St. Joseph: Our Father? – Part 1

Posted on by

shutterstock_558763756

Guest post by Dave McClow.

Fatherlessness has become an epidemic in our society:  43% of our kids grow up without fathers (US Census), approaching a catastrophe rivaling the 1918 flu pandemic when an estimated 56% of the world was infected.  Fatherlessness is devastating—legally, morally, psychologically, and spiritually. A shocking snapshot of our fatherless youth shows they comprise 63% of youth suicides (US Dept. Of Health/Census)–5 times the average; 90% of all homeless and runaway children–32 times the average; 85% of all children who show behavior disorders–20 times the average (Center for Disease Control); 80% of rapists with anger problems–14 times the average (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26); and 71% of all high school dropouts–9 times the average (National Principals Association Report).

Fatherlessness is a Catholic problem in two ways:  1) because God is father, it creates a crisis of faith and is partly responsible for the rise of the religious “nones” (70% are millennials, 23% are adults, and 57% are men) and 2) it challenges how we evangelize the fatherless.

The antidote is men fully living out their faith as spiritual fathers by informally adopting our lost generation.  Our faith calls us to care for the “least” and the vulnerable (Mt. 25:40) and to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19)—that’s spiritual fatherhood; that’s the summit of being a man, and St. Joseph is our prototypical model.

How is St. Joseph a Spiritual Father?

St. Joseph took two roads to spiritual fatherhood: 1) through the incarnation, and 2) through participation in a new order of family.

God the Father, our real prototype of spiritual fatherhood (Eph. 3:14), asked St. Joseph to be Jesus’ father.  John Paul II says that even though his fatherhood is not biological, he is not just an “apparent” or “substitute” father.  Rather, he “fully shares in authentic human fatherhood and the mission of a father in the family“ (RC, 21).  How is this so?  As the Incarnation, Jesus’ whole purpose is to reveal the Father and true fatherhood (Jn 14:9).  And John Paul II explains that the Holy Family is inserted directly into the mystery of the Incarnation.  And so, though St. Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, when he reveals, relives, and radiates the very fatherhood of God, he becomes Jesus’ authentic human, and I would add spiritual, father.  His masculinity is fully expressed in his spiritual fatherhood, as it should be for all men, first and foremost, even if they are not biological fathers.

A New Order of Family

“Who are my mother and brothers?  Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt. 12:46-50; cf., Mk. 3:31-35; Lk 27-28).  Is Jesus trying to escape a stereotypical overbearing Jewish mother?  I don’t think so!  Instead, John Paul II believes Jesus is establishing a whole new order of family and parenthood based on obedience.  And who is more obedient than Mary?  Jesus is preparing her for the crowning event of her new spiritual motherhood at the foot of cross: “Son, behold your Mother” (Jn 19:26-27).  In the new order, Jesus gives us and the Church his own mother.

Similarly, St. Joseph, as Jesus’ spiritual father, can also be our father.  Spiritual fatherhood (or motherhood) includes any action of care for others, i.e., the corporal or spiritual works of mercy.

“Joseph did.…” These two words and their variants, “he took the child…and went…” define St. Joseph’s role in salvation history.  He is not known for what he said in the Gospels—he said nothing!  But he listens to God in his inner life—his dreams—and then does the hard thing!  He protects the Son of God and his mother through many obstacles and threats—spiritual fatherhood is always an adventure!  He cares for and educates a child who is not his own in obedience to God’s word.  And as a just and generous man, he is willing to sacrifice much.  He is a good spiritual father to Jesus, and to us.

Spiritual fatherhood, as the summit of masculinity, is open to any age.  For years I watched the 5th and 6th grade boys at my local parish mentor or shepherd the younger boys during Mass.  When men or boys live out who they are created to be as spiritual fathers, they become more themselves, more masculine; they follow St. Joseph, our model, in revealing, reliving, and radiating God’s fatherhood to others.  In Part 2 I will explore more of the practical side of St. Joseph’s spiritual fatherhood as priest, prophet, and king.

The fatherlessness of this generation will spread like a cancer if unopposed.  Catholic men must be a witness, exercising their God-given gender and masculinity as spiritual fathers.  Our Church and culture depend on us!  We must imitate our father St. Joseph in revealing, reliving, and radiating God’s fatherhood to spiritual children who are not our own.  To whom can you be a spiritual father in your neighborhood or parish today?

 

Guest post by Dave McClow  Associate Counselor, Pastoral Solutions Institute

Major New Research Finds 40% of US Kids Are Poorly Attached–Middle Class Families Included.

