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Dr. Tim Kimmel is one of America’s top advocates speaking for the family. He is the Executive Director of the non-profit ministry Family Matters, whose goal is to build great family relationships by educating, equipping and encouraging parents for every age and stage of life. Tim conducts conferences across the country on the unique pressures that confront today’s families. He has authored many books including: Little House on the Freeway (selling over 700,000 copies; Multnomah) and the Gold Medallion winning bestseller Grace Based Parenting (100,000 copies; Thomas Nelson). He lives with his family in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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GRACE BASED PARENTING

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Foreword......................................................ixAcknowledgments...............................................xi1. Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short.....................12. The Truth Behind Grace.....................................273. A Secure Love..............................................434. A Significant Purpose......................................675. A Strong Hope..............................................936. A Delivery System for Grace................................1277. The Freedom to Be Different................................1378. The Freedom to Be Vulnerable...............................1639. The Freedom to Be Candid...................................18310. The Freedom to Make Mistakes..............................21111. Evening Grace.............................................227Notes.........................................................231Study Questions...............................................243

Chapter One

Indulge me for a minute. This won't take long. I want to use a scenario to set the stage for our discussion about parenting.

For starters, I'll need you to pull up a chair on one of the sides of this card table I'm looking at. You'll notice that it is crowded with tiny pieces of an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. You can tell-just by looking at the colors and designs on the pieces-that this is going to be a bit of a challenge.

Before you tear into this project, though, there are a few things you need to know about what you're looking at:

* The border pieces have all been removed. I know it's easier to start a jigsaw puzzle by putting the edge pieces together to form a border. That gives you an early sense of accomplishment before you move on to the difficult stuff. Sorry. You'll have to decide the boundaries of this puzzle for yourself. * Somebody threw a couple of handfuls of pieces from a different puzzle into the box. They may look like they belong to this one, but they don't. They won't fit no matter how hard you try. And because you don't know which ones they are, you could waste a lot of time before you find out.

Are you ready to start putting the puzzle together? I realize I've complicated matters for you, but you're fairly resourceful. Given enough time and enough soothing medication, you could probably figure it out. All you need is the picture on the box cover and you can begin.

Oh, I forgot to mention something: We lost the cover to the box. You're just going to have to guess what this picture puzzle is supposed to look like. Does this sound like fun? I can't speak for you, but I'd rather get my gums scraped. If anything, this puzzle project sounds more like a sick joke. It's tough enough when you have all the right pieces, all the edge pieces, and the picture on the box. Take those things away, and it's anybody's guess what you'll come up with. Not only that, but without a clear picture of what you are trying to put together, you'll never really know if you even came close to what it was supposed to be.

WELCOME TO THE PARENTING PUZZLE

I have just described the job of raising children. You labor many years to put the right pieces all together, but when your children grow up, they often don't resemble what you thought you were creating. Even with the disappointments, however, raising children is still the greatest thing you'll ever do. It's greater than any milestone you can hit in your career. It dwarfs any fame you may receive for your ideas or your inventions. You've been handed a piece of history in advance-a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see-and you play the biggest role in how that history will ultimately be recorded. That's why, in spite of the challenges, you need to have a plan for parenting that works.

Good intentions aren't enough. Every parent starts out with them, but it doesn't take long before you find that you've been set up for failure by circumstances that you didn't plan on or ask for. Good parenting skills aren't enough either. You need something bigger than your brains and your wits to get you through.

Take the issue of boundaries. Just as the edge pieces of the puzzle mentioned earlier were removed, our culture has removed many of the moral boundaries that made raising children more clear-cut. Right and wrong used to be black and white. Lying, cheating, stealing, and pushing your weight around at someone else's expense were wrong. Disrespect to people and property were obvious calls for parents to make.

We also had excellent guidelines to live by-like the Ten Commandments. But after decades of culture chipping away at them, the Ten Commandments are no longer etched deeply in stone but written in pencil on a Post-it note. They are more like ten hints or suggestions that you can use when it's in your best interest to do so. Somewhere along the way, they've lost their authority in the average family's life. To too many of today's parents, it is no longer "right and wrong" but what I feel is "right and wrong" that rules the day. This kind of thinking leads to two dangerous parenting extremes.

EXTREME PARENTS

One extreme consequence of erasing clear moral boundaries is a degree of license in some parents-even Christian parents. Their kids can hang out with whomever they choose, watch anything on television or at the movies that they'd like, act out their frustrations with little consequence, click on anything on the Internet that they'd like to see, start dating early, accommodate their sexual desires, and use whatever means works best for achieving success in school, sports, and relationships.

I said this is an extreme example. Most parents wouldn't admit to being in this category even if their names were Ozzy and Sharon Osborne. Regardless, somebody probably came to mind as you read those last few sentences. The local section of just about any daily newspaper reminds us that there are lots of parents who wield negative and even destructive influences on their children. They are guilty by either commission or omission of failing to lead their kids properly through childhood.

Unfortunately, even well-meaning parents can cave in to a certain degree to this type of parenting. It's actually quite easy to become a bit desensitized by the boundary-less culture we were raised in. We may do a noble job of leading our children when things are going well, but it's actually common for many of us to surrender some of our best convictions under duress. Our culture can be nasty and punitive to parents committed to doing the right thing. That's why so many parents acquiesce under stress. The painful reality is that too many parents would rather feel good than do good. Raising kids with clear moral boundaries can be an extremely lonely job. Who else in your neighborhood is trying to raise kids the way you are?

FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE OTHER

But there's another extreme that parents can go to that is equally toxic for children. In fact, it can leave scar tissue on their spiritual lives that may never go away. This form of parenting is often an overreaction to a life or a culture without boundaries. The extreme that I'm referring to is when parents bring the boundaries...