My husband and I found out we were expecting our first child in the summer of 2020. Ongoing pandemic lockdowns in California gave me ample time to read parenting books and research baby products.
I was raised in the shadow of fundamentalist evangelicalism at the turn of the 21st century, my parents and their peers guided by authoritarian parenting experts like James Dobson and Michael and Debi Pearl. I was eager to lay a different foundation for our own parenting philosophy, and I was also interested in fostering early independence in my child since I was approaching parenthood while facing a medley of chronic illnesses.
These motivations led my husband and me to explore the world of “gentle parenting.” We read several bestselling books on the Montessori approach to early childhood education and got acquainted with an organization known as RIE, or Resources for Infant Educarers. As we read, we came to recognize so many echoes of kingdom values: The authors and experts viewed children as full people in their own right, and they didn’t expect behavior that outpaced a child’s developmental capacities.
I knew, as I read these books, that they wouldn’t supply an exact formula for parenting. But over the last four years, we’ve tried to transfer great quantities of knowledge from our heads to our hearts and from theory to practice. During this time, I have occasionally struggled to harmonize different sources of parenting advice and my understanding of Scripture into a consistent plan for order and peace amid the chaos of raising young children.
So I was thrilled to encounter a new book from fellow Christian parents that makes explicit connections between some of these newer approaches to parenting and the ancient truths of God’s Word. In The Flourishing Family: A Jesus-Centered Guide to Parenting with Peace and Purpose, David and Amanda Erickson present a vision for Christian parenting that is grounded in Scripture and informed by modern understandings of neuroscience and child development.
“Our goal,” the authors write, “is to align our parenting approach with the teaching of Jesus and keep our focus on Him and our identity in Him.” The book serves this goal by challenging parents to address their fears and frustrations, first examining their own hearts and then working to cultivate the inner peace necessary to raise their children with a posture of trust. The Ericksons aim to provide tactical tools and answer practical questions that will enable parents of young children to begin establishing new patterns as they respond to common parenting challenges.
A key cultural moment
David Erickson is currently the president of Jacksonville College, a private Christian junior college in East Texas. Amanda, his wife and coauthor, has a passion for neuroscience sparked by her own struggle with postpartum anxiety and rage after the birth of their two sons.
The Flourishing Family (and the ministry the Ericksons began in 2019, Flourishing Homes and Families) arrives at a key cultural moment in parenting. In society at large and among Christian parents in particular, we see an unmistakable shift from authoritarian approaches to a more relaxed mindset.
An Anxious Generation—of Parents
Many millennial parents who were raised with the misguided (and sometimes outright abusive) “wisdom” of authors like Dobson and the Pearls are understandably anxious not to repeat those patterns with their own children. Others, who had milder experiences under authoritarian forms of discipline and essentially “turned out fine,” hope to continue that legacy as a hedge against the perceived flaccidity and permissiveness of gentle parenting. Still others have adopted modern parenting’s scripts of acceptance (“it’s okay to be upset”) while clinging to the behavioral expectations they grew up with (“but you need to stop pouting and tuck your lip back in”).
But while The Flourishing Family arrives during a particular cultural moment, the Ericksons have avoided tethering their work to that moment. They use occasional sidebars to briefly respond to common objections—like “What about the fear of the Lord?”—while keeping their distance from larger controversies. And while they devote an entire chapter to the topic of spanking (and properly interpreting verses in Proverbs that refer to “the rod”), they emphasize a holistic vision for Christian parenting that is founded on Scripture and supported by modern neuroscience. The result is a book that, while timely, figures to stand the test of time as a resource for Christian parents.
While the Ericksons set out to present a cohesive view of Christian parenting, I’m glad that the outcome is less a comprehensive manual than a facilitating guide—a starting point for deeper discussions and longer journeys into God’s heart for Christian families. This intention is evident in their use of storytelling to convey their experiences and convictions without being rigid or prescriptive.
And the authors include helpful reflection questions at the end of each chapter. These are not an afterthought, as they are in too many books. Instead, they further invite readers to consider their goals and hopes for their children and to draw nearer to Christ as they seek to disciple them well.
Constraining sin
The Ericksons clearly distinguish their peaceful-parenting approach from gentle parenting’s popular mantras like “There’s no such thing as a bad kid” and “All behavior is communication.” They are forthright in naming the reality of sin in our hearts and the hearts of our children.
