Revive Our Hearts

Tanner Case Swanson: Prevent kids from feeling shame. That’s a big part of the gentle parenting model. Why is that exactly? I think the reason why the secular world and gentle parenting wants to just get rid of shame wholesale is because there is no cross. There’s nothing that we can do with it.

Dannah Gresh: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Holiness: The Heart God Purifies. For Thursday, August 13th, I'm Dannah Gresh.

We’re back with the lovely Tanner Case Swanson for part two of our gentle parenting conversation. If you missed part one, you can find that at reviveourhearts.com or on the Revive Our Hearts app.

Hey, welcome back, Tanner.

Tanner Case Swanson: Glad to be back.

Dannah Gresh: Yesterday, we were talking about gentle parenting, and we were analyzing what about it is maybe useful, but what about it also might not be lining up with scripture or maybe a holistic view of how we should be discipling and disciplining our children. You challenged us to look at the roots of the gentle parenting movement, and that really intrigued me. So I would love to know, just can you tell us a few things about what we'll find when we begin to dissect that?

Tanner Case Swanson: Yeah, I think the two that come to mind for me, one of them is in the Gospel Coalition article that we mentioned in the last episode. He there talks specifically about a woman named Dr. Becky. She doesn't usually include her last name, but Dr. Becky has really popular books that are out right now. One called Good Inside, and that book is just what we were talking about, a philosophy that is trying to draw the goodness out of your kids by making sure the external factors around them aren't the ones causing their misbehavior.

That’s very different from "the heart is deceitful and wicked above all things," like we find in the Old Testament. Good Inside is the polar opposite of wicked and deceitful. And obviously, we're going to help our children to understand that at age-appropriate times. Right now, we use words like sinful and naughty and wrong in our family with our young kids, but we don't want them to grow up thinking, "I'm good inside. I just need things around me that are going to draw it out. I need the people around me who are going to draw it out."

We need to be at a place as we're growing up where, in developmentally appropriate steps, we're understanding, "No, I need a Savior. I don't need the people around me that just draw out my goodness. I need someone that can wholesale forgive my badness and bring me to newness of life." And so a book like Good Inside is not going to teach you the gospel. And so I think Dr. Becky, a book like Good Inside, those are some of the things that you're going to find when you look into gentle parenting.

Another person that you'll probably come across is Dan Siegel. He writes a book called The Whole-Brain Child, which I've read, and there is a lot of good in that book. I enjoyed much of it. But there were parts of it, probably significant portions, where you're not going to find the justice side of parenting because you are so concerned about not breaking the secure attachment between you and your child. You're trying to develop stability between the two of you or however many there are, and so justice and punishment and consequences and making kids feel the weight of their sin is not going to be a part of creating a secure attachment.

And so as you're reading a book like that, you're going to find a lot of great research about how a child's brain develops, and how they learn how to empathize from you, and how they learn how to communicate from you. So there are good things about that book. But as I was reading it, I just couldn't help but feel the picture is so incomplete for Christian parents because God tells us that discipline is for our good.

And I should say, a lot of gentle parents are going to say, "Oh, I use discipline too." But the kinds of discipline that gentle parents use are generally not painful and they don't make kids feel any shame. And when I use the word pain, I don't necessarily mean a corporal punishment. I mean that a child should feel like what they did was wrong in that the consequence is not comfortable for them.

And that could be timeout, that could be removal from a situation, that could be losing privileges. One of those things should cause a child to feel like what I did hurt the situation, and therefore there is a just consequence. And gentle parenting doesn't want a child, generally, to feel those experiences of pain and shame, so the discipline and the consequences that are used in gentle parenting are going to try to avoid discomfort as much as possible and just point the child to the external factors and fixing those external factors that caused them to act out.

Dannah Gresh: Yeah, that sounds so like God. I mean, that's why he allowed the Israelites to wander in the desert, right? Oh, that’s right, he does make us discomforted sometimes. Okay, so you keep using two words that I think we really need to address. One is just or justice, and I'm wondering how that fits into our parenting. The other is shame, which we really need to drill into. But let's start with justice. How does that fit into a biblical framework of disciplining and discipling our children into good community members and godly human beings?

Tanner Case Swanson: Yeah, I think it's important just to get to a biblical definition of justice. When we see God called just in scripture, kind of the toddler version that we actually just taught in Sunday school is: God always does what is right. And part of doing what's right is rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior. That was kind of our simple definition of justice for the Sunday school class last week.

