Shepherding a Child's Heart

Erratic Eclecticism
This approach is exactly what the name implies. It is erratic in
that it moves about. There is no consistency. It is eclectic as it freely
draws from many sources. The parent gets bits and pieces from a
variety of methods. A few ideas picked up skimming the Reader’s
Digest in the supermarket checkout are joined to ideas from a chat
session in the church nursery. And so it goes. Like a rolling snowball
picking up snow, ideas are added along the way.
For a few weeks, Mom and Dad try contracts. That gets boring and
doesn’t seem to work as well for them as it did for someone else.
They hear a sermon about spanking and decide that is the need.

---

Maybe they waited too long to start this. They try grounding for a
spell. They try a season of emotional appeals. They use bribery for a
few days. Mostly, they feel frustrated, scared, and yell a lot.
Their children are confused. They are not sure what Mom and Dad
want. They are never sure what system is in effect now. In the end,
they are worse off than if Mom and Dad had picked almost anything
and stuck with it.
You could probably add to this brief list several other possible
methods of childrearing. This list is only suggestive. We need a
biblical methodology.
Evaluating Unbiblical Methods
Where do these unbiblical methods take us? What kind of fruit do
they bear? While we have discussed several differing approaches,
they all lead to the same problems. They lead to superficial parenting,
rather than shepherding the hearts of our children. They only address
behavior. Hence, they miss the point of biblical discipline.
Biblical discipline addresses behavior through addressing the
heart. Remember, the heart determines behavior. If you address the
heart biblically, the behavior will be impacted.
The expediency of dealing with behavior rather than the heart
means that deep needs within the child are ignored. You can’t respond
to Suzie yelling at Jimmy by simply telling her to stop yelling. The
problem is not that she is yelling at her brother. The problem is the
anger and bitterness in her heart that her yelling expresses. If you
only try to change behavior, you are missing the real issue—her heart.
If you can successfully address the real issue, the behavior problem
will be solved.
Superficial parenting that never addresses the heart biblically
produces superficial children who do not understand what makes
them tick. They must be trained to understand and interpret their
behavior in terms of heart motivation. If they never have that training,

---

they will drift through life, never understanding the internal struggles
that lie beneath their most consistent behavior.
Parenting that focuses only on behavior does address the heart.
The problem is that the heart is addressed wrongly. Changing
behavior without changing the heart trains the heart toward whatever
you use as your means. If it is reward, the heart is trained to respond
to reward. If approbation, the heart is trained to strive for approval, or
to fear disapproval. When the experts tell you that you must find what
works with each child, they are saying you must find the idols of the
heart that will move each child.
Your child is a covenantal creature. The heart is the well-spring of
life. Addressing the child’s heart unbiblically plays to the corruption
of his heart as an idolater and provides him with functional idols
around which to organize his life. In this sense, whatever you do
addresses the heart. When I note above that the heart is not addressed,
I mean it is not addressed biblically.
There is another problem. If you address only behavior in your
children, you never get to the cross of Christ. It is impossible to get
from preoccupation with behavior to the gospel. The gospel is not a
message about doing new things. It is a message about being a new
creature. It speaks to people as broken, fallen sinners who are in need
of a new heart. God has given his Son to make us new creatures. God
does open-heart surgery, not a face-lift. He produces change from the
inside out. He rejects the man who fasts twice a week and accepts the
sinner who cries for mercy.
Let’s imagine you are dealing with the problem of a child’s failure
to do his homework. Here are several common, but unbiblical,
approaches used to change a child’s behavior.