They also (I believe rightly) call parents to focus more on building up their own spiritual growth than on rooting out every hint of sin in our young children through overzealous behavior modification. I wish, though, that they had gone a step further, acknowledging that parents might sometimes need to set narrower boundaries as a way to constrain their own sinful tendencies.
While acknowledging the effects of original sin on their children, my husband’s parents raised him with a careful eye toward the effects of original sin on themselves. This has led him to maintain a healthy skepticism of his own capacity to parent with peace and patience, while I tend to overestimate my ability to keep my cool amid toddler conflicts and constant messes. He tries to anticipate the dangers of his own resentments, preemptively saying no to a toddler art project at the end of a frustrating workday even though he would usually say yes. In contrast, my resentments come barreling down so overwhelmingly that we all end up literally crying over spilled milk.
“What would Jesus do?” is the question that, while never explicitly stated, seems to undergird the Ericksons’ parenting philosophy. Yet parents, within whom the flesh and the Spirit still wrestle (Gal. 5:17), probably need to pair that essential question with another: “Where are my limits in acting like Jesus today?”
An uncomfortable question
Early in the book, the Ericksons briefly note that their framework for parenting runs counter to many dominant tendencies within our society.
Fear-based parenting techniques are ubiquitous in modern Western culture. … And it overflows into day cares and classrooms. From our response to the earliest sign of defiance in a tiny toddler to the thick section on discipline included in the student handbook we give to college students, our world is set up to have children controlled, manipulated, and managed primarily through fear.
But even as they present a vision for Christian parenting that is rooted in peace and models grace, rather than punishment and behavior modification, the Ericksons never fully address the tensions that may develop between the environment we would foster inside our homes and the expectations our children may confront outside them. As I read, an uncomfortable question began burrowing into the back of my mind: Would this parenting paradigm work for all Christian families? What considerations, caveats, or tools might be missing for the parents of children who do not look like mine?
An example from the book may help to put some flesh on the bones of my question. In one chapter, the Ericksons address a disciplinary phrase I heard frequently while growing up: “Delayed obedience is disobedience.” They demonstrate that this phrase is not supported by Scripture (see the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21), and they argue for giving young children more expansive opportunities to learn and freely choose obedience, rather than focusing on immediate compliance.
Their discussion called to mind a short-form video I saw years ago. A mother is playing a classic game of Simon Says with her son. He is no older than five or six, and he is Black. His mom’s tone from behind the camera is playful, her instructions frequently punctuated by laughter. But as the game continues, the viewer realizes that the instructions “Simon” gives are eerily similar to the commands a police officer might bark at a Black teenager. The mother is using a preschool game to teach compliance, because while she may not believe that “delayed obedience is disobedience” in her own home, she understands the sober reality that delayed obedience elsewhere could mean death.
Can homes filled only with the expansiveness of grace and choice prepare children of color for the utter lack of grace they may find as adolescents? Can the Ericksons’ vision for peaceful parenting work for Christian families of every background and in any social location? I don’t have an answer to these questions, and I don’t necessarily expect the Ericksons to have one either. I only wish they had done more asking themselves.
Peace and trust
The Flourishing Family repeatedly applies Scripture to parenting in fresh ways, while taking great care to remain biblically faithful. It draws on the advancing field of modern neuroscience, not as an infallible authority but as a source of natural revelation and common grace that Christian parents would do well to consider. And while giving parents practical advice for the everyday exhaustions of raising young children, the Ericksons continually direct attention to the only one who provides true rest and lasting peace.
“Parenting with peace is ultimately about trust,” the Ericksons write toward the end of the book.
It is the embodiment of your knowledge of and hope in the trustworthiness of Christ. It is holding fast to His faithfulness rather than striving to stay faithful to a parenting paradigm. It is resting in the truth that His plans for your child are good, and He will complete the good work He started in them.
Parenting for me, for many of us, was once an idea, gestating (like my first baby) in mystery and anticipation. Today it is one of my identities—not the ultimate reality in my life but an ever-present reality nonetheless. As such, I’m called to live it out day after day, whether I feel ready and rested or not. What freedom to be reminded that I can explore new parenting styles while leaving my children right where they belong, in the faithful arms of Jesus.
Tabitha McDuffee is a writer and editor living in Southern California. She curates faithful Christian writing at BeautifulDiscipleship.com.
