The child, a created being: child theology in Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp

Tedd Tripp’s parenting manual, Shepherding a Child’s Heart , has shaped Reformed evangelical parents’ views because it treats parenting as a theological act and the child as a spiritual being. Tripp’s theology of the child is compared with those of John Calvin, Charlotte Mason, and Timothy Sisemore. This paper highlights an imbalance in Tripp’s theological approach, which overlooks the gift and giftedness of the created child and the presence of common grace. This imbalance leads to instrumentalisation, where the child is seen as a project of the parent rather than a full human being, as a Reformed theological method would anticipate.