"Train up a Child..."

Because I have A LOT of mommy-friends that are travelling the road of different uncertainties parenthood tends to throw at us, I've decided to post some resources that Rob and I found very helpful so far.

By God's grace we were able to realize that bringing up a child is not just about raising a kid that's moral, polite and does exactly what you tell 'em WHEN you tell 'em... But that as Christians, the Bible teaches us there is a HEART issue we need to address instead! Oh dear, I'm sensing the danger of writing a REALLY LOOONG post here, and that is not my goal today :) So let's get to the point - here is a list of what we've come across so far:

1) Every morning (or most of the mornings ;) we go over the Children's Catechism that teaches about who God is, why we were created, and pretty much all the basic stuff every Christian should know :) We started by printing out the first 20 Q&A's.

Here is the link that we used.

We also choose some Bible verses that we memorize, i.e. - we memorized Gal. 5:22-23,25 (Fruits of the Holy Spirit) and now we're working on Psalm 23.

2) Kids LOVE music and they learn a lot through listening to all kinds of songs. We were looking long and hard for some good quality Scripture songs that we could play at home while doing some fun activities with Viv... and to help her sleep better at nite!;)

Here is what we have so far:
       1) Dana Dirksen - she has a few albums from Catechism to
                          ABC's to 123's
       2) Steve Green - Hide Em in Your Heart Vol. 1&2
       3) Scripture Lullabies - Hidden in My Heart Vol. 1,2&3
       *Here's a sample of the beautiful and awesome-quality music!

We love using Scripture Lullabies for Vivie to fall asleep to! :) I have the albums in my phone and play it for her every nite - she LOVES them! :)

3) The books that helped us realize we need to address the heart of a child instead of the behavior, and also HOW to do it Biblically:

Shepherding A Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp
Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman                  


4) And finally, here is the sermon that triggered off this "Sherlock Holmes" search for help to raise a child for God's glory - to honor, love and obey Him first and foremost!

"The Importance of Biblically Disciplining Children" by Voddie Baucham

I can't encourage you enough to listen to this with your spouse!! There is some really, REALLY good stuff on here, and I'm positive it'll be of great encouragement to you! :)

If you have any other good tips or resources that you'd like to share, PLEASE let me know!
We're all in this together! Soli Deo Gloria! :)