Excerpts From Healthy Families: Safe Children Videos

On The Crisis of Culture

"Humans are created for relationships. Moral growth and emotional growth can only occur within the context of these relationships. Babies hunger for connectedness and warmth. In a society where relationships begin to deteriorate the breakdown of moral behavior is not far behind." Dr. Lee Harrington

"I see many children and families that are involved in far too many activities. They rush around and have little time to talk to one another, too busy for the relationships that really matter and too busy for the relationship with God." Dr. David Willis

On Proactive Parenting

"Experiences with parents are really necessary for children to learn to manage strong emotions." Dr. David Willis

"We are not teaching boys how to care responsibly and morally about others. The goal of our efforts must include the better socialization of our boys and men." Fr. John Cihak

"The way the parent interacts with the child in the first few months and first years of the child’s life has profound impact on the child’s social and emotional development. It sets the course for the predictable developmental pathway. It’s like the trajectory of an airplane. It’s predictable, but it can be modified. Social competence begins in infancy. Self-worth, self-confidence, the ability to pay attention and the ability to communicate all are acquired in the first years of life. And these are the foundations for the four year old to develop self-control, self-assertiveness, self-reliance, and for his ability to form healthy relationships with siblings, other children and with adults. This competence is the foundation for his competence in grade school and adolescence. But the single strongest predictor of a child’s success or failure is the experience of his relationships with his parents in the first years of life. It’s the power of the take-off." Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre

On Early Childhood Development

"Babies who are left to cry it out cry much more at 12 months than babies who are picked up and held and comforted, and this is because babies who are held and comforted learn more sophisticated forms of communication than crying." Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre

"When the parent consistently fails to respond to a child’s emotional distress the child begins to feel that his emotions are unimportant or unacceptable. He may even begin to feel ashamed of his emotions and hide them deep inside himself. When he’s under extreme distress he can’t hide them and they come spilling out in an emotional outburst, and if his parents respond negatively to his outbursts, it just perpetuates his feeling that his emotions are unacceptable." Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre

"Discipline is education and not punishment." Dr. Lee Harrington

"The more self-control and self-discipline the parents have the less they actually have to discipline their children." Fr. Derek J. Lappe

On Moral Formation

"The infant automatically seeks care and nourishment in the relationship with parents. That’s not something the child learns. The child knows that inherently. It’s part of the nature of the child. Likewise, the child has an innate capacity to know and understand good, and he’s looking for that good from parents and from society so that they can fill up within themselves that which they are hungry for, that which is true, good, right and proper." Bishop Robert Vasa

"Children learn the concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, within the context of their relationships, particularly with their parents. Moral lessons are provided within the context of their day to day experiences." Bishop Robert Vasa
Conscience development is closely tied to emotional growth. Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre

"Men and women have an innate capacity to know what is true. It’s written in their hearts by God. Children have that same capacity to know the truth. God also gives us the capacity to love Him and the capacity to carry out the commands that He gives as a result of that love. Jesus tells us, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” The fact that the commandment is given—God gives the power to carry it out." Bishop Robert Vasa

"The formation of the moral conscience takes place in concert with the development of the person—the development of moral emotions, the development of self-control, the development of empathy for their peers, the development of an appreciation and understanding of the role of authority in their lives. When parents are connected likewise with the moral teachings of the Church on truth and morality then the children learn the virtues—the moral virtues of chastity, and charity, and honesty, and integrity, and these are picked up almost automatically by the child, and they thus live the rules of the Church without any difficulty or any kind of distress about those rules." Bishop Robert Vasa

On Secure Attachment and Authoritative Parenting

"Secure attachment, authoritative parenting and moral formation are like building blocks, building on one another and culminating in the formation of moral virtues. If any one of the building blocks is missing, it’s very hard to form moral conscience and moral virtues. Children who have insecure attachment to their parents or drill sergeant or permissive parents are handicapped in their development of conscience and moral virtues." Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre

"Drill sergeant parents tend to be intimidating and use power and control to control their children. Fear and intimidation are the tactics they use to help their children comply and they’re doing this primarily for their own welfare, rather than the welfare of their children. They promote rebellious children, or perhaps even submissive, anxious children who are passive aggressive at a later time in their live." Dr. Lee Harrington

"On the other extreme, there are parents who tend to be permissive. On the outside there’s a lot of love in the family, but there are no real standards. These children grow up without any guideposts and they tend to become antisocial at some point later in life." Dr. Lee Harrington

On Redemption and Healing

"When parents are healed, children are healed and this occurs when parents develop attuned communication, when they become comfortable with all the basic emotions and when they learn self-control—they stop fighting, they stop yelling." Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre

"The best predictor of how [parents] will parent is how they themselves were parented, and so part of the challenge is to get parents to explore, and look at and reflect upon how they were parented, and then discern, “How do I want to parent my children?” and that may require patience and change and grace in order for them to make the changes which they want and need to make." Bishop Robert Vasa

"Patience really does hurt—it is a self-discipline, it is a dying to self, it is a diminishment of oneself and that is painful—that’s difficult. It is a kind of suffering… This really is not about repressing feelings at all, but rather the full acknowledgement and actual embracing of the unpleasantness. It really is a way of uniting the sufferings of self with the sufferings of Christ, and [a parent] experiences this maybe without even knowing it, that she sacrifices herself in union with Christ for the good of the family, for the good of her children, and she feels good about that. We see the redemptive value of suffering in a small microcosm…" Bishop Robert Vasa


*One caveat: I do not recommend either of the chastity programs suggested for parents in the HFSC program, Theology of the Body for Teens by Jason Evert, et al, or Teen Star by Dr. Hanna Klaus. I believe families would be better served if parents read Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, or Theology of the Body for Beginners themselves and then imparted these truths to their adolescents gradually and naturally as opportunities present themselves.

Humility, ("And the things parents say that work against its instillation.")

When Christian parents use the fear of suffering to elevate their children to their standards, they inadvertently invert the value system to which we all need to adhere in order to live up to God's standards. The very fears we must overcome to know, love and serve God with humility, are instilled in us and then exploited so that we learn to desire being loved and esteemed by the world above all else. The one thing all but the saints among us care about more than anything else on earth, more than money, more than power--both of which are but means to this end--is what other human beings think of us. The following illustrates what, in my opinion, is part of the reason why.

Litany of Humility

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. ("I refuse to listen to you when you talk in this tone of voice.")

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus. ("Nobody likes a crybaby!")

From the desire of being loved... ("Nobody's ever going to want to marry you if you keep treating people this way.")

From the desire of being extolled ... ("You'll never amount to anything if you don't work harder.")

From the desire of being honored ... ("You'll never make honor roll if you don't devote yourself to your studies.")

From the desire of being praised ... ("Everyone's going to think you're a loser if you don't get a job soon.")

From the desire of being preferred to others... ("The coach is going to let the other kids play more than you if you don't practice harder.")

From the desire of being consulted ... ("Nobody's going to care what you think if you don't start thinking before you speak.")

From the desire of being approved ... ("I don't approve of the way you're dressed and I refuse to be seen in public with you.")

From the fear of being humiliated ... ("If you ever speak to me that way in front of your friends again, I'll embarrass you in front of everybody!")

From the fear of being despised... ("You should be ashamed of yourself! Just go to your room!")

From the fear of suffering rebukes ... ("I'll give you a good tongue lashing if I ever catch you doing that again!")

From the fear of being calumniated ... ("People will talk if they see you hanging around with the likes of him.")

From the fear of being forgotten ... ("You want people to remember you for what a nice person you are.")

From the fear of being ridiculed ... ("Everyone will make fun of you if you have to repeat this grade.")

From the fear of being wronged ... ("Well I guess you got just what you deserved, treating your brother like that!")

From the fear of being suspected ... ("How can I let you out of my sight if I can't trust you.")

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. ("How could you do that to your sister? Don't you want her to love you?")

That others may be esteemed more than I ... ("How dare you speak so disrespectfully to me. I ought slap your face.")

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ... ("If people don't think well of you, you'll never get very far in this world.")

That others may be chosen and I set aside ... ("You'll never make allstars with that kind of attitude.")

That others may be praised and I unnoticed ... ("Stand up straight and fix your hair. Don't you want people to notice how pretty you are?")

That others may be preferred to me in everything... ("No, I'm sorry, your brother gets to ride in the front seat, because he helped me pack the car.")

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should… ("Why can't you be more like John. He's such a good boy.")

Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930), Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X

Whatever we use to solicit our children's cooperation is what they come to value. If they didn't think it was of value, they wouldn't be motivated by it (or by losing it). Children may be born already valuing these things--I guess God's the only one who knows--but it's the responsibility of Christian parents to see that their values are ordered vertically, toward God. We fail to fulfill this responsibility whenever we say the kinds of things exemplified above. It's natural not to want our children to suffer, in this life or the next. Of course, we know that suffering in this life ends as soon as we embrace God's will. We do that by accepting it in each moment, not prophesying about future impending doom to coerce them to change this moment--and fast. We can and must correct our children's physically and spiritually dangerous choices. But until we embrace God's will ourselves, we won't see how to do it without infecting them with our own horizontal fears. This lesson is best taught to us by Christ, Himself, in his rebuke of St. Peter, from St. Matthew's Gospel, especially verse 23:

21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

The Validity of Validation

The term and concept of "validation" has a wide range of meaning and is often understood to mean approval. In the sense in which we will be talking about it, it is an outward unconditional acceptance of persons and events as they are at this moment. It is a spoken observation of one's perception of another's thoughts and feelings, without judgment or resistance. In Catholic terms, it is the exterior practice of total abandonment to the Divine Will. It's not approval of foolishness, evil or sin, but acceptance of what IS at this moment, without reacting to it unconsciously, bringing clarity and presence to a situation which warrants your full attention.

