Parenting Style Most Significant Factor Predicting Support for Trump, New Study Finds

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Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com

Readers of Parenting with Grace, in which I discuss this very issue (not as it relates to Trump, but to other historic, cultural and political trends) will not be surprised by this latest study from the Univ of Massachusetts which found that what draws voters to Trump is not church affiliation, political leanings, socio-economic status, or educational level–but the parenting style in which you were raised.

Sound crazy?  It’s not as crazy as it sounds.  In fact,  are 60 years of research backing up the connection between parenting styles and voting patterns.  Here is the latest contribution to that body of literature as reported in the Washington Post.…

One of the reasons that Donald Trump has flummoxed pollsters and political analysts is that his supporters seem to have nothing in common. He appeals to evangelical and secular voters, conservative and moderate Republicans, independents and even some Democrats. Many of his supporters are white and don’t have a college degree, but he also does well with some highly educated voters, too.

What’s bringing all these different people together, new research shows, is a shared type of personality — a personality that in many ways has nothing to do with politics. Indeed, it turns out that your views on raising children better predict whether you support Trump than just about anything else about you.

Matthew MacWilliams, a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, conducted a poll in which Republicans were asked four questions about child-rearing. With each question, respondents were asked which of two traits were more important in children:

  • independence or respect for their elders;
  • curiosity or good manners;
  • self-reliance or obedience;
  • being considerate or being well-behaved.

Psychologists use these questions to identify people who are disposed to favor hierarchy, loyalty and strong leadership — those who picked the second trait in each set — what experts call “authoritarianism.” That many of Trump’s supporters share this trait helps explain the success of his unconventional candidacy and suggests that his rivals will have a hard time winning over his adherents.

When it comes to politics, authoritarians tend to prefer clarity and unity to ambiguity and difference. They’re amenable to restricting the rights of foreigners, members of a political party in the minority and anyone whose culture or lifestyle deviates from their own community’s.

“For authoritarians, things are black and white,” MacWilliams said. “Authoritarians obey.”

…MacWilliams found that the likelihood that participants in his poll supported Trump had little to do with how conservative they were — no surprise, as Trump’s positions on many issues are relatively moderate. Trump also appealed more or less equally to the likely Republican primary voters in MacWilliams’s sample regardless of their age or sex, income and level of education. Regular churchgoers and evangelicals were no more or less likely to support Trump, either.

Those with authoritarian views on raising children were, however. READ MORE

 

 

 

 

The Myth of Optional Breastfeeding & Why You Might Not be Breastfeeding Long Enough

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UPDATE:  This article has sparked tremendous outrage from readers.  PLEASE NOTE.  Save for a few editorial comments which are mine, this article is a re-posting of a blog by UND’s Dr. Darcia Narvaez, 2015 winner of the APA’s William James Award for research in the psychology of religion, morals and values. Her work represents the state-of-the-art of developmental moral psychology and this award puts in on the same level as Lawrence Kohlberg.

She isn’t saying that moms who can’t nurse for medical or emotional reasons are bad moms. She is saying that research supports the idea that nursing facilitates the growth of the structures in the “social brain” that are responsible for moral cognition. She unpacks this in her award winning book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality. It is groundbreaking stuff and people–especially people who genuinely want to know what it takes to raise kids who are strong-enough to stand against the current cultural tides– should be aware of it.

It should go without saying that people are free to parent how they want. They don’t need my permission. Make your choices and be proud of them. I agree with what the article says, but readers are free to make up their own minds.  Blessings.

————–ORIGINAL POST BELOW

Dr. Darcia Narvaez is a moral developmental psychologist at the Univ. of Notre Dame.  Moral developmental psychologists study what goes into raising kids who are able to resist negative peer pressure and make good choices throughout their lives.  As I argue in Beyond the Birds and the Bees:  Raising Whole and Holy Kids, my book about what it takes to raise moral, godly kids,  breastfeeding plays a special role in laying the foundation for moral reasoning in the infant and toddler’s brain.

