Raising Moral Kids in an Immoral World

Beyond the Birds and Bees

An Ascension Press Webinar with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak

On June 26th, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. This decision makes it more important than ever to be able to confidently convey the Catholic vision of love, life, and morality to our children.

The good news is that it’s possible to raise kids who can joyfully and willingly witness to Catholic values in every part of their lives—even when you aren’t breathing down their necks.

Join Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, authors of Beyond the Birds and the Bees, for a live webinar on August 3rd, as they reveal the secrets of raising moral kids in an increasingly immoral world!

Join Us on Monday, August 3 at 1 PM EDT!

RESERVE YOUR SPOT

Protecting YOUR Family’s “Heart Health”

Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

Your family’s spirituality is the heart of your home.  Do you know how to protect and nurture it?

Are you attending to your family’s heart health?   Your family’s spiritual well-being represents the true heart of your family, the spiritual heart that pumps joy, meaning, and connection into your life as a family and as persons.  Experts note that the degree to which your family shares a spiritual life actually predicts the degree of  satisfaction you can expect from both your family relationships and life in general.   Do you know how to protect your family’s “heart health”?

What is “Spirituality” Anyway?

Psychologists assert that a healthy spirituality promotes three qualities that are essential for a joyful, meaningful life; transcendence, transformation, and integration.

            Transcendence refers to times of special connection with God, moments filled with a sense of wonder and awe.  Transcendence promotes well-being by reminding us that we are part of “something bigger.”  That we are not alone in the world and that each moment of life is  packed with divine meaning and purpose.

            Transformation refers to our commitment to embrace the changes necessary to become healthier, happier, and more fulfilled people.  For the Christian, authentic transformation is all about embracing God’s plan for our fulfillment in a conscious (versus merely cultural), willing  (versus coerced), and whole-hearted (versus grudging) manner.

Finally, Integration refers to spirituality’s power to promote greater peace in our lives–both between us and others and within ourselves.  A healthy spirituality compels us to harmonize any conflicts between our beliefs, values, and identity and enables us to live with integrity no matter where or whom we’re with.

Properly understood, “being spiritual” is about becoming fully-formed, vital people who know who we are, what we stand for, where we are going, and what we need to do to get there.

Family Spirituality:  What Does it Look Like?

Families play a critical role in cultivating  each member’s spiritual life and all the above benefits that flow from it.  Family life is primarily about forming persons–parents and children growing together, learning from each other, supporting one another in living out a shared mission and goals–all of which has to do with spirituality.  Without a strong sense of spiritual well-being, families too easily become collections of individuals living under the same roof and sharing a data plan.

3 Steps To A “Heart-Healthy” Family

There are three basic activities families can undertake to promote their spiritual well-being; Worship, Devotion, and Discipleship.

            Worship, is how Catholic families prioritize their connection with the sacramental and spiritual life of the Church.  Going to mass together.  Attending adoration, confession and other spiritual opportunities afforded by the parish as a family. Participating in parish life together.  Research shows that an important part of family well-being is creating shared experiences.  Worshiping together as a family creates experiences that connect us to the larger family of God.

            Devotion, involves the ways families live their faith at home, including family prayer, practicing Catholic cultural traditions (celebrating saints days, cultural holiday traditions, etc) and learning how to live out the  Church’s vision regarding family dynamics, love, and sexuality. Devotion facilitates spiritual well-being by bringing your faith into the laboratory of your everyday life where you do the lion’s share of the integration and transformational work that an authentic spirituality requires.  Ultimately, it prevents you from seeing your faith as merely an escape.

            Discipleship is about creating positive, open-hearted relationship within the home.  Discipleship involves all the relational activities that inspire your family to feel like a team, to be receptive to each other’s thoughts, experiences and guidance; things like rituals that carve out time to work, play, talk and pray together, ample one-on-one time with each other, and other activities that make deposits to your relational bank accounts.  It also involves  formational activities like reading bible stories together, discussing faith questions, exploring values, sharing spiritual concerns, and showing your children how to walk in your spiritual footsteps.

Ultimately, discipleship tasks enable children to open their hearts to their parents’ attempts to form them as godly persons, and it helps parents make sure they have taken the time to get to know their children–inside and out–so that they have things to say that their children will experience as relevant and meaningful.

 Family Spirituality: Living the Gift.

In our forthcoming book,  Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, my wife and I demonstrate the many ways that fostering your family’s spiritual well-being is anything but an abstract luxury for people who have all their other problems worked out.  Rather, it is what enables families to celebrate the love that comes from God’s own heart, to discover all the ways that life is a gift, and to help each other become everything God created you to be.

Men Want MORE Romance–And Other Surprising Relationship Facts

Contrary to conventional wisdom, men really DO value romance in relationships!  So much so, in fact, that 33% of men are bothered “a lot” by the fact that their significant other isn’t MORE romantic.  That, combined with the fact that men are MUCH MORE LIKELY to fall in love at first sight than women (48% vs. 28%) reveals the surprising truth that men crave love (as opposed to just sex) much more than most people think.  What other relationship myths do you believe?  Check out more surprising relationship facts here!

Learn more about the true versus false differences between men and women in For Better…FOREVER! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage.

Yes, You CAN Raise Faithful Kids

Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

What are your chances your children will own their faith?  Answer these 5 questions in my inaugural post in the National Catholic Register!

For the Catholic parent, there is no more important task than communicating our faith to our children. That doesn’t just mean teaching our kids Catholic prayers and rituals. It means teaching them how to have a meaningful and personal relationship with God. How to think and act morally. How to love rightly and intimately. How to celebrate and live life as the gift that it is meant to be. And, ultimately, how to be saints — living witnesses to a life of grace.

As critical as this mission is, it’s understandable that many parents feel overwhelmed about the undertaking. In our newest book, Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, we take some of the mystery out of the process and reveal recent studies that expose the science behind passing on the faith.  The book goes into many more ideas but let’s cover a few of the bigger findings here.  Answer the following questions to see how effectively you are sharing the faith in your home.

1. Do your children experience your faith as the source of your warm, family relationships?

The Christian life is a call to deeper relationship with God and others. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that children are much more likely to “own” their faith when they experience it as the source of the warmth of their family relationships. When children of faithful parents experience no difference in the quality of the relationships in their homes relative to the quality of the relationships in their non-Catholic or non-believing friends’ homes, they come to see faith as either a hobby they can take or leave or, worse, as a fraud. This is especially true when faith is experienced as a collection of restrictions and rules instead of the source of the family’s sense of joy and togetherness. To this end, (CONTINUE READING)

Promoting NFP Just Means Catholics Don’t Believe in Being Stupid–Period.

Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used with permission.

<Sigh>

The author of this piece  (arguing against universal NFP training in marriage prep) is responding to a piece I wrote last year for NFP Awareness Week.   And, although I know he is completely well-meaning,  he completely missed the point.

To say that couples should NOT be required to learn NFP–as the author of this article does– is, in my mind, the equivalent of saying, “As Catholics, we think it is good and noble for people to be completely ignorant of how the female body actually works unless there is some kind of crisis and then we should learn about it really fast.” This strikes me as incredibly stupid–however well-intentioned it might be. Since when is basic ignorance virtuous or commendable?

Likewise, I’m genuinely mystified that many people really don’t seem to understand what “doing NFP” means. After all this time, why is it that people automatically think that “Requiring couples to learn NFP” automatically means, “couples should be taught from day one that they shouldn’t be having babies.”

What complete and utter rubbish! “Doing NFP” does not mean that AT ALL.

What I try to point out in this article 
is that NFP is NOT a thing and it certainly isn’t a thing that is intended to be used with one specific purpose in mind. Whether or not many couples use NFP in a single-minded way (i.e. to avoid pregnancy) isn’t relevant at all. NFP, qua NFP, doesn’t presume an intention to prevent or avoid pregnancy. It isn’t a tool, like a hammer, that is really only good for one job. Instead of being some “thing” that should be used in one, proper way, NFP is just information that can be used however you prayerfully choose to use it.


