Give Them Grace (Review)

Give Them Grace, by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson is written by a mother-daughter team. The authors explain what so many of we Christians understand, but fail to implement in our parenting—that teaching our children to understand and embrace the GRACE of God should be our most important goal.

I want my kids to be good. I want them to obey the rules. I want others to think them well-behaved.   But in making these things my goals, I teach them that following the rules will grant them not only my approval, but God’s approval.

I am a Christian only by God’s grace. God loves me, a sinner, and sent His Son for me. There is nothing I can do to earn salvation. It is a gift. I want my children to understand that. I don’t want them to think that God rejects them if they are bad or accepts them if they are good. One thing I like about this book is that is continually emphasizes that our little rule-followers need God just as much as our little rebels. And they need to be reminded of this continually.

The authors provide examples of conversations to have with your children to point them to God’s grace at every turn. I thought the examples, as given, were much too wordy and would cause kids to tune out, but the ideas were good.

When I started the book, I was afraid that I might find the authors advocating ignoring rules, but they don’t at all. They just distinguish between teaching proper behavior and leading children to Christ. Both have their place, but they are not the same thing.

My thoughts:  I liked the premise of the book and will be implementing some of the suggested strategies. However, I had a hard time getting all the way through it. It wasn’t gripping reading and was somewhat repetitive. It just wasn’t a book I loved even though the ideas are good.

I received a free review copy of this book from the Crossway Book Review Program. All opinions are my own.