Parenting

In this first session, Dr. Holly Taylor Coolman provides an overview of the Christian vocation of parenting. Throughout church history, the family has been viewed as a miniature church, a worshipping community whose shared life is fundamentally guided by love.

Dr. Coolman introduces apprenticeship as a transformative framework for reimagining Christian parenting, moving beyond management-style approaches that emerged from recent technological and economic changes in domestic life. This apprenticeship model reframes the parent-child relationship as disciple-making disciples of Jesus Christ.

This third lesson reframes discipline beyond simple behavior modification as apprenticing children to gather their energies together toward love’s purposes. Dr. Coolman invites parents to view discipline as apprenticeship into essential skills needed for virtuous living rather than behavioral control.

This lesson addresses parenting’s significant modern challenge: relating wisely to technology. Digital technology has dramatically changed parenting and childhood in recent decades. Parents must initially shepherd children’s technology relationship, then gradually help them learn to make wise digital decisions independently.

This final lesson frames parenting as divine vocation within God’s broader calling on Christian life. When parenting feels overwhelming or passes quickly, remembering it as God’s calling can transform how we practice parenting for our families’ good and God’s glory.