discipline

our church has started a Sunday school on the book "Shepherding a Child's Heart"

we are watching a dvd of the author going through his book and expounding on it

i guess i have always thought, "i will know what to do when the time comes"

and i always thought the time would be after sophia was at least 1 year old, or older

well, she proved me wrong the other night

i was feeding her when she started spitting...very happy about it and enjoying herself, but still spitting food out and everywhere

so i told her "no" very firmly

she smiled and spit more

i told her no again...with her name this time

she smiled and spit more

i told her no again...and stopped feeding her for a minute

she laughed at me

and i realized right there how true it is that we are born with a sin nature...she doesn't understand much more than the need for hunger, love, that we love her, and that puppies go "ruff, ruff"

but she knows enough to disobey me and find amusement in it

as i was reading the chapters for this week's class, they keep going over and over how behavior is coming out of the wellspring of life-our heart

and how we as parents need to focus on heart issues, not just changing the behavior that is not desired

i am getting more and more terrified as i read this book...there is no set answer

i kept hoping that somewhere in the chapter that Tedd Tripp would say "and this is how you parent perfectly...or as close as one can get"

but he never did

and as i realized this, i realized how much we are going to have to lean on God to effectively and lovingly parent sophia

i know that i am not perfect, and despite what he thinks-neither is john

but we can lean on the One who is perfect for guidance and the answers to parent sophia to the best of our ability