Posted on by

–New study reveals why parenting is THE social justice issue of our time.–

Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

In a study of 14,000 U.S. children, 40 percent lack strong emotional bonds — what psychologists call “secure attachment”  

Written by researchers from  Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, the report uses data collected by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative U.S. study of 14,000 children born in 2001. The researchers also reviewed more than 100 academic studies.

Their analysis shows that about 60 percent of children develop strong attachments to their parents, which are formed through simple actions, such as holding a baby lovingly and responding to the baby’s needs. Such actions support children’s social and emotional development, which, in turn, strengthens their cognitive development, the researchers write. These children are more likely to be resilient to poverty, family instability, parental stress and depression. Additionally, if boys growing up in poverty have strong parental attachments, they are two and a half times less likely to display behavior problems at school.

The approximately 40 percent who lack secure attachments, on the other hand, are more likely to have poorer language and behavior before entering school. This effect continues throughout the children’s lives, and such children are more likely to leave school without further education, employment or training, the researchers write. Among children growing up in poverty, poor parental care and insecure attachment before age four strongly predicted a failure to complete school. Of the 40 percent who lack secure attachments, 25 percent avoid their parents when they are upset (because their parents are ignoring their needs), and 15 percent resist their parents because their parents cause them distress.

Susan Campbell, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, said insecure attachments emerge when primary caregivers are not “tuned in” to their infant’s social signals, especially their cries of distress during infancy. “When helpless infants learn early that their cries will be responded to, they also learn that their needs will be met, and they are likely to form a secure attachment to their parents,” Campbell said. “However, when caregivers are overwhelmed because of their own difficulties, infants are more likely to learn that the world is not a safe place — leading them to become needy, frustrated, withdrawn or disorganized.  The researchers argue that many parents — including middle-class parents — need more support to provide proper parenting….  READ THE REST HERE.

Detachment is the atomic level of the Culture of Death.  We cluck about the immorality of our culture, about poverty, crime, violence, and porn.  And these are all horrible things.  But we fail to see the foundation for all these social evils that Satan is building right under our feet and in our own homes. It’s easy to fuss about “the media” and “the culture” etc.  But it is hard, genuinely, really, really hard, to go pick up that crying baby when we already feel drained. And yet this the great spiritually transformative work that lies at the heart of The Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy.

Am I saying that exhausted mothers should torture themselves to meet everybody’s needs all by themselves?  Absolutely not.   Every person needs help and has a right to get whatever help they need to be their best selves.  That should go without saying.

Attachment: The Root of Social Transformation

But every time Satan convinces a mother or father to remain consistently deaf to the cries of their children because it is somehow “bad” or even “unnecessary” or “ridiculous”  to respond to those cries, he is laying the foundation for all these other social evils. As Catholics, if we want to evangelize the culture, if we want to beat poverty, make children resilient against the evils of our fallen world, decrease  the crime rate, drug usage rates,  incidence of promiscuity, and pornography rates,  the single most important things we can do are 1) respond to our babies cries promptly, generously, and consistently, 2) shower our children with extravagant affection, and 3) use gentle guidance approaches to discipline that teach our children how to behavior virtuously instead of simply punishing bad behavior and crossing our fingers that they’ll figure out how to do what’s right on their own through the process of elimination.

Oversimplification?  Survey says…

I realize that this strikes some people as a ridiculous oversimplification.  I remember the editor of the new edition of Beyond the Birds and the Bees saying to me, incredulously, “It’s like you’re saying that the way to make our kids more moral is to hug them more.”  And, although that is a bit of an exaggeration, yes.  That is more or less exactly what I am saying.  Or rather, that is, more or less, what hundreds of studies of tens of thousands of children over the last 60 years are saying.  Over and over and over again.

And why should this come as such a surprise to us?  Our Church tells us over and over–and especially in Pope St John Paul’s theology of the body–that we were created for communion.  The family is the “icon of the Trinity” the most intimate communion that ever existed!  And we are made in the image of that intimate communion. Relationship IS the very essence of our being.  When we try to escape that reality, or ignore it,  limit it,  or tamp it down, bad things happen–to our kids, our families, and our world.  We think that having children need us is somehow crippling.  The exact opposite is true. Creating communion with our children is the most liberating thing we can do both for ourselves and for them.

Want To Change The World?

Are there lots of social ills?  There sure are.  But the cure really is pretty simple.  As St. Teresa of Calcutta put it, “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your families.”   It turns out,  there’s a lot of research to support that pithy, but powerfully world-changing, sentiment.

If you want to discover more ways parents can change the world through love, check out Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First 3 Years of Parenthood.

 

 

Millennials Less Promiscuous Than Any Generation for 60 Years. Here’s Why That’s TERRIBLE.

Posted on by
Image: Shutterstock.

Image: Shutterstock.

Some Christian news outlets are rejoicing at the recent study finding that Millennials are less sexually active than any other generation for the last 60 years. The perception by some is that this generation is experiencing a spontaneous outbreak of unusual moral fortitude.

Confronting the Nightmare

Would that it were so.  If you read the reports, the reasons Millennials give for not being interested in sex is that they are not interested in relationship at all.  Millennials appear to be so relationally broken that they would prefer to play video games, obsess over work, and dabble in porn rather than engage in any form of intimate relationship (not just sex) hardly counts as a win for our side. Rampant divorce, parental serial monogamy, an epidemic of absentee fathers, and households led by dual-parent workaholics. have killed this generation’s most basic, God-given desire for communion. It’s a nightmare.

Is It Porn?

Some commenters have suggested that this is the result of the porn epidemic.  That certainly doesn’t help, but that misses the larger point.  Under normal circumstances, even people who have a seriously compulsive relationship with porn historically indicated that a real relationship with a flesh and blood person would be preferable.  That isn’t the case with man Millennials.  The problem is much deeper.

Pages: 1 2 3

Parents vs. iPhone: A Problem of Liturgy?

Posted on by
Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

A guest blog by Pastoral Solutions Institute clinical counseling associate, Dave McClow, M.Div., LMFT, LISW.

A 13-year-old boy, Peter, was anxious, even compulsive, melting down whenever his parents asked something of him, especially to get off his iPhone or iPad and re-engage in the human race–specifically, his family life.  I know this is not extremely uncommon.  I was working primarily with the mother, who was having difficulty engaging her husband.  He seemed too busy, and she hesitated to bother him.  Having low expectations of men is a chronic problem in my pastoral counseling practice, especially around family and spiritual life.  Men live up to high expectations at work, but not at home.  While the wife believed that leaving him alone was loving, generous, and kind, it was actually the opposite—it was not working for his good, for love, and it was not helping him get to heaven.  Low expectations do not help a man become the best version of himself.  He needs a challenge; he needs to be needed! But he also needs to know what to do without being nagged.

What should we expect from men?

The Abba Prayer for Men at AbbaChallenge.com answers this in an outline form.  In the prayer I suggest that the summit of being a man is spiritual fatherhood lived out in chivalry as priest, prophet, and king.  I would like to focus on our priestly role through which we link the human and the divine.  What does this mean?  For one thing, when we love our friend, spouse, or kids—working for their good—we connect or link them to God, because God is love.

Priests enact liturgy

As priests, all baptized men are called to enact liturgy, though certain Church liturgies such as the Mass are reserved for the ordained priesthood.  Liturgy is the means through which God forms his people into his children, his disciples.  Liturgy is built into creation, the story of which ends in a liturgical event, the Sabbath rest.  Fathers, before they worshipped the golden calf in the desert (Ex. 32), were the priests who led their families spiritually.  So what is the liturgy of the baptized priest?  I think liturgy is a ritual and/or routine that communicates love.  If you are married and/or have kids, you are the priest in the domestic church!

Everyday liturgy

We are perpetually engaged in liturgy, a/k/a, service or work:  we have morning and bedtime routines, customary hellos and goodbyes, birthday celebrations, anniversaries, etc.  Not all rituals and routines communicate love, however.  So if we have problems in our relationships, as with Peter, we need to evaluate and reform our liturgies so our love is better experienced by our kids and spouses.  Dr. Greg Popcak, in an excellent book, When Divorce is Not an Option, cites over 60 years of research and hundreds of studies showing that rituals of connection increase satisfaction in life and relationships and significantly decrease depression, substance abuse, promiscuity, and behavioral problems.  The liturgy of the domestic church is powerful formation!

Popcak indicates four areas for rituals and routines that promote connection:  pray, work, play, and talk time.   There should be a daily 5-to-10-minute version and a longer weekend version.

Pray:  Shockingly, only 17% of Catholic couples actually pray together, according to a recent CARA study.  If you are married, pray with your wife!  If you need help getting started, keep it simple, picking a few intentions and saying an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be.  Add more as your comfort level increases.  Pray with your children.  Fathers praying with and for their kids are immensely powerful!  Do it!  Certainly go to Mass every week and to confession with your family each month.

Work:  These are not chores you do separately, but things you do together, such as preparing meals, setting the table, or cleaning rooms together with your wife and/or kids.

