As a parent, your heart's desire is to guide your children to love and follow God. Yet so many voices are offering help and advice. Whose voice should shape your children?
Sally and Clay Clarkson suggest the answer is as simple as it is powerful: yours. They will show you how to use your own words to shape your child's life for Christ.
The biblical principles and wisdom they offer, drawn from their years of raising four children and mentoring parents worldwide, will equip you as a word-giving parent.
Start here to gain confidence to personally and intentionally cultivate a verbal home, one filled with words of faith formation and spiritual nurture.
Then, when your children "take your words for it," they will hear God's voice.
My Thoughts:
I rarely read parenting books, but I love reading Sally Clarkson’s books and thoughts on parenting. Having enjoyed The Lifegiving Home and Awaking Wonder, I had high expectations for Sally and Clay’s new book, Giving Your Words: The Lifegiving Power of a Verbal Home for Family Faith Formation. I felt less engaged with this book than Sally’s prior books, but I still found it inspirational. I love that her mothering style is based on loving well and serving her children, rather than simple behavior modification and heavy-handed parental discipline.
Giving Your Words encourages parents to use their words in affirmative ways that create a healthy environment for personal and spiritual growth. The Clarksons go beyond positive speaking to explicate how creating a verbal home can lay the foundation for a child’s faith. While I did get a bit of the “do this and your child will turn out right” vibe, Sally and Clay have four well-rounded, accomplished children that bear witness to their methods.
My upbringing was vastly different from the ethos that Sally
and Clay created for their children, but the Clarksons make creating a verbal
home seem possible even for someone raised in a less ideal environment. The
book’s guidance relies heavily on a traditional family of father, mother, and
children. It needed another chapter addressing alternative situations such a
spouse that doesn’t share the same family vision or co-parenting with an ex-spouse.
Overall, Giving Your Words inspires and encourages parents to mindfully create
a home atmosphere that nurtures spiritual growth for children. Four stars.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I was provided a copy of
this book by the author or publisher. All opinions in this review are my own.
Nice review, the advice does sound good.
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