tales from the cripps

Eli Learns to Ride Without Training Wheels

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Filed under  //   children   family   pics  

As Heard Around The Cripps House....

Em took Baby An's toy, so I told her to return it and say she was
sorry. Em says:

"Soh-wee. Give oo?"
With hands together and upraised, eyes slightly closed, Em babbles for
a few seconds then says, "Men."

"Did you ask God to forgive you?" I ask.

"Uh-huh."

Filed under  //   HATCH   children   family  
Posted April 8, 2011

Adon's Home Depot birthday pics

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Filed under  //   Home Depot   birthday   children   family  
Posted April 2, 2011

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Al Mohler points to a good essay by Diana West, regarding the change in roles between children and adults.  

Here is West's introduction:

When your average doting adult today murmurs the expression, “Out of the mouths of babes,” it is less an expression of wonder than a validation of the widely held assumption that children — babes, tweens, and teens — are innately wiser than their elders. They know better (sexual and fashion choices). They are discerning (music). They feel, therefore they understand (politics). Or so we have come to think due to a stunning if under-appreciated cultural reversal. Once upon a time, we believed wisdom was an expression of experience and maturity. Today, we believe the exact opposite.

Mohler concludes:

From a Christian perspective, Diana West's essay, as well as her book, The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization, serves to alert parents and others to the challenge of raising children in such a culture. The goal of Christian parents must be to raise children to adulthood -- a genuine adulthood. The Bible honors children, but the biblical worldview establishes parents as the authority figures and adults as the figures of wisdom.

"Seen but not heard" is not the best model for parenting children. On the other hand, it is infinitely superior to the abdication of adult authority that marks the current age. Once again, Christian parents are reminded that raising godly children in this age requires the courage of a counter-revolutionary.

Filed under  //   Al Mohler   children   family   youth  

Piper.::.Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They’re Good?

I find this article from Dr. Piper helpful in thinking through this issue.  

Here are his main points:

1) For children, external, unspiritual conformity to God’s commanded patterns of behavior is better than external, unspiritual non-conformity to those patterns of behavior.

2) Requiring obedience from children in conformity with God’s will confronts them with the meaning of sin in relation to God, the nature of their own depravity, and their need for inner transformation by the power of grace through the gospel of Christ.

3) The marks of devotion, civility, and manners (“please,” “thank you,” and good eye contact) are habits that, God willing, are filled later with grace and become more helpful ways of blessing others and expressing a humble heart.

Caution. Here we are only answering one question: Why should parents require submissive behaviors of children when they may be unregenerate rebels at heart? Of course that is not all Christian parents should do.

  • Let there be much spontaneous celebration verbally of every hopeful sign of life and goodness in our children.
  • Let us forgive them often and be longsuffering.
  • Let us serve them and not use them.
  • Let us lavish them with joyful participation in their interests.
  • Let us model for them the joy of knowing and submitting to the Lord Jesus.
  • Let us apologize often when we fall short of our own Father’s requirements.
  • Let us pray for them without ceasing.
  • Let us saturate them with the word of God from the moment they are in the womb (the uterus is not sound proof).
  • Let us involve them in happy ministry experiences and show them it is more blessed to give than to receive.
  • Let them see us sing to the King.
  • Let us teach them relentlessly the meaning of the gospel in the hope that God will open their eyes and make them alive. It happens through the gospel (1 Peter 1:22-25).

 

Filed under  //   Piper   children   discipline   family