This week we welcome to the podcast Parenting Expert Ted Trip, he's the author of two best-selling

books, Shepherding a Child's Heart, and Instructing a Child's Heart.

Dr. Trip, how important is it to help children to understand their own hearts and how personal

idols work in their hearts and what are some practical tips for doing this well as a parent?

Well, I think that one of the things I recommend for parents when I do seminars is to develop a

heart notebook with your kids and do this in non-confrontational time. So it's not when you're

confronting them about things they're doing wrong or you're correcting them or instructing them

or displaying them, but in non-confrontational times, family worship, for example, maybe in

five or ten minutes a day, you know, don't overburden them with it. One or two nights a week,

working your heart notebook, look up every passage in the Bible, you can find on various topics.

Like, for example, there are things like revenge or vengeance rather than entrusting myself to God

or pride rather than humility or fear of man rather than the fear of the Lord or love of self rather

than love of others or anger rather than peacemaking and so forth. So there are all kinds of attitudes

of heart. I mean, the Bible is rich with heart stuff. I mean, if you think about it, Hebrews 4,

Wells says, the word of God is living in active, sharper than double and short, pierces to the

dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

That's a very interesting statement because what the primary uses of the Bible is to help us to

understand our hearts because the heart is desperately wicked. That's what Jeremiah 179 says.

So we need to be wise and understand our hearts. We need to help our children understand their hearts.

So I suggest parents develop a heart notebook. Look up every passage you can find on these various

topics. Write out all the verses on revenge and revenge in your heart notebook. Whatever you do,

don't do a computer print out of all the verses and hand it to them. You don't want them to write it

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