(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Ask Pastor John podcast. This week we are joined by guest Ted Tripp, probably best known for his two best-selling parenting books, Shepherding a Child's Heart and Instructing a Child's Heart. Dr. Tripp, thank you for joining us this week. We have a big week ahead, so let's get right into it and let's start big picture.

Parenting is hard and demanding work, and I think every parent would agree with that, but are the aims and goals of parenthood really all that complicated? In other words, do Christian parents seem to oversimplify parenting or make it too complex? What do you say? - Well, I think that, as you said, parenting is hard work and it requires time and focus and intentionality, but I don't think that necessarily has to be terribly complicated either.

You know, one of the problems we have, I think, in modern culture is that people want to have children, but they don't necessarily want to be parents. You know, we almost view children sometimes as possessions. You know, I've got these kids, aren't they cute? Especially when they're real young, you know, and everyone oohs and ahs over your children.

But the calling of being a parent is really a full-time focus. It's got to be one of the primary things that you're involved in when you're raising children. So I think, Tony, that knowing God, modeling God's ways for our children is really the big picture idea, you know, that I'm a Christian.

I love God, and I want to draw my children into that whole spiritual world of this wonderful God and love for him and delight in him, helping them to see and embrace the goodness of God's ways and the richness of God's truth. That's where I want to be going with my kids all the time.

So, and I think, you know, in the simplest terms, kind of the overview that I want parents to take away from my work on parenting is that the goal is not just managing behavior. The goal is really shepherding the heart. The goal is to nurture, so that my responsibility as a parent is not just to control, to constrain, to limit the range of choices, to manage this kid so that he jumps in my hoops and does the things that I would like him to do.

'Cause I think a lot of parents end up with no more profound focus than that, even Christian parents. But I want to be shepherding his heart. I want him to understand that the heart is the wellspring of life. It's Proverbs 4:23. Above all else, guard your heart, for it's the wellspring of life.

All the choices and desires and purposes of the person are bound up inside. And, you know, we make choices and make decisions based on what is attractive and important to us. You know, all the way through raising kids, that's what I want to do. Now, the way you do it is gonna be very different with a two-year-old than with a teenager.

I mean, a two-year-old's not gonna be self-conscious about motivation. I can't ask him about his heart. He doesn't even understand. He lacks the vocabulary, the insight, the understanding, the facility with ideas to even interact with that question. So, you know, you begin with kids talking about the heart even when you do correction.

I mean, so a little child, you know, knocks over his sister and takes her toy. I want to correct that behavior. Honey, no, no, you may not do that. Your sister was playing with that. We're gonna give that back to her. When I correct her or correct him, I'm going to use the language of the heart to describe the thing.

So, honey, you're not being kind to your sister. You're loving yourself. You're not loving her. You're serving yourself. You're not serving her. You must give the toy back to your sister. She was playing with it. That's a way that you can express love for her. So that I'm, even in my correction of this two-year-old, I'm talking about things other than just, give her back that toy, that's bad.

Don't be bad. You know, be nice to your sister. Well, those terms don't have any meaning. There's no content to them. So I'm gonna give content to that by talking about the heart. Then with older kids, obviously, you can talk about heart issues much more thoroughly and even teach them through their middle years about attitudes of heart and the way that behavior is pushed and pulled by what goes on inside.

- Yes, so parenting is really, by God's grace, aimed at raising faith-filled Christians. Can you boil it down like that? - Sure, I think that, yeah, I want to raise kids that understand the world of reality. There's a God in heaven. He's glorious, he's good, and I want them to see his goodness.

- Yeah, so good. Thank you, Dr. Tripp. And parenting expert Ted Tripp will be with us all week. He is the author of two best-selling books, Shepherding a Child's Heart and Instructing a Child's Heart. So what is the single greatest threat to the Christian family? I'll ask Dr. Tripp that question tomorrow.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)