Many of us enter parenthood with a perfect vision of what our family will be. But along the way we discover that the children we've been blessed with are real human beings, with their own minds, ideals, and views of the world. Our influence only goes so far, and when those children reach the pre-teen and teenage years, it may seem to have disappeared completely. Yet at no time in a kid's life is their parents' positive, godly influence more critical. For parents who are concerned that their child is pulling away, following poor role models, or making choices that will lead to pain and difficulty, Mike Berry has good news: it's not too late. He offers parents nine keys to maximizing and leveraging their influence to help their children through these difficult years and develop a relationship with them that can weather any storm.

In Reaching a Child’s Heart, Juan and Jeanine Sanchez encourage parents from their gospel-shaped perspective that children don’t need perfect parents—they need a perfect Savior.

A Powerful Approach to Bringing God's Grace to Kids Did you know that the way we deal (or don't deal) with our kids' misbehavior shapes their beliefs about themselves, the world, and God? Therefore it's vital to connect with their hearts--not just their minds--amid the daily behavior battles. With warmth and grace, Jim and Lynne Jackson, founders of Connected Families, offer four tried-and-true keys to handling any behavioral issues with love, truth, and authority. You will learn practical ways to communicate messages of grace and truth, how to discipline in a way that motivates your child, and how to keep your relationship strong, not antagonistic. Discipline is more than just a short-term attempt to modify your child's actions--it's a long-term investment to help them build faith, wisdom, and character for life. When you discover a better path to discipline, you'll find a more well-behaved--and well-believed--kid.

Being a parent is a complex role, where many points of the past, present and future cross. We parents have our past and are in the present with our children, but it is they who hold the future. Living with them every day for almost twenty years, we transmit our subconscious emotional history and beliefs to them. Through their intuitive openness, our children absorb our unspoken language of what love is or is not. What we share intimately with them, good and bad, they take into the future. Our children become the children we have been and pass on their history to the next generation. This is my story. I turn toward the light, and heaven gives me insight beyond my imagination. “Into Your Child’s Heart is not only a gem of a book, it is a spiritual journey. Agnes Lui takes us from the challenges of being a sensitive and gentle parent into our own hearts. She reflects on her own personal history, her family of origin and her mix of Chinese and western culture. Spirit guides come forward to help her. From the precious family relation, that of parent and child, Agnes Lui takes us into the troubled world we all face today. “Into Your Child’s Heart becomes a deeply meaningful meditation, a prayer for world harmony on every level of being. We breathe with this author every step of the way in this thoughtful, reflective and beautiful book.” ~Kathleen Spivack Unspeakable Things, With Robert Lowell and His Circle “Agnes Lui is a thoughtful spiritual seeker with a big heart. She has found wisdom through being a social worker and parent, through interactions with a wise spiritual teacher, and through dealing with difficulties with her family of origin. She shares that wisdom with us—and we certainly need it—and relates individual pain to the pain the whole world is in.” ~Lawrence Kessenich Cinnamon Girl, Age of Wonder, Before Whose Glory, Pearl

Parents want to be the best person they can for their children, but much of the time they may feel like giraffes on ice--clumsy, unprepared, and in imminent danger of going down. The good news is, our children don't need perfect parents. They need authentic, fully-hearted, relationally engaged parents who can mess up and move on more than parents who always get it right. In this freeing book, respected therapists and bestselling authors Stephen James and Chip Dodd invite parents to let go of perfectionism and micromanaging as they learn to parent from a place of emotional honesty and intimacy. Through their clinical experience and relatable true stories, they show parents that raising children to become capable, loving, and wise-hearted adults is far more about accepting our flaws than projecting an impossible standard to our children that we already know we can't live up to. Parents will learn how to resolve issues from their own childhoods, tune into their feelings and the emotions of their children, and be present with their families through both the best and worst of circumstances.

Shepherding a Child’s Heart is about how to speak to the heart of your child. The things your child does and says flow from the heart. Luke 6:45 puts it this way: “…out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Written for parents with children of any age, this insightful book provides perspectives and procedures for shepherding your child’s heart into the paths of life. In this revised edition of Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Dr. Tedd Tripp not only draws on his thirty years experience as a pastor, counselor, school administrator, and father, but he also shares insights gained in many years of teaching this material in conferences worldwide, providing more valuable help for parents.

A repeat bestseller for two decades, this child-rearing classic cuts to the heart of the anger and alienation that mar so many modern homes. In this ultimately practical book, Gary Smalley outlines effective steps for parents to open up a child that has shut them out. He describes family-tested ways for parents to set limits and enforce them, and he reveals the simple but powerful secret for achieving a close-knit family. Learn proven parenting methods that can spell the difference between an angry, rebellious, distant child and a happy, cooperative one.

Your Child's Heart: Building Strong Character and a Lasting Faith"", by Terry Glaspey, is a thoughtful look at how parents can build positive character traits, a lasting faith, and a lifelong love for God in their children. The focus is on helping children learn how to make the right choices in life.""

If you're like most parents, you have developed your own parenting strategy—sometimes it seems to work, and other times—based on the way your child behaves—you wonder if it's working at all. There are countless ways to try to get a child's attention and to effect change—but here's the truth—unless you deal with a child through his or her heart, you are not likely to see lasting change. In this breakthrough book, Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN, reveal how you can learn to truly reach your child's heart to teach, train, and build a tremendous relationship. Parenting is Heart Work gives you the practical tools an easy-to-follow steps that will revolutionize how you: Turn Correction times into learning experiences. Equip your children to accept responsibility for their mistakes and meditate on the right things. Influence and adjust the values and beliefs your children hold. Maintain relationship with your children through love and emotional connectedness.

Beginning with infertility and one couple’s struggle with building their family, Stretch-mark My Heart dives headlong into the fragmented world of the US foster care system. Following the adoption journey of Matt and Niki Tschirgi (pronounced Sure-Gee), this book lays the groundwork from start to finish regarding what it takes to have a child permanently placed in your home for adoption. Through fostering, private adoption, open adoption, and foster-to-adopt, Niki recounts the lonely and grievous road of infertility, her and her husband’s decision-making process to choose adoption, the hard work and perseverance to get licensed to be foster parents, and the finalization of six adoptions. Discover how the Tschirgis became a blended family over the course of six years and doubled their family size while moving from Washington to Texas. Stretch-mark My Heart will immerse you in the complicated process of accepting and loving into your home children who were born out of trauma, abuse, and neglect. See how each child was uniquely meant to be a part of this family. Travel along this bumpy yet inspiring road and explore many facets of adoption, including sibling-group, multiracial, infant, and older-child adoption. Although heartbreak, trials, and the unknown are present throughout this book, triumph, miracles, unconditional love, and belonging overshadow the pain and loss of infertility, as well as the brokenness inherent in being a child in foster care. Stretch-mark My Heart will help you understand the intricate and detailed plan that God had for a family to be built together by the power of choice… the choice of adoption.