Getting To Your Child's Heart

The perfect parent, our Heavenly Father, demonstrates the development of a heart relationship with His children.  He does that by first meeting all our needs: being wanted (desiring us in His family), being secure (through the death and resurrection of Jesus), being approved (making us able to stand seen as righteous through the blood of Christ), being capable (giving us spiritual gifts and the capability to use them), and being needed (giving us a place in the body of Christ where we are needed).  Then after He has met our needs, He teaches us and disciplines us as His children.  In order to get to a child's heart, a parent needs to first focus on meeting a child's needs.  It is amazing how this will develop a heart in a child that is open to a strong relationship and able to appreciate teaching and discipline.