And so God is just in that he is going to both be faithful to uphold his promise to be gracious to those who are found in Christ, and he's going to uphold his promise to curse those who curse him. And obviously, we are not God. But when we're applying it to our own parenting, we see that there is right and wrong in God's economy. It’s not all good inside.

And so the tension as parents, as Christian parents, is trying to figure out when to show our kids more of the gospel and more graciousness, but when to also at the same time be holding up that right and wrong that’s baked into the way that God has arranged the world, and to have them understand that God rewards those who are faithful and he punishes those who are not.

Dannah Gresh: I love that you brought the word gospel up because as you're talking—and I've loved, I'm tracking with everything you're saying—my one question that I think is valid is: how do we do this? We balance the gentleness and the justice in a way that’s really like the character of God, right? Without creating a works-based or they're just going through the motions of doing what's right, but it's not in their heart. I think that would be one of the criticisms of the conversation you and I are having today is that ultimately, what has to change the behavior of our child has to be the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in them, right? So what would you say to how we incorporate that into this whole conversation?

Tanner Case Swanson: I am actually reminded of a story I heard in a women's Bible study when we were talking about this very thing: how do we make sure that what we're not after is external behavior modification, that is just continually doing the right thing and less and less doing the wrong thing? How do we get to their hearts, ultimately, which is God's job, but how do we be a vessel in his hands?

And one mom brought up a story of how she’s heard of parents having a bag with a bunch of pieces of paper on it. And some of the papers say "grace" and some of the papers say "justice" or "law." And so every time a child misbehaves, they get to pull one out of that bag and say, "Oh, this time I don't get a consequence because it says grace." And the next time they pull out a piece of paper, if it says law, "Oh, I get a consequence."

And I think as Christian parents, we wish that we had that bag where we could just pull it out every single time and say, "Oh, if I just repeat grace-justice, grace-justice, and I go back and forth as much as I possibly can, then my kids are going to one day understand that God both has a law that he wants us to try to fit, but we can't, so then there's always the grace and Jesus's blood that is covering us."

And I kind of hear the heart behind that of we want like a simple answer to how to balance grace and law in our kids' lives. But I think potentially a better way to do that is to live out that in your own life as a parent, where you are repenting of your sins to your children and explaining to them how you've fallen short, whether as a parent or in other areas that are appropriate.

And then they're seeing, "Oh, like Mommy and Daddy are receiving God's grace for when they don't measure up, but also they're still striving for the holiness without which they cannot see the Lord." There's that balance in my parents and the way that they're living. I want that. Like, I want what my parents are living out in front of me. So I think in our parenting, it is tricky to balance justice and grace. And I think that's where you have to pray and ask the Spirit for wisdom in situations and how to handle each child's behaviors and where you need more graciousness and maybe where you need to just be firmer. I think that it's going to depend on the context.

Dannah Gresh: I think what you just said there is really important because when you say we confess our own sin to our children—like, for example, when we do yell, because we're gonna as moms, that's going to happen where we're reactive at times—but to go to them and say, "I'm sorry, I didn't react to that as well as I should have. Will you forgive me?" That is protecting what the gentle parenting movement would call the secure attachment, right?

And we're not saying attachment doesn't matter. It matters very much. I think about the Garden of Eden. God doesn't come with the justice first. He comes with the comfort. He comes with those garments of fur first. He is concerned about his attachment to Adam and Eve. He is concerned about the relationship, right? So what I mean by that is that, like, first he says, "Okay, there's a death of an animal so that you can be comforted. I want to comfort you with these garments of fur."

But then he also in his justice says, "Okay, you can't be here. The consequence for your sin and your disobedience to me is that you cannot be—I’m putting you in eternal timeout until eventually you're going to see the big consequence, which is death." But he does both. He comforts, he stays connected, and he distributes justice.

Tanner Case Swanson: Yes, and even in that story, you see God asking questions when the God of the universe doesn't have to ask questions. He asks Adam and Eve, "Where are you?" He knows where they are. And then he says, "What have you done? Have you done this?" And he asks them because he is after a relationship with them even as he's going to also administer the right consequence for disobeying his law. And so he first makes sure that they know he is continuing to pursue them. And I think that’s what we as parents can do, even as we're administering consequences, is make sure our kids know we are continuing to pursue them and ask them questions and draw them in, but also not let those experiences of trying to understand and communicate keep us from helping our children to understand what in God's economy happens when sin occurs, and that's that pain and suffering happens. And so God asks the questions and then he also administers the consequences.

Dannah Gresh: And one of the pieces of pain that happens with sin is shame. So while we're here in the Garden of Eden, let's point out that before the fall, it says they were naked and unashamed. And then after the fall, they're hiding. So they're experiencing shame, and now this new emotion has been introduced to humanity through the pages of Genesis 3. The gentle parenting movement, you said, tries to parent without inflicting any shame. Why is that a problem?

