How do we guide our children in their spiritual growth while living in a culture that often works against biblical principles? Dr. Michelle Anthony offers wise counsel in her latest book , and she talks with Jo about pursuing Jesus in a world focused on ‘more’ and ‘better.’ If you long to show your children Jesus but don’t know how to do it, you’ll find hope for creating a grace-filled home. Here’s where this latest edition of Connecting Faith takes us:
Michelle shares the 6 dysfunctional parenting styles:
• The Double-Minded Parent
• The I-Can’t-Say-No Parent
• The Driver Parent
• The Micro-Managing Parent
• The Criticizing Parent
• The Absentee Parent
Imagine that there is a director’s chair in the family. Who is sitting there matters. Who’s in charge of your family? You or Jesus? And then, on a personal level, who’s in charge of our life as individuals? God’s voice need to be number one in our lives. We need to submit ourselves to Him.
In order to move beyond the wold’s model for family life, we need to renew our mind. To successfully do that, we need to be in God’s word, digesting the truth that scripture has for us.
Drilling down on what’s behind our most common parenting dysfunctions, Dr. Anthony notes that at the root of double minded parenting is worry and anxiety. A can’t-say-no parent’s enabling behavior often stems from a heart of love – albeit unhelpfully expressed. A desire to please people is also at work there. The driver parent is very goal-oriented and on a mission.
Dr. Anthony further expands on her initial analogy – God is a master storyteller writing a powerful story with our lives and the lives of our families. He’s the director, writer and producer of all of it! He drops off a script for us to begin each day, and it’s up to us to rehearse and play the script He’s crafted.
