Best Christian Books on Parenting: 12 Classics, Free to Read
If you read one old book on raising children, make it H. Clay Trumbull's Hints on Child-Training. It's thirty short chapters of plain, kind advice from a father who thought hard about it: train the will, don't break it; never punish in anger; give a child room to be the person God made. For a shorter and sharper word, read Catherine Booth's address to parents in Papers on Practical Religion. She raised eight children and doesn't waste a sentence.
The old Christian writers agreed on a few things. Your children belong to God before they belong to you. Teaching them isn't enough; you have to train them, which means seeing that they actually do what you've shown them. The home itself teaches, so it matters what children see when their parents pray, speak, eat and work. And none of it works without grace. Parents plant and water, and God gives the growth.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
Here are twelve of the best books in TheWay Library for Christian parents, grouped by what you need. Our guide to Christian books on marriage and family covers the household as a whole; this one stays with the children.
Start here: training a child
1. Hints on Child-Training, by H. Clay Trumbull
Trumbull wrote "hints" rather than a system, because he thought it was easier to meet one need at a time. He starts by separating training from teaching, then works through firmness, wise denial, self-control, a child's faith, Sunday, amusements, reading, companions, punishment, fears and sorrows. The chapter on will-training is the one people remember.
Will-training is an important element in child-training; but will-breaking has no part or place in the training of a child.
Hints on Child-Training, Will-Training, Rather Than Will-Breaking
He also believed small children can know God simply and directly, without being walked up to it by degrees. Read a chapter a night; they're short. Read Hints on Child-Training.
2. Papers on Practical Religion, by Catherine Booth
The co-founder of the Salvation Army opens this book with "The Training of Children: An Address to Parents." She begins with one question every parent has to settle: whose child is this?
To whom does this child belong? Is it mine, or is it the Lord's?
Papers on Practical Religion, The Training of Children
From there she argues for real, loving authority from the earliest age, not coaxing, and warns parents not to expect God to save children whom they never trained. The rest of the book has other addresses, including her well-known defense of women preaching. See also Catherine Booth's books. Read Papers on Practical Religion.
3. Memoirs of the Wesley Family, by Adam Clarke
Susanna Wesley raised ten children who survived infancy, among them John and Charles, and taught them at home herself. The chapter on Susanna in Clarke's family history tells her story and prints her long letter to John on how she brought them up: set hours, early habits, and an orderly house. She was firmer than Trumbull would be a century and a half later.
In order to form the minds of the children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper.
Memoirs of the Wesley Family, Mrs. Susanna Wesley
Read the two side by side and you'll see an honest disagreement among godly parents about the will. Read Memoirs of the Wesley Family.
Worship in the home
4. Thoughts on Family Worship, by James W. Alexander
The best book in the library on why a family should read the Bible, pray and sing together every day, and how to do it. One chapter is about what it does for children.
The children look more deeply into the parents' heart by the medium of family-prayer.
Thoughts on Family Worship, Influence of Family-Worship on Children
The chapter of practical directions near the end is the one to read if you've never led family prayers and don't know where to begin. Read Thoughts on Family Worship.
5. A Church in the House, by Matthew Henry
If Alexander feels long, start with this. It's a single sermon, about an hour, calling every household to be a little church, and it answers the excuses busy parents make.
I beseech you make a business of your family religion, and not a by-business.
A Church in the House
What children remember
6. The Story of John G. Paton, by John G. Paton
The missionary to the New Hebrides tells of his boyhood in a Scottish cottage. Between the kitchen and his father's workshop was a tiny room, the "closet," where his father went after meals to pray for his family. The children learned to tiptoe past the door. Decades later, Paton wrote that if he forgot everything else about religion, he would remember that room.
He walked with God, why may not I?
The Story of John G. Paton, Our Cottage Home
Read chapters 1 to 3 even if you go no further. No book on parenting makes the point so well that children watch what we do in private. This is the young readers' edition, so it also reads well aloud. Read The Story of John G. Paton.
7. Hudson Taylor in Early Years, by Howard and Mrs. Howard Taylor
The first chapters of Hudson Taylor's life show a Yorkshire home where his parents gave their son to God before he was born. The chapter "Nurture and Admonition" is about how they raised him, and his mother most of all.
Yes, home was home indeed and the nearest place to heaven, because it held that mother in whose heart was shed abroad the very love of God.
Hudson Taylor in Early Years, Nurture and Admonition
See our summary of Hudson Taylor in Early Years. Read Hudson Taylor in Early Years.
Teaching the faith to your children
8. The Little Child's Book of Divinity, by John R. Macduff
Eight Sunday-evening talks between little Emma and her grandmother by the fire, covering God, creation and the fall, Christ, the new heart, the Holy Spirit, judgment and heaven. It shows you how to answer a child's questions about God in words a child can hold.
There is something terrible about the thought of a Judge; but there is nothing but love and joy in the thought of a Father!
The Little Child's Book of Divinity, Third Night
Read The Little Child's Book of Divinity.
9. The Shorter Catechism Explained, by John Brown of Haddington
Brown wrote this for young people and families. He takes the 107 questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism one at a time and breaks each into small questions with one-sentence answers and Bible proofs. It is a reference for parents more than a book for children: look up the question you're teaching this week. Read Brown's Explication of the Shorter Catechism.
Books to read with your children
10. Morning Stars, by Frances Ridley Havergal
Thirty-one short readings, one for each day of the month, each on a name of Christ: Saviour, Friend, Shepherd, Rock, Wonderful, Prince of Peace, and last of all, Himself. Havergal corrected the proofs on her deathbed.
Jesus Christ gives us life, not for trying, not even for asking, but only just for believing on Him!
Morning Stars, Our Life
Good for breakfast or bedtime. Read Morning Stars.
11. The Cities of Refuge, by John R. Macduff
A short Sunday talk to young people on the six cities of refuge in Joshua 20, which Macduff calls "six pictures of the Saviour, hung up in the Old Testament picture-gallery." It ends with a story of the Waldenses and a sheltering rock. One sitting, and older children will follow it easily. Read The Cities of Refuge.
12. The Pilgrim's Progress for children
Two children's editions of Bunyan's story are in the library. The Pilgrim's Progress Every Child Can Read keeps most of Bunyan's words and drops the long arguments, so a ten-year-old can follow it. The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable is for younger readers and beginners.
Just as Christian came up to the cross, his load slid from his back, close to the mouth of the tomb, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.
The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable, Part I
For help reading it with kids, see our guide to The Pilgrim's Progress for kids and the list of Pilgrim's Progress characters.
When a child dies
Some parents come looking for these books because they've lost a child. John Flavel's A Token for Mourners, Theodore Cuyler's The Empty Crib and Philip Doddridge's sermon after the death of his daughter were all written by fathers who had been through it. They are in our guide to Christian books on grief and death.
How to use these books
Don't read them for a method. None of these writers would promise that if you follow their rules your children will turn out well. Read Trumbull or Booth for wisdom, read Alexander or Henry and start praying with your family, and read Paton to remember that children learn the most from what they see. Then pick up Morning Stars or The Pilgrim's Progress and read with your kids tonight.
You can find more by these authors on their pages: H. Clay Trumbull, Catherine Booth, James W. Alexander and John R. Macduff.