When Good Kids Make Bad Choices

Elyse Fitzpatrick, Newheiser James, Hendrickson Laura

Description

There is perhaps no greater fear in a parent's heart than the thought that a much-loved and well-cared-for child will make bad choices or even become a prodigal.What are parents to do in such circumstances? Authors Jim Newheiser and Elyse Fitzpatrick speak from years of personal experience as both parents and biblical counselors about how hurting parents can deal with the emotional trauma of when a child goes astray. They offer concrete hope and encouragement along with positive steps parents can take even in the most negative situations.Includes excellent advice from Dr. Laura Hendrickson regarding medicines commonly prescribed to problem children, and offers questions parents can ask pediatricians before using behavioral medications. A heartfelt and practical guide for parents.

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736933728
• Langue: English

Extrait

Unless otherwise indicated Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Cover by Harvest House Publishers, Inc., Eugene, Oregon, Katie Brady, designer

This book contains the opinions and ideas of its authors, and is intended to provide helpful information on the subjects it discusses. The authors and publisher are not rendering personal medical, counseling, or pastoral services through this book. You should always consult with your personal physician, counselor, or pastor before making any decision about how to help a child with a specific problem. Medicines a child is already taking should not be stopped except under the supervision of a doctor.
WHEN GOOD KIDS MAKE BAD CHOICES
Copyright 2005 by Elyse Fitzpatrick, Jim Newheiser, and Dr. Laura Hendrickson Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fitzpatrick, Elyse, 1950-
When good kids make bad choices / Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jim Newheiser with Laura Hendrickson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7369-1564-8 (pbk.)
1. Child rearing-Religious aspects-Christianity. 2. Parenting-Religious aspects- Christianity. 3. Choice (Psychology)-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Newheiser, Jim.
II. Hendrickson, Laura. III. Title.
BV4529.F56 2005
248.8 45-dc22
2004023925
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 / DP-KB / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To all our suffering brothers and sisters: Your sovereign God is also a suffering God, who knows the pain of losing a child and who will walk with you through this heartache. May His presence comfort and sustain you.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the parents who have shared their experiences with me in counseling and by filling out the survey. I admire the steadfastness of your faith, and your Christlike love for your kids. I would also like to thank my fellow elders and the members of Grace Bible Church for being so supportive of this project.
And, I would like to thank each of my sons for working hard that we might have a loving relationship. Most of all, I am grateful for my wife, Caroline, who has been a model of selfless love and unceasing prayer.
- Jim Newheiser
I am very grateful to George Scipione and Roger Wagner, my pastors and teachers, who taught me to think theologically about physical challenges. Physician-biblical counselor Michael Emlet s audiotape My Body Made Me Do It? -presented at the CCEF Living Faith 2002 conference-was foundational to my treatment of the body and the heart in Chapter 6. I also want to thank George Scipione, Jim Newheiser, and Steve Miller of Harvest House for special assistance in clarifying the message of chapters 6 and 7. Thanks also go to my best friend and colleague Eileen Scipione, who has always believed in me, to my faith family, who prayed faithfully for me, and to challenged counselees and friends too numerous to name who, along with their families, have taught me so much. I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to my dear husband Dan- thank you for all your love and support. And to my precious son, Eric- you are the reason for it all.
- Dr. Laura Hendrickson
I d like to thank Jim Newheiser and Laura Hendrickson for undertaking this project and sharing their wisdom with me. Thanks, also, to George Scipione, the brains behind this project (at least for me!). Thanks also to my pastors (Mark Lauterbach and Craig Cabannis) and my home group at Grace Church (SGM), who prayed for me and excused me from my obligations so that I could work on this project. Thanks also to Steve Miller, my perpetual ally in the struggle to get biblical books into believers hands. Thanks most of all to my family, Phil especially, who always understands and supports, and who will use this book with me as we counsel families together.
-Elyse Fitzpatrick
Contents
Acknowledgments
Our Dream Family
Part One: Seeking Comfort and Wisdom As a Parent
1. Why Do Kids Turn Out the Way They Do?
2. Their Choices, Our Tears
3. Your Divided House
Part Two: Understanding the Ways of Your Children
4. Fruit Inspection 101
5. Fruit Inspection 102
6. But My Child Is Different!
Dr. Laura Hendrickson
7. Will Medicine Help My Child?
Dr. Laura Hendrickson
Part Three: Dealing Wisely with Your Children
8. The War for Their Souls
9. The Discipline Offensive
10. The Love Offensive
11. This, Our Son, Is Stubborn and Rebellious
12. Your Great Hope
Appendices
Appendix A: How You Can Know If You Are a Christian
Appendix B: Resources for More Help
Appendix C: The Doctor Says My Child Needs Medicine
Dr. Laura Hendrickson
Appendix D: Reasonable Expectations Chart
Notes
Our Dream Family

