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Do you demand changed behavior from your child but
never address the heart that drives the behavior?
This information is probably the most important of any of the ideas I’ve shared with you. Parents often get focused on behavior and are satisfied when behavior changes to acceptable actions that they can sanction. What is the problem with that? The problem is: your child’s needs are far more profound than his unacceptable behavior. Remember that his behavior does not just spring forth uncaused. His behavior—the things he says and does—reflect his heart. If you are to really help him, you must be concerned with the attitudes that drive his behavior. We often demand changed behavior and never address the heart that drives the behavior. “Shepherd” a child by reaching his heart.
Shepherding a Child’s Heart
What must you do in correction and discipline? You must require proper behavior. God’s law demands that. You cannot, however, be satisfied to leave the matter there. You must understand, and help your child to understand, how his/her straying heart has resulted in wrong behavior. How did his/her heart stray to produce this behavior? What characteristic ways has his/her inability or refusal to know, trust, and obey God resulted in actions and speech that are wrong?
Let’s take a familiar scene from any home where there are two or more children. The children are playing and a fight breaks out over a particular toy. The classic response is “Who had it first?” This response misses the heart issues. “Who had it first?” is an issue of justice. Justice operates in the favor of the child who was the quicker draw in getting the toy to begin with. If we look at this situation in terms of the heart, the issues change.
Now you have two offenders. Both children are displaying a hardness of heart toward the other. Both are being selfish. Both children are saying, “I don’t care about you or your happiness. I am only concerned about myself. I want this toy. My happiness depends on possessing it. I will have it and be happy regardless of what that means to you.”
In terms of issues of the heart, you have two sinning children. Two children prefer themselves before the other. Two children are breaking God’s law. Sure, the circumstances are different. One is taking the toy that the other has. The other is keeping the advantage. The circumstances are different, but the heart issue is the same—“I want my happiness, even at your expense.”
You see, then, how heart attitudes direct behavior. It is always true. All behavior is linked to some attitude of the heart. Therefore, discipline must address attitudes of the heart.
This understanding does marvelous things for discipline. It makes the heart the issue, not just the behavior. It focuses correction on deeper things than changed behavior. The point of confrontation is what is occurring in the heart. Your concern is to unmask your child’s sin, helping him/her 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.
The heart is the wellspring of life. Therefore, parenting is concerned with shepherding the heart. You must learn to work from the behavior that you see back to the heart, exposing heart issues for your children. In short, you must learn to engage them, not just reprove them. Help them to see the ways that they are trying to slake their souls’ thirst with that which cannot satisfy. You must help your kids gain a clear focus on the cross of Christ.
This segment is taken in its entirety from Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Shepherd Press,
