I was driving home from work. I had called my wife to see what she was doing and to tell her I was on my way home. She told me briefly about her day and then said, "Honey, when you get home, you have to deal with a pretty significant issue related to one of the kids." Right then my heart skipped a beat. I rolled my eyes and felt my blood pressure rising. I was hugely disappointed. I wanted to point my car in the direction of the golf course and ignore my responsibilities, because the last thing I wanted to do after a tiring day was deal with one of the kids. But because I wanted to instill character within my children, I asked her to fill me in on the rest of the story.
She proceeded to tell me that our son Josh had admitted to cheating on a test at school. After I hung up the phone, I found myself fuming. I remember thinking, Boy, am I going to nail that kid when I get home. I can't believe he would do that sort of thing! Right at that moment, a convicting realization forced its way into my internal monologue: when I was in the same grade, I also had cheated at school.
The rest of my drive home was consumed with a conversation I had with myself about how I would talk to my child, incorporating an admission that I had struggled with the same scenario at the same age and stage. How would I explain that although this was unacceptable behavior, I had done the same thing? By the time I got home and my son and I had gone into what we call the "wobble" room — a place where there is a little give-and-take — I was prepared for a great conversation.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Parenting with Grace and Truth by Dan Seaborn. Copyright © 2017 Dan Seaborn. Excerpted by permission of Barbour Publishing, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,1. The Truth about Developing Good Character in Your Children,
2. Is Parenting with Grace and Truth Normal?,
3. The Truth about Discovering Your Children's Unique Talents and Abilities,
4. The Truth about Parenting through a Crisis,
5. The Truth about Effective Parenting,
6. The Truth about Blended Families,
7. The Truth about the Roles of Mom and Dad,
8. The Truth about Preparing for A to Z but Living from A to B,
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