By: Dr. Gregory Popcak

Emotional Intelligence  is a term coined by psychologist,  Daniel Goleman, that refers to a person’s ability to identify, manage, understand and process emotions so that you can effectively manage
stress, have healthy, rewarding relationships, handle conflict respectfully, and maintain good emotional health.

As the article I linked above explains, Emotional Intelligence has been shown to be even more important than IQ in determining career success and both relationship and life satisfaction. Considering all the benefits to be gained by developing Emotional Intelligence, it is something that every parent should be concerned with helping their children develop.  The Catholic family, I think, should be especially concerned with cultivating Emotional Intelligence because this quality has everything to do with helping a family be the “community of love” and “school of virtue” that Church says families are called to be.  Without Emotional Intelligence, it is impossible for a Catholic family to fulfill its mission, as spelled out in Evangelium Vitae, to be a community of people dedicated to living out relationships characterized by,  “a  respect for others, a sense of justice, cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity and all the other values which help people to live life as a gift” (EV #92).

Over at  PsychCentral, Dr. Jonice Webb proposes  3 Tips for Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child.  They’re definitely worth considering.

1. Pay Attention.   Work hard to see your child’s true nature.   What does your child like, dislike, get angry about, feel afraid of, or struggle with?   Feed these observations back to your child in a non-judgmental way so that your child can see herself through your eyes, and so that she can feel how well you know her.

Life Advantage: Your child will see herself reflected in your eyes, and she will know who she is. This will give her confidence in her life choices and will make her resilient to life’s challenges.

2. Feel an Emotional Connection to Your Child.   Strive to feel what your child is feeling (empathy), whether you agree with it or not.   When you feel your child’s emotion, he will feel an instant bond with you.

Life Advantage:  Your child will learn empathy and will have healthier relationships throughout his life.

3. Respond Competently to Your Child’s Emotional Need.  Do not judge your child’s feeling as right or wrong.   Look beyond the feeling, to the source. Help your child name her emotion.   Help her manage the emotion.

Life Advantage:  Your child will have a healthy relationship with his own emotions. He will naturally know that his feelings are important and how to put them into words and manage them.    READ MORE.

Those are some terrific tips.  If you’d like to learn more about how to raise faithful, emotionally intelligent children, check out  Parenting with Grace.

By: Jenny Uebbing

“Mommy, make a happy face at me.”

I look up from the glow of my laptop, irritated, hearing for perhaps the tenth  time, that day, my three-year-old son’s persistent request.

“Mommy’s working, honey. Please go downstairs and play legos.”

Tantrum, flailing, stomping, sibling pinching ensue. Consequences are meted out. Justice is served. Repeat cycle.

It has, of course, occurred to me that I spend too much time engrossed in screens and interacting with virtual characters when the very real characters in front of me are melting into figurative puddles of spilled milk and clementine peelings.  But come on, who can give their full attention for 9 + hours a day without any kind of break? I deserve a  little down time. I’m just going to check in, I’ll be quick.

All of which is true, of course. Parenting in twenty-first  century America can be ridiculously isolating — particularly the stay at home variety. And even the most extroverted parent on the block (which I emphatically am not) needs a little mid-day recharge in order to finish the solo shift strong and at a pleasant speaking volume.

But that isn’t what I’ve been doing behind my screen for minutes stretched embarrassingly into hours, hiding in plain sight in the glow of a laptop or a smartphone, accruing bits and pieces of stolen “me time” whilst the kids flail about at my feet, begging for attention.  Any  kind of attention, as their deteriorating behavior demonstrates quite clearly, will do.

I’ve spent the past several months rationalizing my behavior because  I’m recently postpartum and newborns are hard  and  I work from home so they  can have mommy around, it’s good enough that I’m physically present  and, most shamefully,  at least if I’m distracted I’m not tempted to yell at them.

Except I was tempted, often times  more  tempted, because instead of growing in patience and virtue and tolerance for childish appetites for multiple story recitations and block tower smashing, I was peppering our days together with long chunks of “Mommy’s here but isn’t actually  here  time.”

In short, I wasn’t in great parenting shape, because I have been spending the lion’s share of our days trying desperately to escape parenting.

