Becoming A Spiritually Healthy Family: Avoiding the 6 Dysfunctional Parenting Styles

About the author:

Michelle Anthony is the vice president of Learning Resources and Family Ministry Architect at David C Cook and the author of Spiritual Parenting, Dreaming of More for the Next Generation, A Theology of Family Ministry, and The Big God Story. Michelle has graduate degrees in Christian education, theology, and leadership and over twenty-five years of church ministry experience as a children's and family pastor. She lives in Colorado Springs and loves a good book and a cup of coffee.

Find Michelle online: website, Facebook, Twitter

About the book:

Becoming a Spiritually Healthy Family: Avoiding the 6 Dysfunctional Parenting Styles (David C. Cook, January 2015)

We all want to guide our children into the abundant life that Jesus offers. But when we pursue the more and better that the world offers above our pursuit of Jesus, we fall into dangerous parenting habits. In Becoming a Spiritually Healthy Family, Michelle Anthony unpacks six common dysfunctional parenting styles that we fall into out of habit, lack of attention, or just oversight due to busyness. If you long to show your children Jesus but don't know how to do it, you'll find hope in this practical guide to creating a relentlessly grace-filled home that is focused on God as first in charge.

Includes Scripture guides, reflection questions, ideas for family rites of passage, and other real life family examples.

Purchase a copy: http://bit.ly/1BSJpxN 

To see what others are saying about the  book, you can visit HERE.

My Thoughts:

For those parents who know that parenting is there biggest and most important job, Michelle Anthony has given an invaluable resource.  The content of the book is ripe with distinctions that are helpful for parents to understand who wish to navigate life in a God-honoring way with their children.

In the book, Anthony discusses the 6 Dysfunctional Parenting Styles:

• The Double-Minded Parent
• The I-Can't-Say-No Parent
• The Driver Parent
• The Micro-Managing Parent
• The Criticizing Parent
• The Absentee Parent

Each chapter ends with a "reflect and respond" section and helpful resources in the back such as the guide to writing a Family Mission Statement.

Anthony writes without condemnation, but with spiritual encouragement and exhortation from the Word of God as the standard for all we do as parents.  She uses helpful comparisons, observations from real life situations and practical suggestions to guide the reader along. 

I found chapter nine - Beyond Good Behavior and Chore Charts - particularly helpful and eye-opening.  She contrasts "education" with "formation" in this chapter and shows where our emphasis should be in a gospel-centered way:

"In spiritual development, the child's heart matters - not just his or her actions.  This is the stage at which we need to let the Holy Spirit come in and act in that child's life.  Yet if we don't make that transition, we fall into the temptation of making our homes about just being a really good person.  But really good people are not what Jesus asked for.  He asked for people of faith.  And faith is so much messier (and harder to measure) than moral behavior...We have the opportunity to allow our children to think differently - to think 'Yes, I'm sinful, yes, I'm broken but I can't fix myself.  Only the Holy Spirit can.'  This will require our children too have intimate relationships with Him, to know Him, to hear His voice, to depend upon Him, and not to get up tomorrow to simply try harder."

I highly recommend this valuable and instructive book!

*I received a complimentary copy of the book for the purpose of this review.

Blessings on your families,
Jennifer