Dr. Narvaez has a tremendous article at her Psychology Today blog, Moral Landscapes, addressing both why breastfeeding shouldn’t be optional in the first place and how long parents might want to nurse to give their children the full psychological, relational and moral benefits nursing can offer.

Here is a sample followed by a link to a terrific follow-up article where she responds to many objections and questions sent to her by readers.  I guarantee you’ll want to read the whole thing.

Breastfeeding is optional for a mother these days. She can choose not to do it. And without social support and pressure to be a “true” feminist, this seems like the “right” thing to do. Baby will usually stay alive with infant formula (despite its many risks including that it is the only consistent link to SIDS).

Breastfeeding is not an option for a child who wants to grow optimally, and what baby does not want that?

The recent book, Lactivism (link is external), with sloppy reporting and by misreading the evidence, argues that breast milk makes no difference for the health of the child. It became very popular despite the inaccuracies(link is external). It’s astounding to anyone who knows anything about breast milk. Maureen Minchin has an excellent critique(link is external).

 Rather, in the mistaken account, breast milk, a 30 million year old substance with thousands of ingredients is supposed equivalent to a “scientific” formula with a couple of dozen of non-human ingredients (only in 2014 did the Food and Drug Administration finally start to regulate it).

How is this determined? By experiment of course. Randomized, controlled trials are presumed to be the only source of “truth.” (Of course it’s experiment-focused scientists who want you to believe this.) Obviously evolutionary science is dismissed here.

Experiment-focused science assumes we cannot know anything until a “proper” experiment is done. We cannot rely on the natural world to be intelligent –only experimental scientists know anything for sure (tell that to our ancestors and the billions of other creatures that missed out on experimental science). So for child raising, anything goes until we have an experiment. Of course you cannot ethically do experiments on babies. So, anything goes. Whoever has a stronger soap box or microphone or make-my-life-easy story will win.

Getting Baselines Right

It’s amazing that people who think themselves so smart and superior to everyone else, can be so, shall we say, ignorant. They fail to understand other types of knowledge gathering, like observation. Or, how with evolutionary processes, the natural world has “done the experimenting” over eons and provided us with many adaptations that are very intelligent. Nature provides many baselines for making judgments.

Do we really have to take baby birds away from their nests and see what their parents do? (Ignore them). Or feed them some other food instead of the food their parents bring? (Which kills them.) See Derrick Jensen’s(link is external) forthcoming 2016 book, The Myth of Human Supremacy, for a scathing review of scientific arrogance and mistreatment of the natural world.

We have baselines for human nests too (see more below in footnote). And one of these is breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is what mammals do. Social mammals emerged more than 30 million years ago with extensive breastfeeding. Apes have on average four years of breastfeeding. Humans, as the most immature of apes at birth (25% of braindeveloped and more like a fetus in many ways), need the most intensive parenting for the longest duration to reach maturity (3 decades). This requires lots of good caregiving.

Subnote: Some people mistakenly think that relying on nature’s “experiments” is a “naturalistic fallacy.” A naturalistic fallacy is when a person takes a fact, something that “is,” and makes it a “should” (e.g., females bear babies so females should bear babies). Taking a bunch of facts together, converging evidence, is not the same thing as the so-called fact-value distinction as there are multiple points of evidence used to support the “should.”

Which brings us back to breastfeeding. Anthropologists have studied small-band hunter-gatherer communities around the world, the type of society in which the human genus spent 99% of its history (more below in footnote). They have noted the norms for early childhood. For breastfeeding, it’s 2-8 years, with an average weaning age of 4 years (Konner, 2005). Studies measuring only breastfeeding initiation (one attempt) or for 3 months of time are not going to provide the information needed for a true experiment (which, again, cannot be done—can you imagine randomly assigning mothers to children or assigning 8 years of breastfeeding?)

The average length for our ancestors (and small-band hunter-gatherers) is shocking for mothers in advanced nations where societies are built around work and workplaces and not families and child development.

