Shepherding a Child's Heart: Chp 9

Every Monday and Friday join us for reading "Shepherding a Child's Heart."  I'll post a brief synopsis of the chapter, with a few highlights, as well as a few of my personal thoughts.  Add the end of my comments, there will be 2-3 questions for discussion as well.  So join us in our journey toward becoming the mommies that God has called us to be.

Chapter 9: Embracing Biblical Methods: Types of Communication

Tripp shows a figure displaying our usual pattern of rules, correction, and discipline.  He finds however that we should follow the patterns of communication in: encouragement, correction rebuke, entreaty, instruction, warning, teaching, and prayer.  These are based on the idea that I Thess 5:14 teaches us to use different types of correction in different situations.  These forms of communication, interwoven, will provide a richer form of communication between you and your child.  Let's break them down.

Encouragement:

• assess reasons for frustration and disappointment
• help them understand promises of God 
• find courage and hope (85)

Correction:

• beyond saying the right things
• reaches to the attitude of the heart
• remedies something wrong (86)

Rebuke:

• corrects behavior
• conveys strong feeling: shock or alarm (86)

Entreaty:

• involves pleading, soliciting, urging, begging
• earnest
• example: talking with your child about the dangers of drug use

Instruction:

• lesson, precept, information
• teaching them as they grow
• example: identifying emotions and how to deal with them

Warning:

• "A warning is simply a statement that A leads to B" (pg 89)
• understanding, embracing, and internalization are the goals

Teaching:

• imparting knowledge
• understanding oneself and the world around him

Prayer:

• allowing them to hear you pray
• giving them insight into your relationship with God
• praying for them
• getting insight into their own relationship with God

Does anyone else better understand the difference between instruction and teaching?  I'm a little confused on that one.

Questions for discussion:

2. When you find problems at home, do you expect to solve them with a new set of rules and punishments, or with richer forms of communication?

5. How would you encourage your child who had failed miserably but seemed genuinely to desire God's help?

6. Of the eight types of communication mentioned in this chapter, at which ones are you most proficient?  At which ones are you least proficient?