Play:  Try playing cards, taking a walk, reading aloud together, or wrestling with the kids!  Family game night or date night with the wife are weekly versions.

Talk:  Family meals are a starting point.  You can ask what was the high point and low point of everyone’s day.  Driving with teens can help them open up.  For more suggestions, get the book!

Let’s acknowledge our current liturgies and pick one area to work on to more fully live out our baptized priesthood.

What happened to Peter?  I worked with both parents and told them they needed to reform their liturgy with their son.  I also stressed that it would be more powerful coming from Dad.  When Dad knew what to do, he started with ping-pong and added other activities where they could talk more.  In two weeks Peter was a different kid—not perfect, but much more open and following his parents’ requests.  If you find yourself saying this is typical teenage behavior, you have ineffective liturgies in place.  In the battle of liturgy vs. the iPhone, the right liturgy wins!  The right liturgies communicate the love you actually intend.  This is the message our culture—and your kids and wife—are aching to hear and experience.

When Daddy Doesn’t Go To Church….

Posted on by
Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

I was honored to be asked for input on a terrific article by Marisa Sandora at For Her on this painful topic.  Here’s a sample.

So how can those of us in this situation try to convince our non-practicing spouse to attend church services? “The same way we get our spouse to do anything,” says author and therapist Dr. Gregory Popcak. “We explain how important it is, we insist that we be taken seriously, and we refuse to let it go.” Popcak is the executive director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute, an organization dedicated to helping Catholics find faith-filled solutions to tough marriage, family, and personal problems. He’s written more than a dozen books integrating Catholic theology and counseling psychology, including Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

“Research on couples who experience faith differences shows that when there is conflict about church, it rarely has anything to do with religion,” he says. “It is all about respect. Respect involves more than being nice to each other. Ultimately, it involves trying to see the truth, goodness, and beauty in all the things the other person finds true, good, and beautiful. Couples who manage faith differences well usually don’t see eye-to-eye on religion, but they work hard to try and see what their partner finds good, true, and beautiful about their beliefs and religious practices.”

Modeling respect and generosity in every aspect of the relationship, not just religion, is the key, stresses Popcak.

Deacon Doug Kendzierski of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, who’s been married for 27 years and has three grown daughters, echoes this advice, saying honest communication is key. “Suppressing priorities and feelings is not only dishonest, but ultimately harmful. At the same time, a good relationship is not about “convincing,” it’s about explaining and understanding,” he says. “You should be honest about the importance of the family unit at church (i.e. public unity, example for your children, supporting you, togetherness, etc.). Be careful not to be judgmental, merely open and honest about the effect on you, and your concerns regarding the potential impact on the children and the family. Beyond that, prayer is the most effective approach; don’t discount the power of prayer.” READ THE REST

The only other thing that I would add that didn’t make it into the article is that if you are attempting to address this issue in your marriage and you are becoming more and more aware of my above point–that you aren’t really dealing with a religious issue as much as you are dealing with a spouse who really doesn’t respect you and this plays out in many other areas of the relationship where there are differences of opinion–you will almost always need to seek professional help to heal the marriage and, ultimately, resolve the spiritual issue as well.  Why?  Because when one is married to a spouse who refuses to see the value in your point of view, you don’t have the influence you need to be able to change the marital dynamic on your own.  It takes having someone else who can provide  a reality check for the disrespectful spouse to get that spouse to see what they are really doing.  The sooner you get help for this issue, the better, because the stakes–your children’s future faith–are too high.

For more information on books and faithful counseling resources, follow the links in the article above.

Soccer and the Sacred Heart: The Rhythm of Spiritual Fatherhood

Posted on by

sacredheart

A guest post by Pastoral Solutions Institute Associate Pastoral Counselor, Dave McClow, M.Div., LMFT.

June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Father’s day also falls within the month, and spiritual fatherhood ties these two together.

The human heart always operates in two directions—the muscle contracts and then relaxes.  If this rhythm is disrupted, you have earned a trip to either the ER or the undertaker.  There is also a rhythm of Catholic fatherhood—the rhythm of loving, then challenging; of being tender, then tough.  Disruption of this rhythm can create major problems for kids.

Soccer

Chad played soccer.  His parents were highly successful professionals, trying to motivate Chad to pay attention and engage in the game with some intensity.  They were turning the situation into a life lesson:  “How do you expect to succeed if you can’t do this?”  There was a lot of criticism and pressure to perform.  Another team was using psych ops, trashing Chad and his team.  The way they talked, I would have sworn this was a U.S. Olympic competition, but Chad was in fourth grade! The parents assured me their behavior was mild compared to other parents.  Nevertheless, the results were predictable:  Chad was anxious, highly critical of himself, and impulsive, almost explosive at times.  He was performing to be loved, which left him only as good as his last performance.  The rhythm of Catholic fatherhood was broken, and they were all frustrated.

