Revised and Up Dated: The Parent-Type Summary Booklet is back

In view of the fact that a child’s mind is driven by curiosity, a need to investigate and a tendency to try and rule the world with a smile or a scream, it becomes essential to consider the influence of the home as the primary learning environment, and Mom and Dad as the first teachers. The self-evident truth that early family life lays the foundation for later adjustments exists above all other assumptions. While there are a variety of influences on children that parents cannot change (nature, heredity, temperament, and predispositions), there are parenting influences that can and will impact children for years. We call these influences ‘parent-types’.

The Parent-Type Summary Booklet, formerly titled, The Bible & Common Sense Parenting, provides a summary of fifteen parenting-types that produce predictable behavior patterns in children. Unfortunately, fourteen are negative, only one, the God-centered parenting prescription is positive, life giving and complete. Some ‘parent-types’ are the combination of two negatives that function as one. The Threatening/Repeating Parent and the Silent/Delayed Parent types are examples.

It is reasonable to conclude that when negative parenting patterns are diminished or eliminated from the home, the corresponding side affects in children also decrease proportionately. This might sound like a simple case of stimulus-response conditioning, but it’s much more than that. We realize the futility of assuming that positive parental behavior can redeem a child’s unredeemed heart but positive change can influence a child during the formative years to receive the things of God as he matures. Positive parental behavior can create a type of spiritual inertia that can help propel a child toward understanding the qualities and attributes of God. It is through this experience that a child moves toward a greater awareness of his need for salvation.

Correspondingly, negative parental behavior too often produces artificial barriers hindering a child’s knowledge and desire to know God. Instead of exemplifying His character, negative parenting-types diminish it by redefining it in practice. While eliminating negative parenting habits is not the sole substitute for embracing the positive, it is a big step in the right direction. One question we all must wrestle with is whether we are characterized by any particular ‘type’ that needs attention and change. That we leave with you. May God bless and multiply your efforts to lead your little ones to the knowledge of Him.

Gary and Anne Marie