Grace Based Parenting

Shari read this book several months ago, and insisted that I need to read it. I was in the middle of a couple of books at the time, and put it off for a while. However, she uncharacteristically kept pressing it, so I decided it was pretty important; important enough to put down my book on worship and take up this one. So, I've been reading "Grace Based Parenting" for a month now (I'm still reading a couple other books, too), and I can see why she was so adamant about me reading it. It's amazing and encouraging, even as it's convicting. Another reason I'm taking my time reading it is to digest what the author is saying and try to put it into practice. This stuff is important, and I don't want to just skim over it and say, "Oh, that was a good idea..." and move on to the next book.

I'm not going to comment on all I've been reading, as that would take more time and room than I want to give right now. However, here are a couple of recent quotes and thoughts. Some of these aren't new to me, but they were great reminders, while others were more than great reminders - they were things I absolutely have to get down before we lose our boys' hearts... even one boy's.

"Children need to know that their intrinsic value has nothing to do with where they place in the race of life, nor is it a statement of how much hope they really have... The other area where we give our children hope is when we show them how to turn their defeats into accomplishments... We need to exercise patience. It's a lot easier if we focus on the long-term goal of building a strong hope. We want our children to have reasons to believe that even with their defeats, they have much to look forward to."

"When these four things are done with the three inner needs of a secure love, a significant purpose, and a strong hope as their target, kids experience God's grace in a balanced way... Grace-based families are homes where children are given: 1) The freedom to be different; 2) The freedom to be vulnerable; 3) The freedom to be candid; 4) The freedom to make mistakes."

"The primary way to give our children grace is to offer it in place of our selfish preferences... In fact, the greater grace that children receive is when we can even see the sins we are inclined to commit against their hearts followed by our willingness to go against our selfish urges. So much grace is stolen in the heat of a moment." (emphasis mine)

"[Children] are young. Their hearts stir with an almost miraculous sense of wonder. Their young minds run wild and sometimes perform crazy gauntlets within their imaginations. God made them this way... He calls on parents to help them develop the maturity and skills to take on adulthood, but not at the expense of their unique nuances... When we get done leading them through [childhood], the sense of amazement is still supposed to be in place - only more sophisticated. Declaring war on his differences just because they don't fit our fancy is a good way to snuff out a child's sense of wonder and amazement for a lifetime."

As you can see, there's a lot to grasp, swallow, and digest, just in these few quotes. God, please help me to love my boys like you do. Tomorrow, something else about loving my boys, this time more directly from scripture.