3. You can also address the companionship issue by developing relationships with your children’s friends. What are some practical ways in which you, specific to your own children’s situations, can “make your home the most hospitable place in your community” toward being the Gospel to their friends? 4. Teens are particularly susceptible to sexual temptation . (Of course, this susceptibility is sadly common to adults as well.) There is no silver bullet to vanquish this enemy, and in this case the assistance of external safeguards is often warranted. But it is still a heart issue: suggest some specific discussions you can have with your teens about the spiritual worth of purity, and their obligation to preserve not only their own sanctity but also the sanctity of other teens in their various circles? 5. Youth lack eschatological perspective : “They don’t tend to look at the long view, they live in the now” (eschaton is a Greek word meaning the last or final thing). We have previously discussed the value of cultivating a “harvest mentality” in our children, teaching them to look ahead at the consequences of the actions. Read aloud again Galatians 6:7-8 . While this passage is, for some reason, most often used to emphasize the negative harvest of sowing bad seed, what are some examples you can hold up to your children of the positive fruit of good seed? 6. All these issues illuminate the foundational problem that “ teens tend to lack heart-awareness — they are not only blind, they are blind to their blindness.” Recall from an earlier session that parents must be for their children “an instrument of seeing,” and that Tripp prescribed a series of five questions to assist in illuminating their blind spots to them. Discuss your results of using this approach. Have your teen children begun to see and understand that their hearts are the source of their behavior and choices, for better or worse? Have they begun to address their own heart issues? 7. In light of what you have learned in this series, no doubt some parents will feel the sting of regret for what you failed to do in the past, and the weight of inadequacy for what you must do going forward. Read aloud again Hebrews 4:14-16 . Does Jesus, who stands as mediator between us and the Father, sympathize with the weaknesses that brought about past parenting failures? Does he supply enabling grace needed for the parenting that lies ahead? Read aloud Philippians 3:12- 16 and then 4:13 . Forget what lies behind and press on in the strength of Jesus—you can do this! How Did It Go Last Week? Share your successes and trials with the group. (10 minutes) Are you making progress in training yourself to be goal-oriented in training your children? Discuss your learnings from the Proverbs prologue, the topics you delineated and your brief explanations of them. Did some of these issues crop up in your children’s behavior during the week? How did you deal with them?
Session 10
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
30
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs