Jill Savage - No More Perfect Kids: Love Your Kids for Who They Are

No More Perfect Kids offers wise counsel, genuine insight, and practical advice for parents, no matter how old your kids are. Mine are grown, and I still discovered many ways to improve my mothering skills. Savage and Koch are right: its so important to love your kids as is. Together they show us why, show us how, and show us what to do (and what not to do). A great read, a great guide.

LIZ CURTIS HIGGS,
bestselling author of The Girls Still Got It

No More Perfect Kids is one of those rare, must-read books that a parent will return to again and again. It is beautifully equipping and encouraging. Quite simply, incorporating these principles will be one of the most powerful, life-giving gifts you could ever give to your children.

BRENNAN DEAN, president
Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.

Wow. The message of Jill and Kathys book can free every parent from those subtle, unrealistic expectations that we sometimes impose on ourselves and our kids. This easy-to-read and practical book gives us the hope and tools to achieve the ultimate prize: our child becoming the unique, irreplaceable individual God intends him or her to be. As a social researcher, I have talked to enough kids that I can unequivocally tell every parent, Your child would love for you to read this book!

SHAUNTI FELDHAHN, social researcher, speaker, and bestselling author of For Women Only and For Parents Only

For many Christians, the idea that everyone is made in Gods image is just that: an idea. What does it look like to live as if this is really true? What does it look like to parent as if this is really true of our children? Thats what this book is all about. In No More Perfect Kids, Jill Savage and Kathy Koch explain, illustrate, and illuminate what parenting image-bearers means. Even better, the book is full of incredibly practical things to do immediately. Im a dad, and I really needed this book.

JOHN STONESTREET, speaker and fellow for the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and cohost of BreakPoint radio

No More Perfect Kids provides parents with a countercultural truth that needs to be understood and embraced. Our children are entrusted to us and we waste a lot of time doggedly pursuing perfection when we should be affirming Gods unique design for our child. Jill Savage and Kathy Koch have created a much needed rallying cry parents are overdue to embrace: No More Perfect Kids!

TRACEY EYSTER, founder and executive director of FamilyLifes MomLife Today and author of Be the Mom

2014 by
JILL SAVAGE AND KATHY KOCH

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible,New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189, U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are taken from The Message, copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from The Amplified Bible. Copyright 1965, 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Edited by Annette LaPlaca
Interior design: Smartt Guys design
Cover design: Faceout Studio
Cover images: iStock #8641435, #11352405, #19811578, #23247191, #25083410

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Savage, Jill, 1964
No more perfect kids : love your kids for who they are / Jill Savage and Kathy Koch, PhD.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8024-1152-5
1. Parent and childReligious aspects. 2. ParenthoodReligious aspects. I. Koch, Kathy. II. Title.
HQ755.85.S283 2014
306.874dc23

2013039487

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We dedicate this book to our parents, Duane and Patsy Fleener and Don and Arlene Koch, because they were always for us. Were grateful they invested in us and prioritized their role as parents. We each became who God designed us to be because of their love and support.

No More Perfect Plus

Friend,

Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

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I once knew a young man who finished medical school and then decided that he did not want to be a medical doctor. He said, I went to medical school to please my father. It was never really what I wanted to do. Now that my father has died, I want to pursue my own dreams. I have often wondered how many young men and women pursue their parents dreams rather than their own.