But breastfeeding is what helped our ancestors survive, thrive and reproduce.

Misunderstanding breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is not just about food. Why might several years of breastfeeding matter? Just to mention one thing here (see the links below to much more information): breast milk provides all the immunoglobulins needed for immune system development, which takes around 5 years to develop.

But there are other misunderstandings. Breast milk has thousands of ingredients and these are tailored to the particular child at the time of breastfeeding. Yes! (See Katie Hinde’s blog, Mammals…Suck(link is external).) This is why doing experiments with pumped milk is not going to work. Or doing experiments at all. Every child is different, developing at their own pace. Every feeding is different. It’s an interaction between mom’s science-laboratory breasts and the child’s needs.

Myth of formula as “safe”
The safety of formula is often touted as “we have clean drinking water, unlike some other nations, so formula is safe.” Safe from what? Not SIDS. Formula is linked to all if not virtually all SIDs deaths…. READ THE REST HERE

And  please be sure to read Dr. Narvaez’s response to critics here in To Doubters of the Importance of Breastfeeding.  

The science is there for those who are willing to look at it.  Breastfeeding is a moral issue. God gives moms breastmilk to hold in trust for their babies.  Don’t take away your baby’s inheritance.

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

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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.

HOW CAN I GET THEM TO LISTEN?!? The Secret of Cultivating Discipleship Hearts In Your Children

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Every parent wants their children to listen to them, not just about the requests and directives they make, but about the faith and moral lessons they want to pass on.  But how can you get them to listen? Even more importantly, what does it take to get kids to OWN the lessons you teach them and willingly live them out in their own lives?  The key, as we reveal in Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, is fostering a discipleship heart in your child.

Forming Discipleship Hearts

Cultivating a discipleship heart is separate from teaching faith and moral lessons.  It refers to how successful a parent is in helping their child be receptive to these lessons and, moreover, actively seek out the parent’s advice on these issues (and follows that advice willingly).  A child has a discipleship heart if they consistently turn to you for help and guidance in meeting their spiritual, emotional, and relational needs and finding answers to their questions about living an abundant life.  They do this not only because they have to (because you make them or because they have no other options) but because they want to.

Discipleship & Attachment

A “discipleship heart” is the fruit of the strength of your attachment with a child.   Did you catch that important distinction?  Attachment isn’t about how close the parent feels to the child (that’s called “bonding”).  Rather, the word “attachment” refers to how strong the CHILD feels his relationship is with the parent.  When parents respond promptly, generously, and consistently to the child’s practical, emotional and spiritual needs and requests for guidance the child develops a strong, gut-level sense that his parents are THE source for learning how to live life to the fullest. This is what attachment is; the degree a child feels compelled to turn to the parents–as opposed to anyone else–to meet his needs and answer his important questions about how life works.  Because discipleship is all about forming a child in what it means to live life in a faithful ways, discipleship is the fruit of attachment.

Attachment vs. Spoiling

One point of clarification.  Although forming healthy attachment/discipleship hearts does require meeting children’s needs promptly generously and consistently, meeting children’s needs doesn’t mean spoiling them.  Spoiling comes from either neglecting a child and pacifying them with stuff or from giving them whatever they ask for without any thought.  Building secure attachment/strong discipleship heart with a child requires an active effort to understand the positive intention or need that motivates a child’s behavior–even when that intention or need isn’t immediately obvious–and then working with the child to find healthy, godly ways to meeting that need or intention.

The Payoff

Creating strong attachment/discipleship hearts requires hard work, openness, patience, and generosity on the part of the parent. BUT the reward is two-fold.   First, the process of building attachment is what makes child-rearing a source of sanctification for the parents.  It challenges us to grow in virtues like patience, compassion, understanding, generosity, and love; all qualities that will help us become the saints we are called to be.  Plus, it connects us with the way God our Heavenly Father   Second, it fosters the child’s absolute confidence in your credibility to be THE source of information and guidance on how to live an abundant life.

