Focusing on the Heart: Celebrate Progress

Discipline can feel like a roller coaster. One day, you see progress and feel encouraged. The next day, it can feel like you’re back at square one. But what if discipline isn’t just about correcting behavior but also about shaping the heart?

Discipline is one of the most challenging parts of parenting, and sometimes it is a roller coaster. One day you feel like your child is really making progress in some troublesome areas, and the next day you may feel like they are back to square one.

At the end of the day, our kids are going to make mistakes. That doesn't mean there is something wrong with them. It means they're human! We make parenting mistakes too. Yes, we’re human as well! The good news is that God’s grace is bigger than our mistakes, and He has plenty of grace for both us and our kids.

If we wait for perfection before we can feel like we’re doing a good job, we’re going to be waiting a long time. Instead, what if we focused less on perfection and more on the heart?

In the next several blog posts, we’ll explore what it looks like to focus on our child’s heart when it comes to discipline. A great place to start is with celebrating the progress our kids are making. 

As parents, it’s easy to notice all that needs to be fixed. The room is still messy. Your child still talks back. They forgot their homework again. They’re still struggling to share with their siblings. They know better, so why do they keep doing it? Ugh!

When we spend most of our time looking at what needs to change, we can miss something really important: how far our kids have already come.

Our kids aren’t going to become responsible, kind, patient, godly people overnight. Growth takes time. Just like us, they are works in progress.

That’s why one of the best ways we can focus on our child’s heart, and not solely behavior, is to celebrate their progress.

Maybe your child used to completely lose it when they didn’t get their way, and now they are learning to calm down. Maybe they still get frustrated, but they recover more quickly. Maybe they remembered to apologize without being asked. Maybe they helped a sibling when they normally would have ignored them.

Those moments might seem small, but they aren’t. Small steps are still steps.

Sometimes we’re so focused on where our child needs to go that we forget to celebrate how far they have come.

This week, look for the progress in your child and then point it out. Tell your child what you see.

• "I noticed you were really frustrated, but you handled it differently this time."
• "You remembered to say you're sorry without me asking. That shows me you're growing."
• "I've seen you being much more patient with your brother lately."

Our kids need to know that we see more than their mistakes. They need to know that we notice their growth, too.

And maybe this is something we need to practice as parents as well. We can be so hard on ourselves, always looking at what we should have done better. But God isn’t asking us to be perfect parents. He invites us to keep growing, too.

So today, instead of asking, “What does my child need to fix?” ask, “Where do I see my child growing?”

Celebrate it and remind your child that you see it. 

And then, thank God for it. 😊

 

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