I think it hit me hardest when our eldest, a mature three, dropped his nap. It was right after our youngest was born and suddenly, with three kids three and under, I had lost my precious chunk of uninterrupted mid-day productivity. Rather than pivoting and adjusting, I got stuck in a rut of denial, choosing distraction as a coping mechanism. When Pope Francis speaks about parents needing to waste time with their children, I think he was emphasizing the “with.” I, however, was choosing to focus on the “waste.”

I’m not claiming to have found some magical key to unlocking the secrets of stay-at-home happiness. Most days I’m lucky to still be smiling when the clock strikes dinner. I have realized how much I’ve been relying on outside props and fingertip distractions to keep  me  going, and how much I’ve come to view my children as little resentment-inducing interruptions to my very important tasks of emailing all the people and pinning all the recipes and furniture makeovers.

A few days ago I started a new thing. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s an old thing and I’m just late to the game. I’m calling it internet-averse living. It’s where I don’t open the computer except to do super specific things that I can’t do without a search engine, like look up the recipe for a paleo-friendly vinaigrette dressing for our dinner salad and pinpoint the ingredients for a rabbit-deterrant solution for the garden (aka our 2 solitary pumpkin plants.) In both instances, the internet functioned as a tool that helped me parent, not a crutch that propped me up while I failed to do so.

Listen, mom glued to your smartphone on the park bench, scrolling your newsfeed while your precious little people do backflips off the jungle gym: I hear you. I have sat where you sit, and I will probably be there again sometime later this week. I’m not judging you. Parenting in general and motherhood in particular is exhausting and challenging and sometimes, frankly, it’s really boring.

But I’m learning, incrementally and painfully, that the most mundane moments are essential components to the growth and development of my motherly temperament. Physical pain is one thing, (and I’d include sleep depravation in that category) but mental pain in the form of self denial, boredom, or loneliness is a whole other arena I’m learning that we are expected to do battle in.

I can’t always escape. Sometimes, inexplicably, they only want  me.  Nothing else will satisfy them except to see my face, to catch my eye, or to hold my unadulterated attention.

Sound like anyone else you know?

So I’m trying. I’m learning so slam the screen shut at the sound of little feet pitter pattering into the kitchen in search of yogurt tubes and oatmeal. I’m trying to make my initial impulse one of supplicating prayer rather than vegetative scrolling. It’s not easy, because I’m not very good at it. And it turns out parenting, like so much else that is worthwhile and larger than oneself, requires little other than repetitive acts of the will to accomplish.

It’s not so much dependent on a specific skill set or a temperament which naturally finds miniature humans delightful, but on the willingness of a larger human to put aside her needs moment by moment, until an appointed time.

So mama? Step away from the screen. What you’re looking for is sitting right in front of you, but you’re going to have to dig deep to see it.

Love, your exhausted comrade in arms.

Credit to  Jenny Uebbing of CatholicExchange.

 

By: Richard Becker

Is this what it feels like to be the  father of the groom?

Father of the bride is bad enough — as Spencer Tracy showed us in 1950, followed by  Steve Martin  forty years later — but it seems like father of the groom would be even more irrelevant to the whole wedding vortex phenomenon.

Not that any of  my  sons are heading to the altar any time soon. No, my feelings of irrelevancy are related to a different life event and milestone: My oldest is heading to Notre Dame. As a freshman. Next month.

Shouldn’t I be doing something?

Practical things — equipping the dorm room, last minute tips on laundry, etc. — seem to be covered by my wife at present. At least, Ben isn’t coming to  me  for advice, so I’ve got to assume that his mother is fielding those questions. If there are any. He’s pretty much launched out on his own already.

So, how about composing a fatherly testament of vision and values as a farewell gesture?

I’ve read plenty of “To My Son on the Brink of Manhood” (or marriage or fatherhood) screeds written by celebrity and journalist dads, but I’ve really no interest in attempting anything along those lines. It seems like any sage advice or tidbits of paternal wisdom that I’d offer in such a declaration ought to have taken root well before now. Otherwise, I’m guessing it’s a bit late.