Sacred Heart and Spiritual Fatherhood

Jesus’ Sacred Heart teaches men a lot about this rhythm of fatherhood.  During his time on earth Jesus fathered no physical children (unless you believe the fiction writer Dan Brown).  But he was a spiritual father—a leader, mentor, and coach (and much more), to the twelve apostles and his other disciples!  He loved and challenged them.  It was the Heart of Jesus that revealed how his Father’s heart was turned towards his children—us—in love and mercy.  The Father’s heart is what we need to receive and what we are to give to others.  Scripture confirms the giving part, “The hearts of fathers will be turned back to the children” (Mal 3:24, 4:6; Lk 1:17; Sir 48:10).  Jesus actually became indignant, incensed, or irate at the disciples for hindering the little children from coming to him to be embraced, touched, and blessed  by him (Mk. 10:13-16).  He was tough on his disciples and tender towards the children in his spiritual fatherhood!

St. John Paul II reflected on the Sacred Heart quite a bit.  In talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit called piety (reverence, devoutness), he says, “the Spirit heals our hearts of every form of hardness, and opens them to tenderness toward God and our brothers and sisters” (May 28, 1989). From our sonship, tenderness flows toward God and is expressed in prayer that arises from our own poverty and void of chasing after earthly things, and then turns toward him for “grace, help, and pardon.” It is piety which directs us to trust God as “a good and generous Father” and to call him Abba (Gal. 4:4-7)!

This tenderness is manifested in meekness, a familial openness, toward our neighbor.  Meekness is not weakness!  Meekness is having the power to act or destroy, but not using it.  The Spirit infuses into us a new capacity to love others, making our “heart[s] participate in some manner in the very meekness of the Heart of Christ.”  Our spiritual fatherhood is made complete we when see others as part of the family of God, treating them with tenderness and friendliness.

Back to Soccer

I worked with Chad’s father to create new liturgies (rituals and routines) in their domestic church that communicated love to Chad.  He affirmed Chad as a son rather than just his performance.  And we shifted the focus from results, which Chad could not control, to his efforts—so while he might not always score a goal, he could always choose to play hard.  These changes made a huge difference.  Chad paid more attention, became more self-motivated, and everyone noticed the change.  In fact, in one game, he was playing hard, but they were losing badly.  He had put his shorts on backwards, and though it was not obvious, a friend started to harass him about it.  Normally Chad would have blown up, but instead he retorted, “Do you really think that’s the biggest problem we have here?”  I was amazed and laughed, saying, “I can’t even get adults to do this!”  Chad was feeling much more secure and loved.  The rhythm was back in right order:  love and challenge; tenderness and toughness. We had returned from Olympic tryouts to fourth grade soccer!

The Challenge

June is the month of the Sacred Heart.  It includes Father’s Day, which celebrates physical fatherhood.  But we must challenge all men to follow the Sacred Heart and be spiritual fathers, turning their hearts towards all fatherless children in tenderness, challenging them to be the best versions of themselves.  All men are called to reveal and relive the very fatherhood of God on Earth—this is spiritual fatherhood.

New Major Study of 160,000 Children Finds Spanking Causes Similar Harm As Abuse.

Posted on by

shutterstock_221859814

Children need solid discipline, consistent expectations, and solid structure, but there are many better ways to accomplish these ends than corporal punishment.  A new study examining 50 years of data derived from observations of 16,000 kids finds that spanking (defined as striking a child with an open hand) and abuse are not  substantively different phenomena but rather cause similar problems with child behavior and well-being.  According to the study…

—

The more children are spanked, the more likely they are to defy their parents and to experience increased anti-social behavior, aggression, mental health problems and cognitive difficulties, according to a new meta-analysis of 50 years of research on spanking by experts at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan.

The study, published in this month’s Journal of Family Psychology, looks at five decades of research involving over 160,000 children. The researchers say it is the most complete analysis to date of the outcomes associated with spanking, and more specific to the effects of spanking alone than previous papers, which included other types of physical punishment in their analyses.

“Our analysis focuses on what most Americans would recognize as spanking and not on potentially abusive behaviors,” says Elizabeth Gershoff, an associate professor of human development and family sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. “We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents’ intended outcomes when they discipline their children.”