For any change, development or growth, to take place, whether in nature or in the spiritual realm, there must be a fixed, constant, unchanging object against which another object can
"push." The essence of unconditional love and acceptance is, like God, its "unchangingness." It provides an immovable object against which a thing can push in order to effect change, and in this sense it is satisfying and fulfilling.

Unconditional loving acceptance of God's will is the one thing required of us for growth in holiness and salvation. From page 39 of Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence (TStDP), "Since it is the most perfect act of charity and the most pleasing and acceptable sacrifice that is given to man to offer to God, there can be no doubt that whoever practices entire submission to His will lays up inestimable treasures at every moment and amasses more riches in a few days than others are able to acquire in many years and with great labor. To remain indifferent to good fortune or to adversity by accepting it all from the hand of God without questioning, not to ask for things to be done as we would like them but as God wishes, to make the intention of all our prayers that God's will should be perfectly accomplished in ourselves and in all creatures is to find the secret of happiness and content." All suffering (distinct from pain) is the consequence of resistance to God's will in this moment. From The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, A Treatise of Prayer: "For I wish thee to know that all the sufferings which rational creatures endure depend on their will, because if their will were in accordance with mine they would endure no suffering, not that they would have no labours on that account, but because labours cause no suffering to a will which gladly endures them, seeing that they are ordained to My will." We manifest resistance either by running from the painful memories of our past to the hope of a brighter future, or from making the even more insanely futile attempt to hide from the prospect of a dire future in the happy memories of days gone by. In both cases we are anxiously fleeing non-existent pain, or pain which exists only in our imaginations. (This is life in the darkness of Plato's cave!) It's not pain itself which causes suffering, but resisting pain. The moment we stop resisting God's will for us in this moment (experienced by the mind as embracing suffering, see end note from Divine Intimacy), all suffering vanishes. To live we must die, to be free of suffering we must embrace it. Or in the words of St. John of the Cross, mapping the way of the Nada in his Ascent of Mount Carmel, "In order to have pleasure in everything, Desire to have pleasure in nothing. In order to arrive at possessing everything, Desire to possess nothing. In order to arrive at being everything, Desire to be nothing. In order to arrive at knowing everything, Desire to know nothing. In order to arrive at the wherein thou hast no pleasure, Thou must go by a way in which thou hast no pleasure. In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not, Thou must go by a way that thou knowest not. In order to arrive at that which thou possessest not, Thou must go by a way that thou possessest not. In order to arrive at that which thou art not, Thou must go through that which thou art not." Our children are born already on the way of the Nada. They are born knowing nothing, possessing nothing, being nothing more than what they are in this moment. Communicating to them our acceptance of them and the circumstances of their lives as they are in this moment, loving their "littleness," makes their "Ascent" sweet and light, free of unnecessary obstacles--free of unnecessary suffering--resilient in embracing God's will, not resistant to it. Baptism is the sacrament whereby a person is released from the bonds of sin (detached from horizontal attachment), becoming a child of God (vertically oriented). Parents needn't worry--anxiety cannot exist in the presence of faith. The child's innate drive--to learn to love as Christ loves--is now oriented toward their eternal destiny--Divine Union--and all things (all his impulses) work toward this end. It is the task of parents to bring the child to a deeper knowledge of their Heavenly Father by communicating to them on the deepest level--a level beyond thought and feeling, a level that is known in the core of their very being--the incomprehensible attributes of God--omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. When parents consistently communicate understanding to their children, their children learn about God's omniscience; when parents are consistently present to their children, their children learn about God's omnipresence; and when parents "believe all things, hope all things, endure all things..." with patience and humility their children learn about God's omnipotence. Their faith in their parents transfers seamlessly to faith in God.

Validation, or open unconditional acceptance of persons and events as they are at this moment is a most effective means of teaching our children, by our example, trustful surrender to Divine Providence. In the book, Light and Peace, Fr. Quadrupani makes a distinction between the will, which even God does not attempt to force, and the consequences (including emotional consequences) of one's actions: "These persistent temptations come from the malice of the devil," says St. Francis de Sales, "but the trouble and suffering they cause us come from the mercy of God. Thus, despite the will of the tempter, God converts his evil machinations into a distress which we may make meritorious." (italics mine) While we may not approve of our children hurting each other, for example, in their anger, jealousy, greed, etc., we can accept the thoughts and feelings behind their actions as crosses sent to purify us and them. From page 97 of TStDP, "It is then a truth of our faith that God is responsible for all the happenings we complain of in the world and, furthermore, we cannot doubt that all the misfortunes God sends us have a very useful purpose." When we voice our acceptance of our children's thoughts and feelings, as a manifestation of God's mercy which is happening to them even as it is happening to us, not as who they or we ARE, we show forth that constancy without which no change can take place, and we help them to grow in unconditional love and acceptance of their Heavenly Father and his Almighty Will--with the support of which constancy everything happens.

