How to raise a child to be Catholic?

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Absolutely, you need to play whack-a-mole with every possible sin. My father spent hours lecturing me in the car so I would know his views on everything. There is no reason why a kid has to bump into things by surprise. Your average teenager should be so well-versed on every subject that he could write a page contesting arguments for abortion, a page explaining how people fall into drug abuse, a page about why birth control is a sin etc…
 
I have a long way to go to see if it works but so far we go to mass (pre pandemic), pray and say the rosary, and say Jesus is our best friend and we love him wherever we look at a crucifix or picture of him.
 
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I think a young child forms an early concept of God from observing his/her parents. Therefore be patient, kind, attentive, generous, forgiving, healing, truthful, and humble. Love your spouse, love your child, give and receive love, live love, be love.

Bible stories, Sunday Mass, prayers, formal catechesis, parental discourses, and life lessons will all be important, but they all build upon the firm foundation of your child’s gut understanding, beyond words, that there is an eternal love that is God.
 
I think most parents in general do a good job of loving their kids. The kids don’t leave the Church because their parents are flawed. Rather, they bump into opposing beliefs in their early adulthood. They want to engage in some behaviour that the Church forbids, such as premarital sex or using birth control. They cannot reconcile the fact that their gay friends will have to live celibate lives, or that their transgendered friends cannot change their original genders. Eventually, they leave the Church if their parents haven’t provided them with adequate instruction.
 
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In your home, Jesus, His Church and charity for all should be like the air you breath. Practice your faith and talk about it, not preach, all the time!
 
Always make sure your children are loved no matter what and they can always come home no matter what even if they leave the Church.
 
Okay, but don’t forget— the a lot of us were sideswiped by just how influential the Internet would be.
 
Trent Horn and Lilah Miller wrote a good one:


Personally my suggestion would be to teach your kids where to go for reliable information (like Catholic.com. And I don’t mean this forum where just anybody can write anything: I mean the actual official apologetics resources).

Maybe listen to a CA radio episode every once in a while. Maybe have your own kids call or write in with a question, or if they ask a question say: “Let’s look that up together,” then show them how to find it on the site.

What’ll be key, I think, is for your kids to know that there are reasonable answers to whatever questions they come up with, and where to look for those. Role models of reasonable and charitable Catholics (eg the CA crew) will help.

The big danger, I think, is if a kid doesn’t know where to find good answers, or they hear a bad answer and think that’s the ‘real’ Catholic one but they can’t consider it good, so they assume there aren’t any good Catholic answers to that question, and then they’re vulnerable to fall for the first argument they hear that they can’t find an answer for. And the world will definitely throw these arguments at them. Bubbles aren’t an option. Knowing how to find Catholic answers, and how to understand the reasonableness of them from an intellectual perspective, will matter.

Your kids don’t necessarily have to become scholastics. But they will need, even in their own minds, to see enough reasonable scholastic material that in their own minds they trust Catholic scholastics to arrive at answers they can trust. Knowing how to seek and evaluate good answers will be more important than stockpiling a list of answers in their heads.
 
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I am sorry that the adult life of your children had been impacted in a way you didn’t wish too.

Yet, I don’t think it is possible that you failed 100% of the times at these.
 
Help your children develop friendships with the saints through reading biographies together, learing about saints days, asking for intercessory prayer, visiting relics and finding saints to whom one feels a special kinship.
Look for Catholic communities for children- here’s one example, but there are others out there!


Look for reverent masses.
Support strong Catholic teaching in your schools:
When you tour tell the principal and teachers that a strong sacramental life and prayer throughout the day is at the top of your priority list. Ask how often children go to Mass (prayer services are not Masses). If not at least weekly, why not? Confession? if not alt least quarterly, why not?
Try to take at least one day off to accompany your child to a school Mass each year, more if you are able. Let your kid know that this is more important to you than other things you could be spending time on on a day off.
Read over your child’s religion curriculum and give the school feedback on what you think. Schools replace textbooks and curricula and maybe it’s tiome for a change to a more orthodox curriculum.
Join the PTA at your school and the parish council.
If you are able, volunteer in the classroom. It will free up time for the teacher which will benefit the students. It will also enable you to see what is going on in the classroom and at school.
Gift a lovely statue to a classroom or a beautiful crucifix or a print of a beautiful peice of Catholic art to hang on the wall.
Buy Catholic books as Christmas gifts for your teachers. Go to homeschooling websites to look for fiction/literature which upholds Christian values and gift copies to the school and classroom libraries.
Read the books coming home from the libraries or book sales and, if they undermine the faith, speak up-both to your child and to the school.
Continued in a second post…
 
Ask teachers to explain how the faith is integrated into each subject. Even if they sputter a bit, it will get them thinking. Yes, faith and reason do go well together and many great scientific discoveries have been made by Catholics who are exploring the wonders of God’s creation. Speaking of science, email thosel science teachers to encourage them to look into joining the Society of Catholic Scientists:
https://www.catholicscientists.org/
http://www.thomism.org/history/catholic_scientists.html
Donate posters of famous Catholic Scientists to these teachers for their classroom walls. Look up one or two of the many lists of famous Catholic scientists and print it out for your children and for your teachers.


http://www.thomism.org/history/catholic_scientists.html
Teach logic to your children and help them to analyze arguments for fallacious reasoning.
Keep a copy of the Baltimore Catechism handy-number 4 has lots of good explanations which will help you answer questions from your children. Buy a copy for your teacher as a reference tool.
Point teachers towards free books, movies, on Formed.Org
Point them towards free history and philosophy classes on the Institute of Catholic Culture website:
https://instituteofcatholicculture.org/
And Pray hard for all of those priests and sisters and teachers who are actively forming children. May they grow in faith and holiness and teach in accordance with Gods’ most holy will.
Amen.
 
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