So yes, I do believe that couples should be required to learn NFP inasmuch as I believe that couples should required to learn how the woman’s body works as part of marriage prep so that they can take that information and do with it whatever they discern God wills. I do not believe that there is any virtue in ignorance and unless I am misreading the catechism or scripture, I can’t see a single place where Catholics think ignorance is a good thing. I certainly don’t believe there is any virtue in remaining willfully ignorant until there is some kind of crisis and then suddenly running around like a chicken with your head cut-off trying to learn everything overnight and then getting frustrated because “it didn’t work.” If the former is stupid, then the latter is just stupid times 10. The Catholicism I believe in doesn’t promote stupidity and ignorance.

In sum, my position is that NFP should be taught to every couple NOT so that every couple can avoid having kids. THAT IS NOT WHAT NFP IS REALLY ABOUT BECAUSE NFP, per se, IS NOT “ABOUT” ANYTHING. It is just information that couples have a right to have and, in fact, need, in order to be able to properly discern God’s will.

The article builds on this theme.  I hope it helps clarify what I think versus the calumnies that people regularly spread about me.

To learn more about the TRUTH of the Catholic vision of love and sex, check out Holy Sex! The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

UPDATE: Check out Simcha Fisher’s excellent reflection on how to honestly approach the struggles inherent in NFP.

Family Spirituality: So What? Who Cares? & What’s In It For You?

Image via Shutterstock

Image via Shutterstock

If the idea of “family spirituality” sounds indescribably boring, oddly mysterious, or like a total luxury (and not in a good way) then you’re not alone.  A recent study by Holy Cross Family Ministries (HCFM) and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) found that 83% of Catholic families do not have any kind of shared spiritual life at home.  Here’s why you should care.

What is “Spirituality” Anyway?

Psychologists who study religion and spirituality assert that healthy spirituality facilitates three qualities that are essential for general well-being; transcendence, transformation, and integration.

Transcendence

Transcendence refers to personally significant encounters with the Divine that are usually accompanied by a sense of wonder, awe, and boundlessness.  Transcendence promotes well-being by reminding us that we are part of “something bigger,”  that we are not alone in the world and that each of life’s moments is packed with divine purpose.

Transformation

Transformation refers to our commitment to growth and change.  Most people don’t like either very much.  But spirituality motivates us to embrace the changes necessary to become the people God wants us to be.  For the Christian, authentic transformation is all about embracing God’s will in a conscious (as opposed to merely cultural), willing  (as opposed to coerced), and whole-hearted (as opposed to grudging) manner.

Integration

Finally, Integration refers to spirituality’s power to facilitate greater peace both within ourselves and between us and others.  A healthy spirituality compels us to harmonize areas of discord between our beliefs, values, and identity and challenges us to live with integrity no matter where or whom we’re with.

Family Spirituality:  What Does it Look Like?

Seen in this light, it seems clear that families play a critical role in cultivating  a healthy spiritual life and the general well-being that flow from it.  Family life is supposed to be about forming persons–parents and children growing together, learning from each other, supporting one another in living out a shared mission and goals–all of which has to do with spirituality.  Without a strong sense of spiritual well-being, families too easily become collections of individuals living under the same roof and sharing a data plan.

3 Steps To A Spiritually-Healthy Family

There are three basic sets of tasks families can undertake to promote the spiritual well-being of their homes; Worship, Devotion, and Discipleship.

Worship

Worship, is how Catholic families prioritize their connection with the sacramental and spiritual life of the Church.  Going to mass together.  Attending adoration, confession and other spiritual opportunities afforded by the parish as a family. Participating in parish life together.  Research shows that an important part of family well-being is creating shared experiences and a shared mission.  Worshiping together as a family creates experiences that remind the family that there is more to life than just getting through the day in one piece.

