No Perfect Parents by Dave & Ann Wilson, Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel, & Peacemaking for Families by Ken Sande

They all start the same: wonderful advice soaked in the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And then on page 142, give or take a few, the author decides all that talk of grace and the golden rule no longer applies to children. For example, Tim Kimmel says he knew spanking was effective on their daughter because she would cry “before the first swat on her behind” (Grace Based Parenting); Dave and Ann Wilson share how they used “wooden spoons on [the] bottoms” of their children (No Perfect Parents).

I simply cannot ignore the hypocrisy and contradictions.

No Perfect Parents – Ditch exceptions and embrace reality and discover the one secret that will change your parenting by Dave & Ann Wilson: I’m going to be honest here. I did not read the whole book. I skimmed chapters that I thought looked interesting and then when I got to the part about the wooden spoon I decided to put it down. I was almost curious enough to keep reading it to find out what they claim to be the “secret” to changing your parenting, but I just kept thinking I wished she would have kept the wooden spoon a secret.

Grace Based Parenting – Set Your Family Free by Dr. Tim Kimmel: This book would have been a lot shorter had he left out Hollywood and all the talk of movies like, “October Sky,” “King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table,” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” While I believe story telling with real families and their struggles are a fabulous way to illustrate key concepts, finding parenting parallels in movies really miss the mark. I do want to say that Grace Based Parenting has many wonderful chapters on grace, written in a way that is easy to comprehend and powerful. While Kimmel does talk about punishment and spanking in a positive light, he was the only author in this line up to directly say that parents have freedom in Christian discipline and there isn’t just one effective way.

Peacemaking for Families – A Biblical Guide to Managing Conflict in Your Home by Ken Sande: This book actually is more about marriage-ing then parenting. It’s filled with helpful, practical communication skills for confession, confrontation, forgiveness, and negotiation. It’s just hard to take him seriously when he condones hitting children in one breath and then preaches about reflecting the love and kindness of Christ in the next. He says even in “the midst of conflict, we have the opportunity … to reflect the love and kindness of Christ in how we treat those who have wronged us” (italics mine), and then a few pages later he cherry picks a verse from Proverbs and says: “Corporal punishment” can help a child “grow.” Hitting a child will never reflect the love and kindness of Christ.

In chapter 8 Sande recommends Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp (who not only teaches hitting as the most effective tool for removing foolishness, but that it’s the only biblical position on childhood discipline)- personally a recommendation for Shepherding a Child’s Heart is always going to be a red flag for me.

Curious why cherry picking a verse from Proverbs isn’t the best approach when developing biblical application? Read this short article. If you want to know a Christian parenting book I do recommend, check out this short book review.