Like riding a bicycle. Today I was out with Katharine, my youngest, who is just on the verge of training-wheel freedom. She is balancing on the bike just fine — the trainers rarely touch down when she’s pedaling along — and it’s just a matter of time until she has built up enough self-confidence and I can remove the side wheels once and for all.

It seems like just a blink of an eye since I was doing the same for Ben. In fact, I think it might’ve been the same bicycle, and even the same set of training wheels! But let’s say I’d never taken the trouble to help him wean off the trainers when he was in grade school. Let’s say he skipped riding bikes as a boy, learning to use public transit instead, and then jumped right into driver’s ed as a teen.

And now he’s getting ready for college, where freshmen are generally not allowed to have vehicles at their disposal. Wouldn’t a bicycle be convenient? Completing his two-wheeler training at this late stage would be awkward at best, and likely to fail altogether.

An eloquent parting shot, untethered to a commensurate upbringing, seems equally awkward and prone to failure. Any advice I have to give now that I haven’t already attempted to instill is too late, and a late-breaking Desiderata would pointless. And yet if I did attempt to raise my son with attention to truth and beauty and permanent things, then rehearsing it all in bullet point form would be unnecessary, and perhaps even somewhat ridiculous.

Still, I feel like I should be doing something,  and, consequently, I’ve come up with a different kind of list. Instead of looking backward, at the things I hope I’ve taught him (or wish I had), I’ve decided to look forward. It’s a list of questions — questions I’ve already grown accustomed to asking former students when I encounter them long after graduation, and I’ve decided they’ll be among the questions I’ll ask my son when we see each other on weekends and breaks in the months and years to come.

1. What are you reading?  He’ll be at Notre Dame, so he’ll be reading a lot, but he’ll know I mean what is he reading that he  doesn’t have to read.  Reading for pleasure, in other words. If it’s something I know, I’ll enjoy hearing his insights. If it’s something I don’t know, all the better. Note, too, that I’m not asking, “What are you watching,” or “What are you listening to?” These can be important questions as well, to be sure, but they don’t deserve anywhere near the same priority. My kids have grown up surrounded by books in every conceivable way, and I’d be very surprised if books didn’t continue to surround them as they make their own way hence.
2. Where are you working?  That’s what I ask my former students, most of whom are staff nurses here and there (or full-time mothers, or both). For current students, like my son, I’ll ask,  Where are you in your studies?  The inquisitive “where” allows for an unfolding of conversation on a number of fronts: The progress being made in a particular program or discipline; the kinds of classes being taken at the moment; and, most importantly, the trajectory along which which current pursuits are trending. It’s an inquiry with both quantitative and qualitative angles, and it’s helpful in getting beyond mere questions of “what” classes and “what” jobs to the “why” and “who with” of daily living.
3. How’s your soul?  This one is loaded, no doubt, but it, too, is calculated to get into meaty matters as rapidly as possible. “Are you getting to Mass and confession? Are you praying?” are too easily dispensed with — either with a hasty “yes” (whether truthful or not), or a painful “no,” followed by an even more painful conversational stall. Who needs that? We’re all adults here.   Sacramental obligations, vocational discernment, and the pursuit of holiness are totally his responsibility now, so I’m not going to grill him. I might’ve acted as a coach in such matters as he got older, but I’m on the sidelines now — a cheerleader, to be sure, and a ready consultant when asked. Yet, now I’m only one among many that he can turn to for input. Consequently, instead of grilling, I’m hoping for openness and candor, a space for us both to voice our inner joys and struggles as we wind our way along the murky years. No challenges, no guilt. Just invitation, and cross-bearing of burdens. And honesty. Listening.

These are questions that assume a lot, but don’t presume anything.  They take for granted where we’ve come from together, but they leave lots of room for where we’ve made — and will make — side trips apart. Like I said, they’ll be the questions I ask my son in the months to come, and probably they’ll be the same questions I’ll ask him years from now when he’s launched beyond Notre Dame, rising in his chosen profession, and raising his own family.

And, soon enough, maybe he’ll be asking them of others as well. Now that  would  be something.

Credit to Richard Becker of CatholicExchange.  

 

By: Richard Becker

Five summers back, my daughter Joan and I walked to Michigan.

