Tedd Tripp believes the goal of parenting is to shepherd a child’s heart rather than just correct a child’s behavior. He bases this goal on the principle in Luke 6 (the heart as the control center of life). He believes you should help the child to understand that his/her wrong behavior is a result of a straying heart. Change the heart and you will change the behavior.

He writes his book in two parts. Part one describes the goal of parenting, your child’s development, and unbiblical methods vs. biblical methods. Part two describes training objectives and training procedures for three age brackets: ages 0-5, 5-12, and 12-19.

Strengths:

• The author speaks against "Christian determinism" – the perspective that a proper environment will produce a proper child.
• He writes an excellent description of the importance of heart issues rather than just behavior issues. He is teaching against making our kids Pharisees. (Chapters 1-3)
• Chapter #4 "You’re in Charge" is helpful for a parent who struggles with being an authority for their child.
• The chapters on communication (chapters 8, 9 & 10) are a good description of how our relationship with our children should be. He calls parents to count the cost of good communication.
• The training objectives for infancy and childhood are pretty accurate (chapters 15 & 16). However, I think his training objectives for teenagers are not as good.
• His three-pronged tool of diagnosis (pg.168) is a good tool to determine your elementary child’s needs.

Weaknesses:

• I think his approach in thinking about goals and methods in chapters 5, 6, and 7 are too extreme and dogmatic. I think he is too narrow in his thinking that only communication and the rod is all you need in parenting. I think time-outs, contracts, grounding and rewards can also be effective. He claims these methods are unbiblical.
• I don’t believe he allows room for God’s creativity and individual design of our children. I think he presents a false dichotomy between being a Christian and participating in activities in the world.

Overall I would say the author’s principle is excellent but his approach is too narrow. I would read it with a critical mind.