Throughout this series, we’ve talked about shepherding as the big-picture way to view parenting. Then we zoomed in more specifically on discipline and correction.
There’s a reason I think discipline needs to be understood as part of the larger parenting picture: correction isn’t the goal. The goal is to raise a child who is securely attached to you and to God, who is growing in wisdom and character, and who contributes good to the world around them—even in tiny ways.
That’s also why discipline doesn’t end with correction. When needed, we repair, restore, and reconnect after mistakes or ruptures. Through the larger process of shepherding, our children experience our imperfect-but-faithful version of unconditional love: You are loved. You belong. You are invited into relationship even when you mess up or are imperfect.
Throughout this series, I’ve used five words to describe what shepherds do:
Gaze—know and understand their sheep.
Gather—draw them close and keep them connected.
Guide—lead, teach, train, and redirect.
Give—provide what helps the sheep flourish.
Guard—protect them from danger.
When we look at parenting as shepherding, it highlights the lifelong work of discipleship. We are helping our children move toward maturity in their own lives and toward maturity in Christ.
This is an endurance-requiring assignment! Eugene Peterson famously described discipleship as “a long obedience in the same direction.” That applies to our own relationship with God, but I think it also describes much of shepherding our children.
Day after day, we show up. Connect. Listen. Guide. Provide. Protect. Correct when needed. And then the next morning, we get up and do it again. The long game of shepherding is built in those ordinary, everyday moments.
So, in this final post in the series, let’s step back from individual discipline moments and consider where all of this shepherding is ultimately headed.
What We Are Trying to Build Over Years of Shepherding
We’ve talked a lot about what the shepherd does for the sheep. But when we return to Jesus’ description of the Good Shepherd in John 10, we also get a picture of what the sheep gradually come to know and do.
“They know his voice.”
Over the years, what does our voice come to represent to our children?
Think about a child competing in a field hockey game or track meet. There may be dozens—or hundreds—of voices coming from the sidelines, yet somehow that child can pick out the familiar voice of Mom or Dad.
That’s what we want our children to experience with us. The goal isn’t simply for them to recognize our voice when it says, “Stop!” We want our voice to become associated with encouragement, wisdom, comfort, truth, delight, and guidance. We want them to recognize the voice of someone they trust—someone worth listening to.
“They come to him.”
We want our children to know they can come to us.
Not only with their successes, but with their problems, mistakes, fears, questions, and the things they’re still trying to figure out. We want them to know they are invited to bring their whole selves—the beautiful parts and the messy ones—and still find love and connection waiting for them.
“They follow him.”
When our children are little, much of our influence comes from our authority. We’re the parents. We set the boundaries and make many of the decisions.
But as they grow, something gradually shifts. Our influence becomes less about our authority and more dependent on trust that has been built.
We hope they begin to listen not simply because Mom or Dad said so, but because years of relationship have taught them that our guidance is trustworthy. And through our example, they also see what it looks like to seek wisdom, admit mistakes, love others, and follow God themselves.
“They will come in and go out.”
Healthy shepherding doesn’t keep our children close by controlling them. It prepares them to go.
Over time, they make more of their own decisions. They take risks. They develop independence. Eventually, they build lives of their own. That’s the tension of parenting: we spend years drawing them close while also preparing them to leave.
Secure attachment gives children a safe place from which to venture out—and a relationship they know they can return to.
“And find pasture.”
Ultimately, we aren’t preparing our children merely to stay close to us. We want them to flourish—and even frolic. We want them to move into the world with the security and freedom to explore, take appropriate risks, enjoy the life God has given them, discover their potential, and grow into who God created them to be.
We want them to increasingly find their place in the world, use the gifts God has given them, build healthy relationships, contribute to their communities, and live lives marked by wisdom, love, and purpose.
And this brings us to perhaps the most important part of the long game.
His Voice, Not Ours
Through secure relationships with caring parents, children get an imperfect human experience of what it is like to be known, loved, guided, protected, and welcomed back when they wander.
At the same time, we directly teach them about God and allow them to watch what it looks like for us to rely on Him ourselves.
But we aren’t the Good Shepherd.
We will get it wrong. We will misunderstand. We will overreact. We will need to apologize. And even if we shepherd extraordinarily well, we cannot control what our children ultimately believe or choose.
Our job is to faithfully shepherd the children God has entrusted to us—not to guarantee the outcome.
When our children are little, our voice may be the primary voice guiding them.
But our voice was never meant to be the final one.
Over time, we hope our children become less dependent on us to tell them what to do and increasingly able to seek wisdom, discern what is good, and make choices for themselves.
And ultimately, we hope they learn to recognize a voice far more important than ours.
The long game of shepherding is preparing our children to recognize and follow the voice of the Good Shepherd for themselves.
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Are you at a loss for how to discipline your child in a way that corrects or teaches and also maintains connection? If you’re looking for guidance rooted in Scripture, attachment theory, and Enneagram wisdom that you can explore on your own time, you might be interested in my new digital course about helping children manage their emotions while remaining connected. I plan to release it before the end of 2026.
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