Devotion

Devotion, involves the ways families bring their faith home, including family prayer, practicing Catholic cultural traditions (celebrating saints days, holiday traditions, etc), and learning how to live out the Church’s vision regarding family dynamics, love, and sexuality. Devotion facilitates spiritual well-being by bringing your faith into the laboratory of your everyday life where you do the lion’s share of the integration and transformational work that an authentic spirituality requires.

Discipleship

Finally, Discipleship is about creating positive, learning relationships within the home.  Discipleship involves all the relational activities that inspire your family to feel like a team, to be receptive to each other’s thoughts, experiences and guidance; things like rituals that carve out time to work, play, talk and pray together, ample one-on-one time with each other, and other activities that make deposits to your relational bank accounts.  It also involves  formational activities like reading bible stories together, discussing faith questions, exploring values, sharing spiritual concerns, and showing your children how to walk in your spiritual footsteps.

Ultimately, discipleship tasks enable children to be receptive to their parents’ attempts to form them as godly persons, and it helps parents make sure they take time to get to know their children–inside and out–so that they have things to say that their children will find relevant and meaningful.

Getting More Guidance

This framework provides the most basic responses to “why” and “how family spirituality is essential to learning to live well.  Obviously, there is much more to say about the details of fostering a family’s spiritual well-being in the day-to-day, and I hope that you’ll check out Lisa and my newest book, Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids to learn more.

Family Spiritual Well-Being: Living the Gift.

Regardless, I hope that you can see why fostering your family’s spiritual well-being is anything but an abstract luxury for families who have all their other problems worked out.  Fostering your family’s spiritual well-being is what enables you to be more than a bunch of people sharing a room but feeling lonely just the same.  It is what enables you to celebrate the love that comes from God’s own heart, and discover–as a family– all the ways that life is a gift, and to help each other become everything God created you to be.

Can Men and Women Be “Just Friends”? 1st in New CatholicMatch.com Video Series with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak

catholic-match-logo

Check out the first in our brand new series of videos that Lisa and I did with CatholicMatch.com.  Here is the introduction to the first video on the question of male and female friendships by CatholicMatch.com editor, Robyn Lee.

This past weekend I was chatting with one of my girlfriends about how excited I was to see one of my guy friends from high school. Her response surprised me, “I don’t believe women and men can be friends.”

I was taken aback at first and responded defensively: “I guess it depends what you mean by ‘friends.'” Then we debated about what level of friendship men and women can enter into without having romantic feelings for each other.  I’ve always thought that I could be casual friends with guys. But I knew if I had an intimate friendship with that same guy I would eventually fall in love with him.  I‘ve had this debate so many times before. Why does this question always intrigue us?

To answer this question, check out this video by Dr. Gregory Popcak and his wife, Lisa. I was fascinated about the way they talked about the differences between men and women. Greg and Lisa answer this captivating question in a way that I have never considered before. I suspect it may surprise you as well.

New Research Suggests Porn is NOT an Addiction. It is a Compulsion. Here’s Why That Matters.

Image via Shutterstock

Image via Shutterstock

New research puts another nail in the coffin of the idea that pornography is an addiction.  First the study, then I’ll explain why this matters for treating problem sexual behaviors and why it’s GOOD news for sufferers.  According to ScienceDirect.com…

A new study published in Biological Psychology provides provocative evidence in favor of dropping the addiction label because what’s going on inside the brains of so-called porn “addicts” is nothing like what you would expect from someone who has an addiction.

In this study, researchers recruited 122 heterosexual men and women who reported “problems regulating their viewing of sexual images.” These participants came to a lab where they viewed a series of images (some sexual, some non-sexual) while an electroencephalograph (EEG) measured their brain waves.

The researchers focused on one specific brain activity pattern, the late positive potential (LPP), which reveals the extent to which a stimulus evokes an emotional response. LPP is a frequently used measure in neuroscience studies of emotion.