Gershoff and co-author Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, found that spanking (defined as an open-handed hit on the behind or extremities) was significantly linked with 13 of the 17 outcomes they examined, all in the direction of detrimental outcomes.

“The upshot of the study is that spanking increases the likelihood of a wide variety of undesired outcomes for children. Spanking thus does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do,” Grogan-Kaylor says.

Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor tested for some long-term effects among adults who were spanked as children. The more they were spanked, the more likely they were to exhibit anti-social behavior and to experience mental health problems. They were also more likely to support physical punishment for their own children, which highlights one of the key ways that attitudes toward physical punishment are passed from generation to generation.

The researchers looked at a wide range of studies and noted that spanking was associated with negative outcomes consistently and across all types of studies, including those using the strongest methodologies such as longitudinal or experimental designs. As many as 80 percent of parents around the world spank their children, according to a 2014 UNICEF report. Gershoff notes that this persistence of spanking is in spite of the fact that there is no clear evidence of positive effects from spanking and ample evidence that it poses a risk of harm to children’s behavior and development.

Both spanking and physical abuse were associated with the same detrimental child outcomes in the same direction and nearly the same strength.

“We as a society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behaviors,” she says. “Yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the same negative child outcomes as abuse, just to a slightly lesser degree.”   READ THE ARTICLE IN FULL.

—

As I said at the top of this post, children do need consistent discipline, clear rules and expectations, appropriate consequences and structure to help guide their behavior but there are about a million better ways to accomplish these tasks than resorting to spanking–even “just with your hand”.  Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids lays out a discipline system that allows parents to have even higher standards for their kids than do parents who resort to corporal punishment all while using methods that respect your dignity and the dignity of your child.

Does this research mean you’re a horrible person, a bad Catholic, or a terrible parent if you spank?  No.  But it does mean that you could do a lot better.  Catholic social justice teaches that those in authority have a responsibility to use the least offensive means available to effect the greatest change. Parenting is tough enough without feeling obliged to resort to means that make your work even more difficult.  Let me repeat that.  It isn’t just that spanking isn’t good for kids and parents, it’s that spanking makes the work of parenting harder.  Better information and support can help you leave the power-struggles and heavy handed approaches to discipline behind and, instead, use methods that help you create a more peaceful, orderly family life based on love, joy and mutual respect.  Don’t believe me?  Give it a try.  Need support?  Let us help.  You can have terrifically behaved kids using methods that make your life easier and your home life more enjoyable.  Show the world there’s a better way by being the family that treats each other with uncommon respect, and gets there using uncommonly respectful–and infinitely more effective–approaches to parenting.

New Study: Extravagant Affection in Infancy Leads to Healthier, Happier, More Relational & Moral Adults

Posted on by

shutterstock_238201720

From new study accepted for publication in the journal, Applied Developmental Science.

Notre Dame professor of psychology Darcia Narvaez and two colleagues surveyed more than 600 adults. They asked about their childhood experiences. Darvaez was interested in things like how much affectionate touch did the adult receive as a child, how much free play, and what was family togetherness was like. What she found was, the adults who had positive childhood experiences evolved into adults with less anxiety and better mental health.

“These things independently, but also added up together, predicted the adults’ mental health, so they were less depressed, less anxious, and their social capacities — they were more able to take other people’s perspective. They were better at getting along with others and being open-hearted,” says Narvaez.

So, what does this mean for today’s parents?

Narvaez says parents should hold, touch and rock their babies and children and be responsive to their needs.

“What parents do in those early months and years are really affecting the way the brain is going to grow the rest of their lives,” explains Narvaez, “so lots of holding, touching and rocking. that is what babies expect. They grow better that way. And keep them calm, because all sorts of systems are establishing the way they are going to work. If you let them cry a lot, those systems are going to be easily triggered into stress. We can see that in adult hood — that people that are not cared for well, tend to be more stress reactive and they have a hard time self calming.”

Narvaez say free play inside and outside is important. It is also important that children have a positive, warm environment inside the home.

“That they feel like they belong — they are part of the family unit or the neighborhood community and part of that is to have a lot of activities that you do together,” says Narvaez, who recommends going to the park or playing a game rather than spending time on a smartphone or in front of a TV.

And for those parents that need a break, Narvaez says a community of caregivers is important. That means grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends should play an active role.

“We need to, as a community support families so they can give children what they need,” says Narvaez, “we really didn’t evolve to parent alone. Our history is to have a community of caregivers to help — the village, so that when mom or dad needs a break, there is someone there who is ready to step in.”