In general, there are four signs that a parent is succeeding at fostering healthy attachment/discipleship hearts in his or her children.  The child who has a discipleship heart/secure attachment…

-offers cheerful obedience. (They aren’t automatons, but they willingly and faithfully respond to requests/directions and will often offer to help without being asked.)
-willingly initiates and accepts generous affection with the parent. (as opposed to being awkward or uncomfortable around parental displays of affection)
-openly seeks and regularly accepts advice and counsel from the parent.  (as opposed to being resistant to/rejecting of advice).
-regularly initiates and eagerly accepts offers to spend time with the parent. (as opposed to strongly preferring to spend time with friends and seeing family time as mostly an obligation)

Is Your Child A Disciple?

How effective are you at cultivating discipleship hearts in your children?  Ask yourself, “How would my child answer the question, “Do your parents respond promptly, generously, and consistently to your needs, questions, or requests?”  Any doubt/hesitation on your part means that you might have some work to do.   The more a parent may put a child off, frustrate their needs, shame them for their requests, or present obstacles to getting what they want out of life (instead of helping them seek healthy alternative means of getting those things–think “qualifies yes technique) the more that parent is increasing the likelihood that their children will turn to people other than the parent–including peers–for guidance and formation.

By contrast,  parents who are able to respond to their children’s needs and requests promptly, generously, and consistently teach the child that they are the best and easiest source to turn to for help and guidance.  This cultivates a sense of openness and gratitude that makes the child receptive to input from mom and dad even when the child hasn’t asked for it.  To learn more about cultivating a discipleship heart in YOUR child, check out Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids and Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Parent Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids.

Filters Don’t Keep Kids Safe Online–New Study Finds.

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Michigan State criminal justice professor Thomas J. Holt, found that about one in four children said they were pressured by their friends online to talk about sex when they didn’t want to. The study included 439 middle- and high-school students aged 12 to 16.

“This is not to downplay the danger of pedophiles acting online, but it does draw attention to the potential threat of child sexual victimization by the people our kids are closest to, the people they spend the greatest amount of time with online,” explains Holt.

The study is important as it is one of the first to examine the factors of online child sexual victimization. The review appears online in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice.

Researchers found that girls and kids with low self-control, were more likely to be sexually harassed online. But the biggest surprise was the finding that 24 percent of study participants were sexually harassed over the Internet.

Parental-filtering software or keeping the computer in an open space such as the family living room did not seem to reduce the problem

We address this issue in Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Whole and Holy Kids.  Parents who use internet filters tend to be overconfident in what they can do.  The only antidote is fostering a discipleship relationship with your children that enables you to provide the ongoing guidance and character formation that helps them stay strong even when mom and dad aren’t standing over them.  It’s a tough job, but YOU CAN DO IT!  For step-by-step guidance on how you can raise moral kids in an immoral world, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees.

RAISE FAITHFUL KIDS! SAVE 50% on a Great New Resource!

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If you or your parish are looking for a way to empower families to foster intentional discipleship in the home, I wanted to let you know about a special offer.

Several parishes have expressed an interest in giving my and my wife’s latest book, Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids as a gift to parents for Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation classes.

In light of this, Sophia Institute Press has offered a 50% discount to any parish or group who was interested in purchasing this title in bulk.

The book unpacks the latest research on what it takes to pass the faith on to the next generation and offers tons of practical tips for…

-Meeting the spiritual needs of children at every stage of faith development.
-Developing a meaningful family prayer life
-Helping children cultivate their own meaningful prayer life/relationship with Christ.
-Identifying your family mission/charism.
-Enabling children to identify their mission/charism.
-Tools for facilitating a secure relationship with God (and how parents can begin to heal their own spiritual wounds).
-How families can help children get more out of all the sacraments.

And much, much more!

If you’re interested in learning more, please click the link below or contact Sophia Institute Press directly at 1-800-888-9344

The Power of “Family Stories” –What Story Does YOUR FAMILY LIFE Tell Your Kids about Faith, Life and Relationship?