It’s not as spectacular as it sounds — we live on the south side of South Bend, and Michigan is only ten miles away — but it was still quite the urban hike and, now, a happy memory.

The whole thing was a lark that had its genesis at a family dinner when somebody mentioned how close Michigan really was. “It’s so close, we could probably walk there,” I remember Joan commenting. “We  should do that!”

I took her at her word (to her chagrin, it turns out), and we planned the trek. A few weeks later, we slathered on sunscreen and hit the road in the early morning, arriving at the  Dairy Queen  just north of the state line about eight hours later.

No earth-shattering revelations or extraordinary encounters along the way; no epiphanies or profound father-daughter exchanges. Just slogging along in the heat, mile after mile. A McDonald’s here, a library visit there, a couple photo ops, and gyros for lunch. The conversation was intermittent, and almost nonexistent in the final stretch. It was an exercise in endurance, you see, and to succeed required only stubbornness: We  will  walk to Michigan,  just  to say we’d done it — and we did!

The first step is undertaken lightly, pleasantly, and with your soul in the sky; it is the five-hundredth that counts  (Hilaire Belloc).

Recently, Joan and I put in another ten miles,  but this time the setting was quite different. We were in New York City for Joan to receive special honors at the  Scholastic Art Awards  ceremony in Carnegie Hall. Thankfully,  Marian High School  helped underwrite our travel expenses, but funds were still a bit tight, so we had no budget for taxi rides. Instead, we took subways and buses mainly, and hoofed it in between.

And hoof it we did. From the  Port Authority  near Times Square to the  lions  at the Public Library, and then zigzagging uptown: First Fifth Avenue for about eight blocks, then over; Madison Avenue for a while, then over, finally, Park Avenue up to the  Armory  at 67th Street — at least a couple miles on foot, and we’d only been in the city a couple hours.

So went the entire weekend: Subway rides to neighborhood centers, and then walking block after block to our various destinations. From Yonkers and the Bronx down to Washington Park, we experienced New York the best way possible — that is, at eye level and on the street. Like when we walked west on 112th through Spanish Harlem to come up behind  St. John the Divine. The gargantuan Cathedral loomed before us, growing bigger and bigger with every step, and we, smaller and smaller. It was as if our march allowed us to become pilgrims and penitents; much better than showing up in a cab or disembarking from a tour bus.

Our cuisine was street-bound as well: Hot dogs and pizza slices, chicken kebabs and blintzes, all mixed up with secondhand smoke, vehicle exhaust, and that unmistakable pungent scent of the city. I think we sat down for a single restaurant meal, and even then we rushed to grab a table outside. Sitting  inside  seemed too far removed from the exotic world we’d come to see and hear and assimilate.

Given all the time we devoted to just getting around, we didn’t get to see everything we’d hoped to — no Empire State Building, no  MOMA  or Cloisters, and nothing downtown at all. That wasn’t a big deal to me since I’d already soaked up quite a bit of New York  some years ago, but I had high hopes of getting Joan around to many more sights and landmarks. Turns out, it wasn’t a big deal to her either, and for the best of reasons. “I’m glad we’ve been getting around like we have,” Joan said at one point. “It seems like it has given us more freedom to do as we please and to really take things in.”

On a walking-tour you are absolutely detached. You stop where you like and go on when you like. As long as it lasts you need consider no one and consult no one but yourself  (C.S. Lewis).

So what’s next?  Compostela  maybe?  Or the Appalachian Trail? Either of those would be  way  more than ten miles.

No, I’m thinking Chaucer, and retracing the route of the Canterbury pilgrims. It would be more manageable (about 60 miles or so), and more Joan’s style anyway.

But if it was totally up to me, I’d have us in Rome, and we’d do a walking-tour of the Holy City’s  seven pilgrim churches  — a tradition of visiting the four major and three minor basilicas that was popularized by St. Philip Neri. Pope John Paul II altered it a bit in 2000 by substituting a more contemporary church for the ancient church of St. Sebastian. However, if you visit all seven of the original churches, plus the one John Paul added for the Jubilee Year indulgence, you’ll end up covering just about…ten miles!Coincidence? I think not!