The research also showed that when children weren’t given things like affection, free play and a warm home environment, they turned into adults with decreased social and moral capacities.

Narvaez says humans, have evolved to need these important things from birth. Which is why, she recommends parents follow their instincts.  READ MORE

But Why Does This Matter?

OK. Let’ s take this apart. What could affection (or, nursing, for that matter, as I mentioned in a blog last week) possibly have to with moral development?  As I explain in Beyond the Birds and the Bees, my book for parents on raising moral kids, brain research shows that affection facilitates moral development and overall relationship in four ways;

1) stimulating the “social brain”
2) facilitating the development of mirror neurons
3) facilitating self-regulation
4) facilitating communication between the higher and lower brain.

Before you learn any moral lessons OR before you can competently and consistently act on the moral lessons you’ve learned, these four functions have to be as fully developed as possible. Otherwise, we end up fighting against ourselves when it comes to putting other people first and making good (but hard) moral choices.  Here’s what each of these functions has to with both  good relational and moral reasoning and how affection, nursing and other high-touch parenting practices facilitate the development of these functions.

1. Stimulating the Social Brain

High touch parenting practices like baby-wearing, nursing, and responding promptly to fussing, help stimulate the so-called, “social brain”; that is, structures in the brain that help us pick up on other’s emotional cues and adjust our behavior based upon how we perceive our actions are coming across. The more the baby can be close to mom (especially) the more that the baby learns to read more and more subtle facial and body cues, understand their meaning, and adapt to them accordingly. The more attuned to other’s responses I am, the better I am able to make choices that foster relationship, express care, and avoid giving offense–all important skills for both good relational and moral decision making.

2.  Mirror Neurons

Mirror neurons are structures in the social brain that allow us to get a “taste” of what other people are feeling.  If I walk into a coffee table, you might wince because your mirror neurons let you feel a little bit of my pain so that you can empathize with me and be motivated to attend to my injury.  High-touch, hands on parenting practices seem to stimulate the development of mirror neurons.  This aids moral development by fostering empathy–the ability to literally feel the impact one’s actions have on another.

3.  Self-Regulation

In order to make healthy relationship choices, delay gratification, or avoid lashing out impulsively when I have strong emotions, I need good self-regulation.  Self-regulation is actually “taught” one body to another.  High touch parenting practices help stimulate the young child’s parasympathetic (i.e., “calm-down”) nervous system.  When an infant or toddler is overwrought, they don’t have an easy time getting themselves back under control because their calm-down nervous system isn’t fully developed.  Picking the baby up and holding her close allows your calmer body to communicate with the baby’s stressed-out body.  The baby’s “calm-down” systems automatically start to synch the baby’s heart rate, respiration, temperature and other stress signs to the parent’s calmer heart rate, respiration, temperature, etc.  Just like parents teach baby’s to walk by holding her hand while she does it, parents teach baby’s and toddler’s body the steps of calming down by letting the child’s body learn regulation from the parents’ more mature calm-down systems.  The more a child is left to cry it out, the harder it is for the child’s parasympathetic nervous system to master the art of self-regulation because it does not have a consistent model to lean on and follow.

4.  Communication between higher and lower brain.

Finally, making good moral and relationship choices requires me to have the fastest possible communication between my lower brain (the seat of my impulses) and my higher brain (the seat of decision making). The impulse to do something actually occurs before our higher brain even becomes aware of it.  Unless my higher brain can “catch up” with the impulse that shoots up from my lower brain and redirect it,  I will simply do what my lower brain tells me to do (e.g. make a selfish choice, yell at you, cheat) before I am even aware of it. High touch parenting practices facilitate communication between the higher and lower brain by stimulating the production of the waxy, myelin sheath around nerve cells that allow electrical impulses to “slide” faster down the neuron. The “slipperier” our nerves are (i.e., the more well-myelinated they are) the faster they are able to send messages around the brain (like a child whooshing down a well-waxed sliding board).  Affection facilitates good moral and relational decision making by stimulating the production of the very substance that allows our brains to “think fast”,  harness inappropriate impulses and transform them into more appropriate actions.

Doomed?