U ntil three years ago, our family was all my wife and I (Jim) had hoped it would be when we married in 1979. I would have been pleased to invite you into our home to meet our three children. We had much to be proud of. My wife had faithfully homeschooled our sons for 14 years. Our sons could have told you about their studies of the great books from a Christian perspective. You would have observed their willing participation in our family devotions. All of them were active in our church s youth group and in other profitable activities such as Christian worldview camps and summer missions trips.
I believed that every member of our lovely family was devoted to the church where I serve as pastor. I can fondly recall coming home after the evening service with my heart full of thanks to God and my family because we were of one heart serving Him together.
Two of our sons were National Merit Scholars with the ambition of using their gifts to serve the Lord. Our oldest son was attending a prestigious liberal arts college where he was involved in a sound church and an InterVarsity chapter. He had a good relationship with his pastor and the InterVarsity leader. And our second son was about to go off to a top-ranked engineering school.
If you had visited our happy home, you would have seen three young men who were polite, respectful, articulate, and helpful. We frequently practiced hospitality and you would have seen each member of our family participating in making you feel welcome. We were living the godly Christian family dream.
Our Dream Becomes a Nightmare
In light of all this, perhaps you can imagine our shock when our oldest son informed us that he no longer believed that Jesus Christ was the only way to God or that the Bible was authoritative. Although that phone conversation took place over three years ago, I still feel its aftereffects deeply. It was during this dark call that he told me he had left the solid evangelical church where we had settled him during his freshman year in college and joined a very liberal church which questioned or denied much of what he had learned. Furthermore, he told us that he had become involved in a serious romantic relationship with a Buddhist girl. For some time he had been hiding these changes from my wife and me, but then finally decided he needed to completely break away from us and live his life as he pleased.
The shock and heartbreak my wife and I experienced was unlike anything we had ever known before. Indeed, it seemed to me that up until that day, I could have taken all the tears that I had seen my sweet and cheerful wife shed over the past 25 years and put them in a thimble. Over the next several weeks, I would have needed buckets.
Especially hard was seeing these changes after we had worked so diligently to train our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). My wife had devoted her entire adult life to training our children to serve God, homeschooling them so that our family would be the primary influence in their lives. Together we had prayed with them and for them, regularly leading them in our family devotions. We sought to prepare them for the intellectual challenges of college by sending them to Christian worldview camps and by teaching them to critique worldly ideology with a solidly God-centered philosophy. In addition, we also trained them in the biblical principles of sexual purity and courtship before marriage. But now our lives were consumed with trying to answer a question that haunted us: How could this be happening?
The Nightmare Intensifies
Our sorrow was further compounded when our youngest son, then 13, began to take the side of his older rebellious brother, buying into his argument that we were narrow and restrictive. He began to become alienated from us and our faith, and soon demanded that we stop homeschooling him so he could go to public school and be normal.
My wife and I suffered through many sleepless nights, and when we finally were able to get some rest, we would wake up hoping that what we were experiencing had been merely a very bad nightmare.
Again, how could this be happening to us? Didn t Proverbs 22:6 say, Train up a child in the way he should go; even w