So, whether it’s ten miles in Rome, three score in England, or hundreds somewhere else —  I’m ready,  come what may.  Of course, I know it’s pretty iffy that I’d even have the privilege of ever again joining my daughter on a trekking journey, regardless of the mileage involved or destination. Heck, it’s a wonder and a total gift I got to go along this time — I get that.

Yet, for us dads, that’s just part of the deal. It’s assumed in the “come-what-may” part of dadhood that if we’re  doing  our job, we’re working ourselves  out  of a job. God willing, sooner or later, our kids will merrily leave us behind, trekking and journeying with abandon to places we can’t even pronounce.

In other words, we have to be ready to weather the transition from  parenting  youngsters to  accompanying  young adults — and as I’m easing into that transition, it seems that the accompanying is truly intermittent, and largely up to their discretion.

Bittersweet, for sure, and no doubt I’ll miss out on plenty of ten-milers. But, come what may, I’ll be here for the homecoming. I’ll be here for the welcome home.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
~  Bilbo Baggins

Credit to Richard Becker of CatholicExchange.

By: Kim Cameron-Smith

I recently became the mom of a teen.   My oldest son is 13.   I’m excited about these coming teen years, as I witness my darling boy maturing,  growing closer to God, and finding his calling in life.

I’ve read about parents who dread the teen years.   They see years of pain ahead.     Fighting.   Rejection.   Disrespect.     I read one mom’s account of her son’s teen years and it really caught my attention.   He was a sweet kid until he was 14, then he became withdrawn and gloomy, offering only grunts to basic questions.   She said that by 18 he was himself again.   Is this sort of withdrawal and rudeness inevitable?   I hope not.

Dr. Gregory Popcak writes in his Catholic attachment parenting book,  Parenting with Grace,  that the primary goals for our children during their teen years are:

• The search for  identity,
• Developing a respectful  separation  from mom and dad,
• Fostering their own  spirituality, and
• Dealing with  sexual  issues.

We need to ensure our teens have both the  guidance  and the  freedom  they need explore these goals and  to respond to God’s unique call for their lives.

There’s a necessary tension in parenting the teen.   We need to let go, but still hold on just enough  to  ensure  the teen is more attached to us (his parents) than to his peers.   In his groundbreaking book  Hold On to Your Kids, Dr. Gordon Neufeld explores the danger of believing our culture’s message that it’s normal for a teen to become  primarily identified with his peers, to find his identity and values in his peer culture.   The teen’s parents must remain  the go-to people for his sense of meaning even while he’s spreading his wings and defining himself apart from his parents.

Credit to Kim Cameron-Smith of  Catholic Attachment Parenting Corner.

 

By: Dr. Gregory Popcak

Chances are you have spent a great deal of energy trying to discover your children’s “learning styles.” These styles represent the easiest ways your children can learn new things and communicate with others. They are all based on the particular sense (sight, sound, touch) that is most acute in your child. So, if your child has a visual learning style (i.e. his sense of sight is the one he relies on the most to learn and communicate), he probably learns best through reading and other visual presentations like videos, or show and tell type activities. Alternatively, if your child has a more auditory learning style (i.e., his sense of hearing is the one he relies on the most to learn and communicate), your child may learn best by being talked through certain tasks, or by singing educational songs and listening to read-aloud stories (and for older children, classroom lectures). Finally, if your child has a kinesthetic (kin-es-TET-ic) learning style (i.e., his sense of touch is most acute) he probably learns best by doing hands on projects. He may also be a “slower” learner who has a hard time sitting still in class and doesn’t enjoy reading very much–unless the stories are action packed and short, like comic books.

Learning Styles and Family Relating.

