Shepherding a Child’s Heart – New - Paperback

What If You’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question?

Most parenting books focus on behaviour. How to stop tantrums. How to enforce boundaries. How to get children to do what you want. These are real and urgent questions — but they are not the most important ones.

The most important question, according to Scripture, is not what is my child doing? but what is going on in my child’s heart? Because as Jesus himself said in Luke 6:45, out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Behaviour is not the root — it is the fruit. And unless parents are addressing the root, they are dealing only with symptoms.

Shepherding a Child’s Heart is the book that has helped hundreds of thousands of Christian parents ask the right question — and then actually answer it.

About This Book

First published in 1995 and now in a revised and updated edition, Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Dr Tedd Tripp has become one of the most widely read and recommended Christian parenting books in the world. It has been translated into multiple languages, taught at parenting conferences on every continent, and consistently commended by pastors, counsellors, and parents who have seen it genuinely transform the way they relate to their children.

This is not a technique-based parenting manual. It is a theologically grounded, pastorally wise, and deeply practical book that starts where the Bible starts — with the heart — and works outward from there. Dr Tripp draws on three decades of experience as a pastor, counsellor, school administrator, and father to provide perspectives and procedures that work with children of any age, from toddlers to teenagers.

In this revised edition, Dr Tripp has incorporated additional insights gained from years of teaching this material in parenting conferences around the world, making an already excellent book even more helpful for parents navigating the challenges of raising children in a complex world.

Note on condition: This title is also available in a ‘slightly damaged’ condition option at a reduced price. Books in this condition may show minor signs of age or a few light stains but are fully readable. Please select your preferred condition at checkout.

What the Book Covers — Key Themes

The Heart is the Issue The foundational premise of the book — drawn from Luke 6:45 — is that children’s behaviour flows from their hearts. This means that effective parenting must aim at the heart, not merely manage external conduct. Tripp unpacks what this means practically and why it changes everything about how parents approach correction, communication, and discipline.

Shaping Influences and Goals Every parent is shaping their child’s heart — the only question is how and toward what. Tripp helps parents examine their own goals for their children honestly, showing how wrong goals (happiness, success, good behaviour) inevitably produce wrong methods, and how right goals (a heart that knows and loves God) produce both better parenting and better children.

Communication and the Heart Much of the book is devoted to what it looks like to actually speak to a child’s heart — not just their behaviour. Tripp provides concrete, biblical guidance on how to have conversations that probe, challenge, encourage, and direct a child’s inner life toward God, rather than simply demanding compliance.

Discipline as a Tool of the Heart Tripp addresses the much-debated topic of discipline with careful biblical grounding and pastoral wisdom. Discipline, in his view, is not primarily a mechanism for behaviour management but a way of speaking truth to a child’s heart about their need for God. This section is both one of the most discussed and most appreciated in the whole book.

Children at Every Stage The book is structured around the different stages of childhood — from infancy through the teenage years — showing how the heart-focused approach applies differently but consistently at each stage. Parents of toddlers and parents of teenagers will both find specific, relevant, and immediately applicable guidance.

The Gospel at the Centre Throughout the book, Tripp returns to the gospel as the source and motivation for parenting. Parents are not simply trying to produce well-behaved children — they are bringing the grace of God to bear on hearts that need him. This gospel-centredness gives the book both its theological depth and its extraordinary staying power across three decades.

What Readers Will Learn

• Why addressing heart attitudes rather than just behaviour produces lasting change in children
• How to examine and correct your own goals as a parent in light of Scripture
• Practical, biblical ways to communicate with children that go beyond instruction and correction to genuine heart engagement
• A theologically grounded approach to discipline that is both firm and gospel-rooted
• How to shepherd the hearts of children at every age and stage — from infancy through the teenage years
• Why the gospel, not behaviour management, is the ultimate foundation for Christian parenting
• How to build the kind of relationship with your child where the heart can genuinely be reached

Who Should Read This Book

Parents of young children who want to start well — building a heart-focused approach into their parenting from the very beginning — will find this the most important parenting book they read.

Parents of older children or teenagers who sense that something is not working in their current approach and are looking for a deeper, more biblically grounded framework.

Pastors and church leaders wanting a trustworthy, theologically sound resource to recommend or teach to parents in their congregation — this is the book consistently recommended from pulpits and in counselling offices around the world.

Couples preparing for parenthood who want to think carefully and biblically about what kind of parents they want to be before children arrive.

Parents who have read secular parenting books and found them helpful but incomplete — and who are looking for something that takes the inner life of their child as seriously as their behaviour.

What Others Have Said

“Tedd Tripp knows what he is talking about and who he is talking to. He knows children, he knows parents — and he knows the ways of God. This book teaches you what your goals should be and how to pursue these ends practically. It teaches you how to talk to your children and what to talk about. It will inspire you to become a different kind of parent. This is a masterful book.” — Dr Paul David Tripp

“With the plethora of material on parenting and the family, it is surprising and distressing to see how few books are genuinely biblical. Here is a refreshing exception. Tedd Tripp offers solid, trustworthy, biblical help for parents. If you are looking for the right perspective and practical help, you won’t find a more excellent guide.” — John MacArthur

“Earnest fathers and mothers will find it also eminently ‘do-able.'” — Elisabeth Elliot

About the Author — Dr Tedd Tripp

Dr Tedd Tripp is Senior Pastor of Grace Fellowship Church and co-founder of Immanuel Christian School, which he and his wife Margy founded in 1979. He holds a BA from Geneva College, an MDiv from Philadelphia Theological Seminary, and a DMin from Westminster Theological Seminary with an emphasis in Pastoral Counseling, and is President of Shepherding the Heart Ministries.

Over more than three decades of pastoral ministry, counselling, school administration, and fatherhood, Dr Tripp has taught the material in Shepherding a Child’s Heart at parenting conferences worldwide — refining, deepening, and applying it to the real experiences of real families across cultures and continents. His writing carries the marks of that accumulated wisdom: grounded in Scripture, shaped by pastoral care, and tested in the lives of thousands of families.

He is also the author of Instructing a Child’s Heart (with Margy Tripp) and has produced a companion video curriculum and Leader’s Guide for use in church parenting courses.