Previous studies of drug addicts have found that, when shown images of their drug of choice, their LPP levels spike—that is, they show a strong emotional response to images of the drug.

To the extent that pornography is addictive, one would expect a similar finding when a so-called porn addict is shown sexually explicit imagery; however, that’s not what was found in this study. Instead, what researchers found was the reverse—that is, these individuals showed decreased LPP levels when viewing sexual images compared to non-sexual images.

As noted by the study’s lead author, Dr. Nicole Prause, in a press release: “While we do not doubt that some people struggle with their sexual behaviors, these data show that the nature of the problem is unlikely to be addictive.”  In light of such findings, it would seem advisable to drop the “addiction” label when talking about people who are having issues regulating their porn use because it does not appear to be accurate.   

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Saying that pornography is not addictive does NOT mean it is not problematic.  We know that it is–unquestionably.  BUT if the urge to view pornography is an addiction then that means that one can never hope to fully recover from the urge to view pornography and/or masturbate.  As the saying goes, “Once and addict, always an addict.”   Although some people are helped by recovery programs that follow an addiction model, many other people are demoralized by the idea that they might never be free of the struggle.  This idea causes many to give up treatment or never try in the first place.  “After all, if I’m never going to be free, why start in the first place.”

This might seem like a cop-out on the surface, after all, plenty of people have drug and alcohol addictions and they seek help.  But the difference is that with drugs or alcohol, you can learn to avoid the chemicals that drive the addiction.  But if pornography is actually an addiction, you always carry the chemicals that cause the addiction inside of you. You can never really be sure when they might strike again.  An alcoholic can tell himself, “I can be OK as long as I don’t take the first drink.”  but while a “porn addict” can avoid pornography, they can’t avoid feeling physically attracted to someone.  If they’re married, they can’t avoid sex.  They can’t avoid every image on TV or in the movies the might provoke arousal.  Can you imagine the kind of pressure this approach can put on a client and why so many people despair of ever recovering when they are treated using an addiction model?   No matter how many controls you put on your computer, no matter how accountable you make yourself to a partner, you can ever be scrupulous enough to get away from every imaginable trigger.

GOOD NEWS

The mounting research suggests that rather than an addiction, it might be truer to call porn and problem sexual behavior “compulsions.”  To say that the urge to view pornography is more like a compulsion than an addiction means that it can be treated like many other impulse control problems such as, anger control problems.  The treatment for compulsions involves helping clients learn mindfulness-based techniques that empower them to avoid triggers when possible, recognize urges early, identify the problem driving the urge and address the real, underlying concern.  There is good reason to believe that this approach actually heals the damage compulsions can cause in the brain and enable clients to experience healthy arousal without triggering a compulsive response. Many clients who learn this approach report that they can become free from the urge to view pornography or engage in other problem sexual behaviors altogether AND go on to have healthier and more intimate marriages post-treatment.

Through the Pastoral Solutions Institute tele-counseling practice we successfully treat problem sexual behaviors such as compulsive pornography use using this compulsion model of treatment.  We also encourage our clients to use a wonderful support program called ReclaimSexualHealth.com which created a coaching program to support clients going through therapy for this issue.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The bottom line is that if you or someone you love is struggling with problem sexual behavior, there is hope.  There is healing.  There is a way through.  And if you need assistance, we are here to help.

Major Cheating Websites Hacked–Members Threatened with Exposure

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According to KrebsOnSecurity

“Large caches of data stolen from [a major] online cheating site [ed. note.  I have redacted the name of the site so as to not participate in the promotion of their “work”] have been posted online by an individual or group that claims to have completely compromised the company’s user databases, financial records and other proprietary information. The still-unfolding leak could be quite damaging to some 37 million users of the hookup service, whose slogan is ‘Life is short. Have an affair.'”