“So,” you might ask, “what’s this got to do with parenting?”  Learning styles, because they are neurologically based, aren’t just relevant to education. They translate into the ways people need to give and receive love as well, and in this context, they are called, Relating Styles. In order for people with more Visual Relating Style to feel loved, they need to be able to see the things you’ve done to show your love (like give cards, notes, or other special, tangible tokens of affection). People with a more Auditory Relating Style need to be talking with you to feel connected–if you aren’t listening or conversing, you aren’t being loving. Finally, individuals with a more Kinesthetic Relating Style appreciate more physical displays of affection. They are also grateful when a parent takes the time to quietly work on projects together. Understanding and becoming fluent in your child’s learning/relating style has a major impact on both your child’s behavior and the amount of peace you can experience at home. The following example might help illustrate this concept.  Danny was a six year old boy who was referred to the in-home family therapy program I was working in while I was a graduate intern. The most immediate issue was that Danny was throwing horribly violent tantrums which frightened the mother. On separate occasions during his many tantrums, Danny pulled a knife on his mother and even kicked the family’s television set, breaking it. One time, Danny threw a tantrum in front of me and my pregnant supervisor, threatening to “Kick her tummy and kill the baby!”  Our first reaction was that Danny wasn’t getting enough attention from his single mom. The only problem with this hypothesis was that his mother was very affectionate. Each day when Danny would come home from school, she would spend a good deal of time telling him how much she loved him, looking at his work for the day and talking about all the things he did.  All-in-all, it seemed as if she was pretty clued in to her son.

We decided to back up and attempt to assess the intention behind the violent tantrums by asking, “What does this mom do differently when Danny throws a tantrum than she normally does?” What we discovered was that when Danny had a tantrum, his mother would have to get off the couch and physically restrain him. This was no small feat for the woman, who was permanently disabled with chronic back problems. Not having much else to go on, we suggested that perhaps Danny was not getting enough kinesthetic (touch) attention from his mother (who had a more auditory relating style, that is, she loved him by talking to him) and his tantrums were actually a very clever adaptive response he had developed to meet his need for increased touch.  We explained our theory to the mother and offered the following suggestion. When Danny came home from school, she was to continue their usual ritual of looking at his schoolwork and telling him she loved him (visual and auditory attention). But from now on, she was to do this while he sat on her lap and she cuddled him, giving him physical affection for as long as he would stay.  The mother took our advice and ran with it. Even though it made her physically uncomfortable, she held Danny, rubbed his back, stroked his head, and cuddled with him–sometimes up to an hour–while she talked to him and reviewed his day. Amazingly, within a week, the tantrums decreased significantly. Within a month, they were gone completely.  While there remained other issues for treatment, understanding and attending to Danny’s relating style enabled this mother to prevent his imminent placement in foster care and establish the control and safety needed to build a new relationship with her son.

If you found this information helpful, and would like to learn about how relating styles affect marital relationships, please see the chapter on Love Languages in For Better… FOREVER!

By: Dr. Gregory Popcak

Our family table is an incredibly important part of our life together. We have kids from college-age down to 7yo and sitting around the family table for meals, and especially dinner, has been a critical part of our life as a family from the very beginning.  Besides being the place where we eat our meals, the family table has, over the years, been the place where we discover what’s going on in each other’s lives, pray, share and learn about our faith, and laugh. There is lots of laughter at our table.  One of the things all the kids have enjoyed doing around the dinner table over the years is discussing the Catholic faith and why we believe the things we do. Being able to have these casual conversations about our faith has taught the kids to be able to explain their faith both confidently and charitably with others to a remarkable degree. Our faith discussions are usually pretty rambling–which is part of the fun.

Another one of our traditions is playing a game after dinner. Usually at least twice a week, we choose a short 20-30 minute family board or card game from the shelf and play together. Some families might wonder how we keep college age and younger children engaged in the game. Simple. The game is incidental. In our home, we’ve always practiced the motto that what we do is less important than that we’re doing it together. Sure, having fun is important, but the most fun part of any game is the conversation and joking that goes on while we play. Whether “trash talking” about Candyland (“There is no ‘U’ in Candy Castle!”) or having a family discussion over a game of Uno, the point is always the relationship.  The family table is the place for snacks, and hot cocoa after sledding and snow men, and High Tea (the once or twice a year we can manage it), craft projects. It is the place for homework and tears and sharing current events and so much more.  In many ways, the family table isn’t really a table at all but a kind of altar for family communion where the ordinary events of family life are consecrated and transformed so that they might transform us into a the loving, joyful, grace-filled family God is helping us become day-by-day.

Life gets busy for all of us. But if you and your family have not sat down for a meal together for some time, try it. You might be pleased with how it brings you and your loved ones  together, even if just for a short period of time a day.