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Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

If you ever want to know what your kids will grow up to think about media use, alcohol, sex, faith, managing conflict, and a host of other important issues, don’t ask yourself what you believe, or what other people are telling them.  Ask, “What story does our family life tell about X?”

Once Upon A Time…

It isn’t unusual for me to have conversations with a parent (usually a mom) who is concerned that she and her husband aren’t on the same page about a particular issue.  “What do the kids make of the fact that we don’t see eye-to-eye?”

The answer to that question is that kids resolve any disagreements between their parents (and other outside influences) by looking at the story their family lives tell about relating to those things. For instance, one mom asked me if it was OK that her husband, a casual drinker, occasionally let their 14yo take the last sip of his beer.  She was, personally, appalled. Further, the teen had recently come home with a handout from his youth group stating that underage drinking was a sin.  She was worried what her son would make about the various conflicting messages he would get about alcohol.

I asked her to tell me the story her family life is writing about alcohol.  I explained that I wasn’t interested in what she and her husband believed about drinking or what she thought her kids were hearing about alcohol but rather, what the narrative her family life told about their household’s relationship with alcohol.  What do the kids see?  She told me that her kids see that mom and dad have a drink at special dinners, that dad will have a beer sometimes either after the kids are in bed and they are watching a movie together, or if they get together with friends they might have a drink or two but never to the point of even getting buzzed much less drunk.  I asked her to write these things into a brief narrative.  “In our family, drinking alcohol is something that grown-ups sometimes do as part of certain social situations and never to get buzzed or drunk.”  When I asked her, she emphatically agreed that she would be comfortable with her children internalizing this “story” that her family life told about alcohol.  Even though she had specific concerns that she could certainly continue to discuss and discern with her husband, she could have that ongoing conversation feeling confident that the general message her kids were getting about alcohol was a healthy one.

The Power of Story

We often worry about specific details while missing the big picture.  The stories we tell with the lives we live at home are the most important catechesis we put our kids through.  The overall way we live around our disagreements is more important than even the need to resolve the disagreements.  Parents will never be on the same page about everything, but that can be alright if the way they relate to those differences creates a functional narrative that their children can use as the script for guiding their own behavior around that issue.  Although the example above was about responsible drinking, it could just as easily be about sexuality, faith & prayer, conflict management, or anything else.

See For Yourself

If you wonder what attitude your children will have about the things that are most important to you, try this exercise.  Ask yourself to describe, in two or three sentences, the story your life at home tells about prayer, or sex and romance, or handling disputes, or any other topic.  Describe in a short paragraph the story that your children are “hearing” as they watch you and your spouse relate to and around that issue.

Getting Your Story Straight

More than anything you tell them that is the family story that will guide their own relationship with that issue as adults.  To learn more about telling the family stories that can help your children have healthy attitudes about life, faith, and relationship, check out Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids or contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute to learn how our Catholic tele-counseling practice can help you live a more abundant marriage, family, or personal life.

Hey Parents! Stop Asking Permission to Be A Family!

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Moms and dads, I want to let you in on a secret. You don’t need permission from your children’s coaches, teachers, youth ministers, scout leaders, etc, etc, etc, to have a family life.  All those people have to ask YOU permission to borrow your kids.  NOT the other way around.

At my wife and my recent presentation at the World Meeting of Families, the above statement earned an unexpected ovation.  In our talk, we asserted the completely counter-cultural and Catholic idea that family life, itself, is an activity not an accessory.  We are used to having a family life but working  at everything else; school, sports, work, lessons, you name it.  We have time for everything except working, praying, talking, and praying as a family.  Worse, we have all come to accept this as normal and necessary when it is anything but.

