Shepherding A Child's Heart: Shaping Influences and Godward Orientation

Theresa's Mom’s Group Review: June 20, 2011

Shepherding A Child’s Heart

Session 2 (Shaping Influences and Godward Orientation)
written by Theresa

I hope you all did your homework last week!!  I’d love hearing about how talking about God throughout the day impacted you and your children.  We’ve had some great stories to share within the group!

The first thing this session challenged us to think about was the influences in our children’s lives which shape them as people.  Dr. Tripp shared a number of those influences, events, situations, and circumstances that can shape who our children become and how we need to remember Acts 17:26: “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”  In other words, even when we feel like these shaping influences might be out of our control, God is always in control.

The Shaping influences Dr. Tripp focused on were these:

·       *Structure of Family Life (Are there two parents present or is it a single parent home?  Are the grandparents living in the home?  Is it a large family where the older children have more responsibilities in caring for young children than their peers may have? etc.)

·       *Family Values (Does family come first?  Does God come first?  How important are the material items in the home to mom and dad?  Does work often come before family?  Dr. Tripp gives an example of a boy at a Christian school where he used to teach at who got in a fight with another boy on the playground.  When the boys were reprimanded, Dr. Tripp stopped to pray with them and both boys asked God’s forgiveness for fighting.  However, no matter how much Tedd tried to assure him of God’s forgiveness one of the boys was still visibly upset.  Finally Dr. Tripp discovered that he was not upset about getting into the fight or having his parents find out about the fight, but rather because  there was a rip in his pants.  His parents had set a value in their home – boys will be boys and fights will happen, but those pants are expensive and a rip is unacceptable! 

·       *Family Roles (Is the father or the mother the head of the family?  And to what extreme do they take that role?  Does Mom stay at home or work?  Does the father “Bring home the bacon”?  Are the children the center of the family or is the parent’s marriage? etc.)

·       *Family Problem Solving (Do you solve problems by seeking the Word of God?  How do conflicts get resolved?  Does the offender give a gift in order to reconcile or is the issue discussed?  Do conflicts get  brushed under the rug and go unresolved?  Is there resentment in the home due to unresolved conflict?  Do conflicts flare into verbal and or physical abuse? Etc.)

·      * Dealing with Failure (Do the children in a home receive encouragement to keep trying when they have failed or do they receive criticism? Are failures even acknowledged in the home? )

·       *Family History (Significant events in the life of a family – births, deaths, how many times a family has moved, if a family unexpectedly came into prosperity or poverty, loss of job, disease, divorce, natural disasters, etc.)

·       *Education (Do the children home school/ public school/ private school?  Are they encouraged to go to college or trade school?  Who funds the education?)

·       *Neighbors/ Extended Family (Is the family close with those who live nearby?  Is family close or out of state? What kind of relationships does the family have with those who are nearest to them geographically?)

Dr. Tripp describes how all these influences form who we become.  Often these show up in a marriage when two people who have had different shaping influences are thrown into the same life/ home/ situations together and often have different ways of dealing with things.  Dr. Tripp described how this could have humorous outcomes, like when he figured out he could find anything in his mother-in-law’s kitchen just by asking himself where his wife would have placed it in theirs.  I’m sure we can all think of little differences as to how we do things differently from our spouse as a result of how we were raised, and even conflicts that have risen because of differing perspectives.  There are two things Dr. Tripp warns us to avoid when it comes to the shaping influences.  He says we must not think in a deterministic way – in other words, think we can control all the influences that our children experience as well as the other extreme of denying that influences and circumstances in our child’s life will make a difference in how they view and handle life. 

So if we can’t completely control what our children’s shaping influences, but they will be shaped by these influences nonetheless, what is a parent to do?  Dr. Tripp suggests focusing our children toward Godward Orientation.  This means that no matter what happens, good or bad, our children will look to God to worship and seek Him.  Dr. Tripp states that man was created to worship.  We become easily excited and awestruck, unlike the animals of this earth.  He gives an amusing example of penguins diving off a cliff one after one in perfect formation, while there are no penguins on the sidelines clapping their fins or holding up a point board.  We don’t see bears high fiving each other after a good catch.  Worship is uniquely human.  Whether it is a sporting event, movie, amusement park, concert, etc., we as humans love to be dazzled and impressed.  The question is, what are we allowing ourselves to be dazzled with?  What will our children worship?  Of all the wonders God has created, is it the creator or the creation that we worship?  Just as Romans 1:25 states, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen”, so is the world around us.  Dr. Tripp directed us toward the Psalms as a good reference point to start with teaching our children to worship.  I strongly encourage you to open your Bibles and reflect on these Psalms: (145, 4, 16, 27, 36, 73, and 63). In each of these Psalms the Psalmists have allowed themselves to be awed, impressed and dazzled by our creator.  The review would be far too long if I wrote them out, so again, I strongly encourage you to read them and use the language in them when you describe your love for God to your children.  If you do not have a Bible, you can easily look up these verses at http://niv.scripturetext.com  simply type the verse you are looking for at the top; for example “Psalm 145”.  When you have finished reading these verses ask yourself, “Do I have this kind of awe and reverence for our Lord?” and “Am I teaching my children to have this kind of awe and reverence our Lord?”  Dr. Tripp ended the discussion on Godward Orientation with Isaiah 55:2, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”  What are we  spending our time, money and attentions on?  Our children determining what they will worship and 9 times out of 10 it is a reflection of what we are showing them is worthy of their praise. 

                  Dr. Tripp ends this discussion with the story of Joseph found in Genesis 37-50.  Again, I encourage you to read this amazing retelling of this man’s incredible life.  Here is an example of someone who had many bad influences come about in his life, but because he had a Godward orientation, he was used by God and did great things in his lifetime.  Here was someone who lost his mother at a young age, was sold into slavery by his brothers, found himself at a high position in the home of a wealthy Egyptian, was betrayed by this man’s wife and thrown into jail, helped two men in jail who promised to help him when they were freed only to be forgotten by them, and finally was given the opportunity to share his faith and God’s greatness with the Pharaoh of Egypt by interpreting his dream.  The end result was Joseph becoming the Pharaoh’s second hand man, and helping the country through a famine.  He ultimately became reconciled with his brothers, forgiving them by saying, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20).  If our children were faced with these trials, would they be able to look at those who persecuted them and say this?  Can we say we would do the same?  As Jesus said in Mark 10:27,  "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

Discussion Questions

1.      What are some influences (good or bad) from your life that shaped you?

2.     What are some things you want to do the same/ different with your children?

3.     What are some experiences/ influences that have already come into play in your children’s lives?

4.     What are some things we as parents can be intentional about to positively influence our children?

5.     What do we worship in our homes?

6.     What are some ways we can direct our children’s attention and praise to our creator?

Homework

In addition to continuing to talk to our children about God, let’s worship Him in our day to day by doing a full or partial fast from something that takes most or much of our time, energy, and attention and refocus our attention toward God for the duration of that time.  Some examples might be TV, computer, phone, shopping, sports… there are some many!  Pick one and either avoid or limit it as much as you can, give that time to the Lord (in prayer, reading the Bible, writing in your prayer journal, worshiping Him, etc.)  and see how worshiping our creator instead of the creation can impact yours and your children’s lives.