Is the research saying that if you let your kids cry it out and you don’t nurse them that they will grow up to be axe murderers? Of course not.  What the research does say is that the more hands-on and high touch you can be as a parent, the more you are actively growing your infant’s and toddler’s social and moral brain. This gives your child a neurological leg-up on using all the good moral and relational lessons you will teach him later on.  God created our bodies to cooperate with making good, moral choices.  Of course he did. This is what it means to speak of the theology of our bodies. The more we can give our child’s brain the things it needs to cooperate with grace and make good moral/relationship choices the happier everyone will be. For more ideas about how you can cooperate with God’s plan for helping parents raise healthy, happy, moral kids, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees , Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids ,  Then Comes Baby:  The Catholic Guide to Surviving & Thriving in the First 3 Years of Parenthood, and Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

 

You Can Pass on Trauma Through Your Genes: New Study Finds

Posted on by

shutterstock_208017454

Genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors are capable of being passed on to their children, the clearest sign yet that one person’s life experience can affect subsequent generations.

The conclusion from a research team at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda stems from the genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who had either been interned in a Nazi concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or who had had to hide during the second world war.

They also analysed the genes of their children, who are known to have increased likelihood of stress disorders, and compared the results with Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during the war. “The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents,” said Yehuda.

The Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy: Living the “Little Way” of Family Life

Posted on by
Image via Shutterstock

Image via Shutterstock

In preparation for our oldest child’s First Communion, we were reviewing the various Works of Mercy.  When he heard that they included things like feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty and clothing the naked, he looked up at us and said, “You guys do those things all the time.  They should call them the Corporal Works of Mommy–and Daddy too!”

Our son stumbled upon a great spiritual truth.  Family life can be an incredible engine of spiritual growth.  The Works of Mercy as practiced at home–what I have come to call The Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy–remind us that charity truly does begin at home, and that there is no better place to remind each other what we are worth in God’s eyes–that is, to practice mercy–than in the home.   Here are some ways you can draw greater spiritual significance from living out the simple tasks of life in your family.

The Corporal Works of Mommy & Daddy

Feeding the Hungry: Family members  truly bless one another when they create a nurturing place around the dinner table for communion and conversation to occur and when they take time to plan nourishing, heartwarming meals.  Tons of research reveals the benefits of families sitting down to meals together including everything from better physical and mental health outcomes, higher academic achievement, and greater life and relationship satisfaction.  Add “growing in holiness” to the list!

Give Drink to the Thirsty: What parent hasn’t been asked to get a thirsty child a drink in the middle of the night?  Getting up and serving that child cheerfully with compassion is a work of mercy that reminds the child that his or her needs are important and that they will be heard and loved even when it is inconvenient for us to do so.

Clothe the Naked:  Finding the grace to be patient while dealing with a toddler who only wants to wear the blue shirt or helping a teen dress attractively, yet modestly, isn’t just an exercise in patience, it’s an opportunity to help your children remember their worth in God’s eyes!

Sheltering The Homeless: Putting in the thought, time, and effort it takes to make your house a welcoming home by working to make it a beautiful, orderly, yet comfortable and hospitable place is a great way to remind yourself and your family of their dignity as children of God.  And teaching your family to be good stewards of what you have been given is an important lesson in godly gratitude.

Visit the Sick:  When you respond to a sick child lovingly, refusing to treat him or her as a burden or an inconvenience even though the illness has thrown your schedule into chaos, you are practicing mercy, growing in personal holiness, and showing your child his or her worth in God’s eyes and yours.

Visit the Imprisoned:  It is one thing to banish our children to their rooms or to time out when they have committed some offense, but when we visit them a few minutes later, talk them through their error, teach them what to do instead, and work to heal their hurts and rebuild our relationship, we are practicing true mercy and showing our children they still have worth in God’s eyes and our eyes even when they mess up.

Bury the Dead: Helping a child deal with sad transitions in life, whether due to the loss of a pet or favorite relative,  or other events that can turn family life upside down, requires incredible compassion and sensitivity–especially when we are dealing with our own grief.  Doing this well enables our children to connect with God’s loving presence even in times of sadness.

 

The Spiritual Works of Mommy and Daddy

Of course, there are Spiritual Works of Mommy and Daddy too.  There isn’t room to address these at length here, but it should be obvious that there are ample opportunities to admonish wrongdoing, instruct each other in the right things to do,  counsel each other work through doubts, comfort each other in times of sadness, bear wrongs patiently, forgive willingly, and pray for one another.

Saint Making Machines

The truth is, our homes can become saint-making machines if we simply realize the transforming, spiritual power that exists behind even the most mundane tasks of family life. We can use The Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy to cooperate with God’s plan to make us and our children into the saints we were created to be!

God has incredible plans for your family! May those plans unfold in your home as you explore all the ways the Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy can help you experience the family life God wants for you!  To discover more ways you can encounter God’s grace hidden behind the mundane moments of family life, check out Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids and Parenting with Grace.