Motivate Your Child by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, Cymplified!

About the book:

Most parenting approaches end up encouraging children to ask the wrong questions about life: What’s in it for me? Are you going to pay me for that? What’s the minimum I need to do to get by?

But God’s Word gives us a better way to parent, one that builds strong internal motivation in children. When parents change the way they parent, kids change the way they live. This practical book explores a theology of internal motivation and then gives parents real-life solutions to equip their kids for life.

You’ll learn . . .

• how to parent in ways that build internal motivation so that kids don’t have to rely on you to get things done.

• the four promptings of the conscience and how to coordinate your parenting to take advantage of them.

• ways to energize your spiritual training with fun and creativity.

• how to help children respond to mistakes instead of blaming, defending, or justifying.

The greatest gift you can give your child is strong moral and spiritual development—this book shows you how. Every chapter includes practical examples of families applying the Bible to their current issues.

On the day I started reading Part 1 of Motivate Your Child, I was having trouble getting my children to do their homework. I was so frustrated! I wanted to literally walk away and leave the house. It took every ounce of my strength not to throw my own tantrum then break down and cry. I felt so tired of always telling them what to do. I don’t want to nag or sound like a broken record. I am at a loss about how to motivate them, how to encourage them to do the important things without my incessant prodding.

When they were babies, I thought mothering was difficult because of the sleepless nights and the constant meeting of their basic needs. As it turns out, the weariness was just physical. Now that I am done with childbearing and more focused on child-rearing, the exhaustion is now emotional! Mothering is even more challenging than ever.

Review:

It is very timely that I received Motivate Your Child by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN to review. I wrote down on a notebook the helpful sentences and applicable Bible verses from the book. I have learned that the transformation of the heart should start in mine. Since I am the parent, the adult, the mother, being responsible must begin with me. My “aha!” moment was when I realized that the guidelines here, like obeying and honoring, apply to me as well. I can require my kids to behave the way I expect, when I myself am behaving the way I expect.

Parenting is heart work.

That is true in this book. It targets the hearts of the children and how parents are to help them develop their conscience, prompted by the Holy Spirit. I am applying these learnings first to my eldest child who is seven years old.

This is the simple plan I have derived with the help of Motivate Your Child.

1. Determine Ella’s areas of strength and weakness in her conscience.
2. Target her struggles in the four promptings of the conscience.
3. Help her be mindful of what needs to be done, of doing them with a good attitude, of others, of God.
4. Use wisely the toolbox of consequences with empathy.
5. Take the Family Time Challenge.

Motivate Your Child covers a lot of topics that needed in-depth explanations and specific ways to apply these “theories”. I understand that there is no hard and fast rules in parenting, but I sometimes get confused when the book would present one idea and then bring my attention to another that counters the first one.

I have a general idea of what I want my family to be like, thanks to this book. A family that glorifies God, that studies the Bible together, that encourages one another by talking about areas of struggles, that prays for one another, that helps the less fortunate together, that goes to church together, that pursues dreams yet not forgetting the responsibilities. The real life examples in this book gave me a bit of an idea on how to achieve this.

I am both excited and scared to apply my simple plan. Excited because I really want my children to know and follow Jesus, to gain wisdom and peace from their relationship with God, to be motivated by the Holy Spirit. Scared because it’s such a huge responsibility and there’s doubt about my ability to lead. But, my job is to be faithful and allow God to produce the fruit.

In a nutshell,

This book has been about the goal of passing the faith on to your children and giving them a strong conscience to help them stay true to their convictions.

A recommended read for parents who want to use God’s Word, the Bible, living and active, to guide and to motivate their children.

Hebrews 4:12-13 (ESV)

¹² For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³ And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

About the authors:

Scott Turansky graduated with two master’s degrees from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. He has been a pastor and missionary for more than thirty-three years and is an author of several books. In addition to pastoring full-time, Scott also conducts parenting seminars on Fridays and Saturdays around the US (http://www.biblicalparenting.org/).
He is the cofounder of the National Center for Biblical Parenting and has coauthored twelve books. He has also co-authored three video parent training programs used in churches around the country and has written three children’s programs for families and churches to use with kids. Scott is married to Carrie and has five children.

Joanne Miller is a registered nurse with more than twenty-five years of pediatric experience. She is also a cofounder of the National Center for Biblical Parenting and co-author of twelve parenting books. Joanne and her husband, Ed, have two grown sons. She enjoys teaching parenting seminars around the country and overseeing much of the day-to-day operations for the National Center for Biblical Parenting.

Disclosure:

I received the complimentary ebook and was compensated in exchange for my honest review.