Tanner Case Swanson: I think it's a problem because shame is tricky. The way that we generally understand it today is that shame is inherently a bad thing and that no one should have to feel shame. But I think that that is shame co-opted by the world because in scripture, there is an experience of feeling like you have done wrong and your feeling of you've done wrong matches what you've done. And that's a good feeling.

And it’s gracious from God that after the fall, we continue to feel like we have not measured up because that part of that experience is running to a Savior. I was just reading a book by Ed Welch called Shame Interrupted, and he talks about how shame can be either from something we have done or something that's been done to us. And the shame that is born from something done to us, like a child who feels ashamed because his or her parents are abusing him or her, that is not the kind of shame that we want.

We want to help our kids, again, at developmentally appropriate stages to feel the kind of shame that in scripture is going to lead them to the cross. So it's like when Peter, after betraying Jesus, he weeps and he then is led back to Jesus because of that experience of feeling ashamed of betraying Jesus. We’re obviously not going to try and make our children weep all the time about what they've done, but a feeling of sadness in my toddler's heart for hitting his brother is a good thing. It was put there by God on purpose. And I want to help to bring that out of him and use that experience of sadness that's coming from the shame that he feels over what's done to then say, "And look what's offered to you in Jesus. Isn't that amazing?"

Dannah Gresh: Well, what you're describing, when you say, "I want my toddler to experience shame when he hits his brother," if we didn't experience that, if in our world we didn't experience an appropriate level of shame, we would be a culture of psychopaths because we would hurt each other and not care about it, so we would keep hurting each other, eventually killing each other, right? Shame can be the reins on our behavior, right? But to your bigger point, the point that I love, is that it should be what drives us to Jesus. And the culture today is just canceling shame along with everything else in cancel culture instead of saying, what should we be doing with it? And what we should be doing with it is handing it to Christ, right? So that he can cut the sinful behavior out of us and heal us—and heal us of the shame too, right, as he cuts the sinful behavior out of us.

Tanner Case Swanson: Yes, and I love what you said: as Christians, we're trying to figure out how to take that shame and do something with it. I think the reason why the secular world and gentle parenting wants to just get rid of shame wholesale is because there is no cross. There's nothing that we can do with it. And so instead of handing it to Christ and saying, "You've told me you will bear my griefs, and I'm asking you to do this, this emotional grief that I feel, and to raise me up to just know how loved and forgiven I am in you," there isn't that experience offered for the secular gentle parent.

And so it makes sense why shame is being tossed out because there's not a way to redeem it. But that's why, you know, we have books and we have biblical teaching that are talking about how we're trying to redeem shame, because shame can be redeemed in God's economy in the gospel.

Dannah Gresh: And we're not saying that there couldn't be toxic shame, right? There are legalistic teachings, there are places where we are taught to really hide our sin, and it is performance and behavior management to the point where you could never tell somebody that you're struggling with whatever your secret sin is, right? And so we're not saying that that kind of shame is good. That's what I would call toxic shame when it's not an environment that you can confess. It's not a safe thing to say, "I have sinned, I have done this." That's not the kind of shame God gives us. The kind of shame God gives us is the kind that says, "I shouldn't have done that. I'm responsible for that behavior. Will you forgive me?" And then you go to Jesus and you say, "Lord Jesus, will you forgive me?" Right?

Tanner Case Swanson: Yes, absolutely. And I again think that's why it is so important as parents to model repentance in our home so that they know, "Oh, Mommy and Daddy feel shame too." My husband often tells the story of how visceral it is in his memory of his mom, tears streaming down her face, asking for his forgiveness for something she had done, whether it was talking to him in a harsh voice or maybe not spending enough time with him as she should have. She would cry as she was asking for his forgiveness.

And so my husband says, "I knew that my mom was a sinner that needed a Savior." And so I think when we model that, "I'm also feeling these things, but I am able to walk in forgiveness afterwards," that helps our children to not stay stuck in toxic shame because they see us taking the joy of the Lord from our salvation and walking out of a situation after we've asked for forgiveness. And we want to model that for them.

Dannah Gresh: Here's why the Holy Spirit is a critical component of our parenting. And we want to introduce the Holy Spirit to our children to be a critical component of their behavior, right? I feel like there should be a big disclaimer on this program. There are nuances to all these things we're talking about, and the one who helps us understand those nuances and govern them is the Holy Spirit, right?