Family: The School of Humanity

Family life has never been perfect, but it would not be overly nostalgic to note that as little as a generation or two ago, it was assumed that family life was the place where people learned to be human beings.  Family life was the place where socialization occurred, where children and parents developed a sense of purpose, meaning, and values. Family constituted people’s primary and most important relationship–in reality, not just in name.   Children were permitted to participate in extra-curricular activities to the degree that they did not infringe too much on family meals, church, and other important family rituals.

Three generations of the culture of divorce have destroyed this idea.  Today, about 41% of all children are born to unmarried women and about half of children have a step-sibling.  In an age where so many people’s experience of family life has been radically disrupted, almost every family–including intact families–have fallen prey to the idea that socialization, meaning, purpose, values, direction and significant relationships are supposed to happen outside the home while the family home is reduced to a train station where people pass each other on the way to the really important activities.  Research notes that Millennials score higher on measures of narcissism than any other generation before them, but if that’s true, it’s only because we parents have all but closed the doors on meaningful family life–which the Church tell us is the School of Humanity  where we all learn the virtues that help us live life as a gift (Evangelium Vitae).

We Should Do What?!?

Even suggesting to listeners of my radio program that they need to carve out regular time each day as a family to work together, play together, talk with each other and pray together is met with an almost existential level of angst.   “HOW are we supposed to find time to do ALLTHAT?!?”  Catholic families have swallowed the secular lie that if our children are not enrolled in 3000 activities on Wednesday evening that we are depriving them and that they will be social outcasts if not completely socially inept.  But what makes a person socially inept is not whether or not they know how to steal a base, but rather whether or not they know how to be a good husband and father, mother and wife.  Such lessons can only be taught in the School of Humanity that is family life.

None of this is to knock extra-curricular activities.  Sports, music lessons, classes and community involvements can play an important role in creating a fulfilling life.  But when these things threaten the primary work of the family, it is time to make a change.  I would like to suggest that it is time for Catholic parents to evangelize the culture–and insist on re-humanizing society– by reclaiming our families in three simple (if not necessarily easy) steps.

Take Back Your Family
Three Steps

First, ask yourselves, “If we were to carve out a least a little bit of time (say, 15-20 minutes each) to work, play, talk, and pray together, each day what would we do?”  Come up with a short list of ideas yourself, then discuss it as a family.  Start doing some of those things now–even periodically–so that your family can get used to the idea of being intentional about being together.

Second, begin thinking of extra-curricular activities–including your own–as secondary to the need to make time to work, play, talk, and pray together as a family.  If you actually gave yourself permission to prioritize your family life–as your Church asks you to–what else would there be time for?  Perhaps the answer is “not much.”  That’s OK.  Your family is the single most important activity you can do in the course of your week.  Start giving yourself permission to think of this as if it was.

Third, start setting boundaries.   Tell your kids’ coaches that your kids won’t be attending practices or games when they conflict with family commitments–especially your family’s commitment to attend mass together.  Tell the various ministry heads to schedule you for reading, altar serving, and cantoring at the same Mass.  You do not need their permission or approval.  It is YOUR family that is at stake.  Not theirs.  Make them work around you, not the other way around.

It’s time to start a revolution for the family.   Chances are, the people you have let think they own your children won’t like it.  Tough.  Revolutions are never easy.  But in light of Pope Francis’ witness at the World Meeting of Families, perhaps the best way to create a “Culture of Encounter” that brings Christ to the world is to simply do what he says and finally make time to “waste time with your children.”

Dr. Greg Popcak and his wife, Lisa, were  featured speakers at the 2015 World Meeting of Families.  They host More2Life Radio and  are the authors of 20 books including For Better…FOREVER! and Parenting with Grace. Learn more atwww.CatholicCounselors.com.

Family Spirituality–Caring for the Heart of Your Home

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Spirituality is the heart of our your home.  Are you caring for your family’s “heart health”?  Here’s my latest article for Our Sunday Visitor’s Daily Take.

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. 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.

Three steps to a ‘heart-healthy’ family

There are three basic activities families can undertake to promote their spiritual well-being.  CONTINUE READING