This is actually  the second such site to have been hacked in the last several months.  Millions of people and marriage could be affected by the release of member’s information.  The existence of such websites is incredibly sad.  Please pray for those who have been caught up in the temptation to take advantage of the “services” these sites offer.  May God  grant them the grace they need to heal their personal and marital wounds.  As I note in When Divorce is NOT An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love, the good news is that research consistently shows that those who seek appropriate, professional help in recovering from infidelity, often are able to heal their marriages and report better and stronger relationships moving forward.  Couples who try to go it alone tend to not do quite so well–often getting stuck in a place where the tension is constant but never openly discussed.  The point is that healing is possible, even for serious infidelity, if you seek appropriate, professional, marriage-friendly guidance.

We’re here to help. If you are struggling to heal from the pain of infidelity, please contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute to learn how our tele-counseling practice can help you heal.

“You Make Me Sick!” The Surprising Ways Your Spouse May Be Undermining (or Helping) Your Health

Image Shutterstock

Image Shutterstock

Researchers consider it a well-establish fact that the quality of our relationships, in general, and our romantic relationships, in particular, wield huge influence over our physical health and well-being.  We know, for example, that people who are unhappy in their marriages are at significantly greater risk for disease than couples who are happy together.  What was less clear is the mechanism by which relationships impact our health.  But a new study finds that the degree to which you feel understood and supported by your partner directly impacts the production of hormones that. over time, can either prevent or cause disease.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

The study predicted that the partner’s responsiveness might affect cortisol production. Cortisol is a hormone that helps to regulate a diverse set of functions in the human body, ranging from higher-order functions like learning and memory, to more basic functions like immune system responses and the breaking down of food (i.e., metabolism). New research suggests that the body’s rhythm of cortisol production throughout the day has important implications for health. People with “steeper” cortisol profiles—higher cortisol output in the morning, with declining output throughout the rest of the day—tend to have better health outcomes compared to people with flatter cortisol profiles.

Slatcher and colleagues predicted that having a high-quality romantic relationship—in which the person feels that their partner is responsive to their needs—might lead to long-term improvements in how the body produces cortisol. To test this, the researchers analyzed over a thousand participants who were either married or living with their partners. Participants indicated how responsive they thought their partner was by rating how much they thought their partner cared about them, understood their feelings, and appreciated them. Participants also provided four saliva samples per day over a four-day period, so that researchers could determine their cortisol profiles. Ten years later, the same participants again complete the same measures, allowing the researchers to examine how responsiveness might predict changes in cortisol profiles over time.

Results: Support Predicts Health 10 Years Later!

The researchers found that, indeed, people who felt their partners were more responsive at Time 1 had healthier cortisol profiles ten years later: they had higher cortisol levels shortly after waking up, as well as a steeper decline in cortisol levels throughout the day. This was true even for people who were no longer with the same partner, suggesting that people may benefit from high-quality romantic relationships even after those relationships have ended. Further, these effects held controlling for a number of other relevant factors, such as gender, age, and depressive symptoms, suggesting that the results could not be attributed to these other things. However, the researchers did find that their results were partially explained by negative emotion: people with more responsive partners subsequently tended to experienced fewer negative emotions, which helped to explain their improved cortisol profiles.  READ MORE

Biology is Theology

In his Theology of the Body, Pope St. John Paul the Great taught that human beings are not so much individuals as they are persons who are intimately connected to one another by nature.   That we are relational is no mere accident.  We are connected biologically to one another in ways that can be difficult to understand.   From the perspective of TOB, there is nothing we do that doesn’t affect others–on a deep level– for good or ill. It is a fallacy to believe that the things we do just impact us.  We were created for each other. Ideally, that means that we were created to love one another, and if we do, we can help each other become the godly, happy and healthy people we were meant to be.  Of course, the opposite is also true.

Resources for a Healthier You

Taking care of your relationships–especially your most intimate relationships–is one of the most important ways you can take care of your own health.  For more ideas on how to create a healthy  marriage that leads to a healthier you, check out For Better…FOREVER! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage and When Divorce Is NOT An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love.  Or contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute to learn how our Catholic tele-counseling practice can help you satisfy your desire for a happier, healthier life.