By: Dr. Gregory Popcak

Katelyn called our radio program with a problem, “I’ve been married for a couple months and my husband and I would love to have a large family. Recently, I told this to a friend of mine who grew up in a big family (10 kids!) and she discouraged me, saying that she never felt like there was enough love to go around. I was really surprised!     My husband and I are just starting out and we want to do the right thing. How do we know what size family God wants us to have? How can we do our part to make sure that there is always enough love to go around?”

Katelyn’s questions are wise ones. While every family is confronted with the question of God’s will and family size, the newlywed has a special challenge. The marital routines and rituals around prayer and communication that are established in the early years of the relationship become the basis for the big decisions that will effect many years to come. How can a couple establish rituals and routines that will foster the healthy discernment, prayerful communication, and generosity that will not only help them ascertain God’s will for all the decisions in their lives but also help them fulfill their mission to be a “community of love”? (quote taken from John Paul II’s important document on the role of the Christian Family, written in 1981, entitled,  Familiaris Consortio) While there are no doubt many ways to respond to this question, the following tips are meant to be a place for couples young and old to begin.

1. Pray Together

The number of couples who do not pray together constantly surprises me. Many husbands and wives pray separately, but it seems they rarely pray as a couple. Often I will hear spouses say that prayer is “too personal” to be shared and they feel “awkward” praying openly in each other’s presence. While I am sensitive to the fact that prayer is a deeply intimate and personal exercise, I am mystified by the attitude of couples who think nothing of sharing their bodies with each other but remain unwilling to share their souls.  The couple who wants to know God’s will about anything, and most of all about family size, has to begin by sincerely seeking to live a holy life, and that begins with prayer. Each day, take a few minutes to praise God for his blessings and to ask for his help with daily struggles. Then spend a few moments asking him to help you both be open to life, and sensitive to the needs of each person he brings into your family–beginning with each other. Being open to life is not a numbers game. It has to be founded on a desire to celebrate a deep and godly love among the people that are already part of the family; the kind of love that then grows and longs to add new members to the family that the other family members can then love and nurture. Only God can teach us to celebrate this kind of love and he can only teach us if we take time as a couple to sit at his feet and learn.

2. Practice Generosity

In every family, but especially with newlyweds, it is important to establish those loving patterns that help sensitize you to each other’s needs. By doing this, couples and families can make sure that each member’s emotional, spiritual, and relational needs are always met no matter how big the family gets.  Start each day by asking each other, “What can I do today to make your life easier or more pleasant?” Resist the temptation to give too easy answers when this question is asked of you. Think hard about your day and ask yourself when you might need that extra hug, that prayer, that call of encouragement from work or from home, or any other thing that would buoy you up and help you feel grateful for the support of your mate. Then, resolve to do those things for each other throughout the day. Later on, when you have children, begin asking this question of each of them, and as the kids get older have them also ask you what they can do to contribute to making your day more pleasant in return. The goal is to create a family that is on the lookout for the needs of each other and is sensitive and responsive to those needs.     Families who do not cultivate habits like this simple ritual often quickly become a group of individuals living under the same roof and not the loving community that God calls them to be.

3. Be Open to Every Stage of Life

Being open to life means more than being open to conceiving a child. Catholics speak of something called “integral procreation.” That means a willingness to say, “yes” not just to life itself, but also to providing the love, attention, and moral guidance that the new life will need to become a faithful and fully formed citizen of the kingdom of God. Each month as you and your spouse pray about family size, ask yourselves, “Would we be able, at this time, to respond well to the needs for love, attention, nurturance and guidance that another little person has?” If the answer is “yes” then it may very well be time to add another member to your community of love. If the answer is “no” then the next question you should ask yourself is, “And what do we have to do, then, to get ourselves ready?” In this way, you are constantly being attentive to both the importance of being open to having more children and the importance of giving everyone in the family (including mom and dad) the loving attention they deserve as children of God. In short, by regularly communicating with God and each other, and cultivating habits that lead to a generous sensitivity to the needs for love and attention each family member has from the earliest stages of you life as a couple, you will be able to create with God’s help, the large and loving family your heart desires.