Romancing Your Child's Heart - Softcover

Monte Swan; David Biebel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 159052280X ISBN 13: 9781590522806

Publisher: Multnomah Books, 2003

Synopsis

Parents can have awesome relationships with their children, but it is not enough to fill them with Bible facts, verses, and demand of them certain desired behaviors - you must first capture their hearts. When a child is young, parents can impose their will. When the child is older, however, if the parent hasn't won his heart, all the force in the world will only serve to drive him farther and farther away. How can parents win the hearts of their children? It all starts with romance - exactly as God woos us. Not just another parenting book, Monte Swan takes an entirely new approach to reaching the heart of a child . . . the way of romance. Desiring to lead their children to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, parents will learn the very best approach to open the hearts of their children. Swan teaches parents how they can enter into the world of their children and give them not only what they long for, but what they need . . . an environment of total love and security from which they can conquer the challenges life has to offer. He demonstrates how any parent can turn the tables on the world and romance the hearts of their children to the love of God. With practical advice in real-life parenting situations, Swan equips parents first with the enthusiasm for the challenge ahead and then with concrete ways to win the heart of any child.

About this title

About the Author

Monte Swan lives with his wife Karey in the mountains of Colorado. They are the parents of three children. He is also a popular speaker at parenting conferences nationwide.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Children need more than to know they are loved unconditionally. They need to feel it. They need to touch our love, hold it in their hands, and feel that it is theirs. This gives them emotional wholeness. Children are sensitive and emotional beings – not cognitive adults. Their fund of knowledge is small and they communicate primarily through their feelings. The eyes of the heart determine how they perceive family members, their home, their friends, and the world

Children use behavior to communicate their feelings, and they recognize our feelings by our behavior. They are more skillful at this than adults, because they are less distracted. We think that our words have power in themselves to communicate our feelings to our children, because we underestimate our children’s ability to "listen" to the way we behave. They read between the lines and they are watching us all the time.

Children are naturally generous. They freely give when their tanks are full. Only then can they be expected to be moved by our romance. There is rarely an exception to this, for children by their nature are responsive even to the feeblest adult attention. But if we don’t fill their tanks, they will eventually get them filled somewhere else, and possibly respond to another – a false – romance.

Edition details

• Publisher: Multnomah Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 159052280X
• ISBN 13: 9781590522806
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304