Tanner Case Swanson: Yes, right. Because as we're talking about how to balance grace and law and gentleness and justice, that is only possible because we are not doing this in and of ourselves. We're doing it through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and we're asking him for guidance and we're asking him for the ability to live out these tensions in scripture. And that is really hard to do, so praise God that it's not us, but God working in us that is allowing us to do these things. Amen.

Dannah Gresh: Okay, when you were talking about shame a moment ago, you said sometimes shame comes as a result of behavior that we do, sometimes it's behavior that's done to us, and you used the example of abuse. I feel like we should probably land on that just for a moment. We don't have a whole program or week to do justice to the fact that there are sometimes parents who are abusive, right? And we're not condoning that.

But what would you say to the parent who's trying to maybe recover from a parenting experience when they were a child, their parents did tend towards the yelling, they did tend towards punitive punishment, or even abuse—sexual or neglect or verbal, any of those things? What would you say to the parent who's saying, "I'm trying to figure out this balance, but I'm really struggling because there is abuse in my history"?

Tanner Case Swanson: Right, and I think that is a question that a lot of people are asking and potentially why people are so drawn to the philosophies of gentle parenting. What I would say to that person is: if you are saved by Christ, you have a Father in heaven who is going to be your model for your parenting. And he has put his Spirit into you, his Son's Spirit into you, so that you can learn how to use authority in a way that models the gospel.

Just because you didn't see it modeled in your childhood doesn't mean that you can't model it in your home, because probably what you experienced was an unregenerate parent who was misusing authority. And you don't have to do that by God's grace. So I would just encourage those parents not to swing towards unbiblical parenting philosophies because they seem like the easiest way to avoid abuse. They might help you to avoid abuse, but I think they're going to have a whole picture of parenting that's going to be left out, specifically our children's need for a Savior. And there's a way to both not misuse our authority and make sure that our kids understand that rewards and punishment are a part of God's economy for instilling the law in us and understanding our need for a Savior, and just trying to have that balance based on the Spirit.

Dannah Gresh: Love that. You know, I feel like we should just pause and pray because it's possible you're listening right now and you're thinking, "Well, I have been devouring the gentle parenting movement hook, line, and sinker. I haven't read it with a discerning heart as Tanner has, and I feel guilt from that, I feel not good about that." Or you might be listening and saying, "I've been veering towards the yelling at my kids, I've been veering towards something that's not nurturing the connection." And I don't want anyone to leave here feeling guilty or condemned. In Christ, we don't experience that. We experience the invitation to repent where we've gotten it wrong and to push the reset button, this glorious clean slate that he gives us. I’m not saying that that doesn't mean you don't have some cleanup or some changing and some habit learning to do, but we want you to leave this program feeling that. So would you pray over the mom that's listening right now that needs to talk to the Lord about that and change some of the way she's parenting?

Tanner Case Swanson: I would love to.

Father in heaven, you are a perfect Father. And for those who are in Christ, you assure us that you will never leave us or forsake us, no matter what we're feeling regarding our parenting past or present. God, we just ask that for parents who are feeling ashamed, whether because of the things that have been done to them or the things that they have done, that they would just thank you. Thank you for the ability to feel the brokenness of this world and also that you offer full and final restoration in Christ.

God, so often when we feel pain in our spirits, it just feels like that's all there is. But we just ask that you would allow the moms or the dads listening to just feel that you raise them up and you allow them to walk in newness of life. So please God, would you do that in this very moment? We know that you're able, and we just ask for wisdom in our parenting so that we would be able to honor you in all that we do. It's in Jesus's name we pray, Amen.

Dannah Gresh: Amen. That’s Tanner Case Swanson, encouraging you to parent with a gentleness and justice that points your kids to the cross. I have so enjoyed this conversation with this sweet new friend. Now, if you'd like to read Tanner's Desiring God article, we'll link to that in the transcript of today's episode at reviveourhearts.com.

You know, we're able to address relevant issues like gentle parenting from a biblical perspective because our Revive Our Hearts family gives generously. If you've made a donation in the past, thank you so much. We're grateful for the ways you've blessed this ministry. And if you've enjoyed Revive Our Hearts resources and you haven't given yet but you'd like to partner with us, well, now is a great time. Donations typically slow down during the summer months, you see. That means we'd be extra blessed to hear from you.

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When you're busy, it can be difficult to find time to spend with God. Moms of little ones know this very well. But there are opportunities to worship even in the midst of the dishes, diapers, and dirty clothes piling up. Join us tomorrow as some godly moms share ideas and strategies for spending time with the Lord in the midst of daily responsibilities. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.