Sunday, May 31, 2009

Loving Our Kids on Purpose - Book Review


I don't know if I have mentioned before that I have seven children. Four girls ages 20, 22, 24 and 26 and then we had the boys 6 years later and they are now 9, 12 and 14.

Through the years we have wandered our way through our parenting trying to do our best to love our children and bring them up to become successful adults who hopefully would choose to be lovers of God and man.

When one of them would do something funny or embarassing or crazy we would just look at each other and say, "Their parents were probably idiots," or "It comes from bad parenting!" We all (I think) always realized that we were simply trying to do our best with our kids to love them while providing guidelines and the necessary discipline to teach and train them.

Then the God Journey did a recommendation on Danny Silks, Loving Our Kids on Purpose. I was intrigued with what Wayne had to say about this book. I have loved Wayne's teaching on Grace and it has simply changed my life with how I relate to my Father. So when he said that here was a book on parenting that reflected this grace filled message and allowed us to parent our kids in a way that they could also understand the heart of God I sent away for the book.

After reading the book I also sent away for the 6 disk set on Danny teaching the series. Britt and I listened to it yesterday while driving to the North Carolina coast to stay for a few days with friends. (Best Friend is my bestest, bestest ever friend ever!!)

The series has absolutely blown me away. I wanted to be a parent who showed grace to my children but I had no idea exactly how to do that. To me it was either grace showed (which meant letting them get away with anything they wanted to do) or an old testament punishment system (if you sin, you will get punished). Exactly how could you be full of grace to your kids and yet hold a house together and train them up like we know they need? What do you do if they disobey? What if they are disrespectful? How do you get them to do their chores without punishment? And how do I show them the heart of the Father in all of that.

This series/book answers those questions while giving you VERY practical ideas of what to do and how to become creative in parenting our kids.

I can't wait till Marshall can listen to this with me. Over and over Britt and I would pause the tapes and exclaim..."Oh, I understand now...this makes so much sense!" We would look back on episodes in the family and realize how much we tried to control each other. We saw the times where we could have allowed consequences to be the deterent and still loved and provided a safe place within our hearts. We saw over and over how the Father loves and disciplines us and therefore how we can learn how to love and discipline our children.

I can't recommend a book/series any more highly than this. Please do yourself a favor and read or listen to it. Even if your kids are grown or you have no children yet, you will understand more of the Father's heart towards you. You will understand how he can love you in the midst of your sin, how he can avoid anger towards you and remain the safest place in the world to run to even in the midst of your worst days.

12 comments:

Rich said...

Barb,

I appreciate all that you shared here about your own parenting and what you've learned through listening/reading Danny Silks stuff, but I have a question for you.

Doesn't it all, the complexity of being human let alone extensions of that humanity lived along side of others such as a mate, children etc boil down to living out of fear or love?

So much of our (my wife and I) raising a family was mostly done (although not seen at the time) out of fear. Because there are no vacuums, its going to be either love or fear operating in our lives.
Fear has to do with Control, it's all about performance based living, keeping the rules, right?

I find it amazing that as His perfect love for us registers in our knower, it fills us with such wisdom/freedom/liberty to BE living expressions of those who are not being controlled but loved unconditionally.

Scott Stilson said...

I'd like very much to borrow these tapes when you and Marshall are done with them... =)

Ruth said...

I listened to the Podcast on that book and it really intriqued me. I didn't know there was a CD series.

My husband isn't a Christian but I would like us to listen to some resources together to get on the same page with our kids.

Barb - do you think a non believer would enjoy it or feel it's too churchy?

Barb said...

Rich, that is exactly what Silk was saying. When we live in fear we have to control those around us...even our kids. I didn't really see it that way until I read this book.

Scott, you and Carla already do so much of this in your parenting. You will love the approach.

Ruth, hmmm. I'm not sure. The first tape is mostly how God relates to us but the subsequent disks are more the practical approach. Maybe listen to them first and see wht you think.

Aaron G said...

Barb,

Thank you for this post. I have been praying for the last week that God would help me to show more grace towards my two boys. I sat down the other day to see if there were any books on the topic but I got distracted.
God Bless
Aaron G.

Daveda said...

Hi there, I came across your blog from over at "Walking in the Spirit" and I have to say I am soc glad that I did.

I read through this post and continued to read on to earlier ones. I will be back later to read some more.

As far as the book you recommended I will be taking your advise on that! The last good teaching I heard was from John and Beverly sheasbe at Liberated Living Ministries, it was a cd series entitles Raising Your Kids in Grace (I think). It was very good, but I am hungry to learn more.

I have 3 boys who are 18, 12 and 10 (who's b-day is today!) I desire nothing more than to raise them in the same love and grace my father raises me in.

Many Blessing, It is wonderful to "meet" you!

Tyler Dawn said...

I need this, thanks!

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Andy said...

This is an excellent book, indeed. I didn't love it at first, but once I finished it, I saw the real value. It is not the only way to raise kids, but the heart of the matter is essential - connecting on a deep level with your kids and not letting go. I write a blog about raising kids well called Growing Up Well, and in it I refer to this book in several posts. Check it out at http://growingupwell.org/2009/08/17/heart-to-heart-connection-part-1/

aLly.G said...

Hi there!

I came across ur blog while searching for this book. Does the tape (or CD?) shares the same content with the book? :)

Barb said...

I loved listening to the CD's. As far as I remember they had the same basic content.

aLly.G said...

thank you very much Barb!