When children feel the security of unconditional love and acceptance, they can come to rest in the face of a problem and begin to see whether or not it's something they can solve, or whether it's just something that has to be accepted. But when they feel that their feelings and thoughts are unacceptable and rejected, their anxiety leads to confusion and they get "stuck." Validation is a practice we can use not to control our children or change them, but to provide them with a secure refuge of love and trust, from which they can move forward toward growth in maturity and holiness. An action, performed for self-serving reasons, merits no grace for anyone, but an action performed with faith, for the love of God is meritorious, and is therefore transformative. Validation cannot be done to manipulate the child. It must be done with trustful surrender--unconditional acceptance--before any good can come of it.

Additionally, the "safety" parents provide with their unconditional acceptance makes it possible for a child to remain humble by allowing him to accept his own "littleness" (TCJ), growing in self-knowledge, and abiding in the dependability of his parents' care--trustful surrender to "parental providence"--which naturally and easily transfers to trust in God.

Quite often with validation, more crying ensues rather than an immediate abatement. This needn't be cause for alarm. If a child has been "holding on" to a lot of frustration, he will use the safety of this moment to "offer up" all of it, releasing pent up feelings in order to move on with no residual negative "baggage." At these times, parents can focus on being fully present to their children, making of themselves a basin in which to receive all their child's suffering, released by his tears. Both parent and child will come to a deeper faith and trust in one another, growing in humility without fear.

Parents needn't fear their child's cries, frustration, tantrums, or most importantly, saying no to unreasonable requests. These situations are opportunities for parent and child to grow in self-knowledge, and mutual respect. A secure vertical attachment between parent and child supports and facilitates progress in divine union for both. It isn't necessary to dramatize the situation or the child's reactions. Peaceful surrender to the moment as it is teaches children not to fear accepting God's will for them. The unchangingness of unconditional acceptance on the part of the parents gives the child a firm ground under their feet from which to move forward. Children and parents grow in resiliency and problem solving skills.

Avoiding dramatizing their feelings and the surrounding events, evaluating and offering "escape routes" sends the message that suffering is an ordinary part of life, not to be feared or fled from, but accepted, strengthened by and moved beyond, after which comes joy and peace, the fruit of maturity and growth in sanctity.

Of course, there will always be times when we are overwhelmed by our pain and just can't wiggle our way into accepting it, accustomed as we are to resisting it and trying to accomplish things by our own efforts (See note from Divine Intimacy at end). At these times we can at least resign ourselves to our resistance, in humility, conscious of how utterly small and weak we are, and casting ourselves on God's mercy in an act of faith. If we're dealing with a situation that for whatever reason we find impossible to accept, we can at least accept that we are too weak to accept it. St. Thérèse said, "When we accept with mildness the humiliation of having manifested our imperfection, the grace of God returns immediately," and "The weaker we are and the more we are without desires or virtues, the more are we receptive of the operations of God's love in us."

Validating is a very simple "art" which one can begin practicing with a child of any age by expressing with words and "mirrored" emotions what is most obviously the reason for the child's distress. For example, a mother might simply say to a crying infant, "Your tummy hurts," or "You're tired," or "You want mommy to hold you because you're scared." When a child gets hurt or is frustrated a parent might simply say, "You skinned your knee. That hurts. Would you like me to kiss it?" or "You're upset because you wanted to go the store with Daddy and he couldn't take you," or "You want to play with the big boys and they won't let you." A loving embrace, or closeness of a nature that is comfortable to the child reinforces the lesson of acceptance. At this point I want to clarify that nothing parents do out of love for their children is "bad" (Rom 8:28 "And we know that all things work together unto good to them that love God."). It may just be imperfect. But when we make it a habit or rule to manipulate our children's feelings, for better or worse, we may do them a disservice that will have long term consequences for them and us. When we first begin to practice trustful surrender and to learn the skill of validation, it may be necessary for us to have some scripted responses, but as we become more and more attuned to our children's feelings and needs, we can begin to relax and respond with whatever seems appropriate in the moment. If you've acknowledged a child's feelings of frustration or disappointment and it's obvious that the futility is sinking in, that he's "offering it up," so to speak, letting go of his unfulfillable desire at the moment and accepting what is in fact God's will, and your own feelings of compassion and mercy for this suffering child move you to suggest that perhaps some time at a later date he may be able to satisfy this desire, then say that to him. God also supports us with the promise of future fulfillment (fulfillment which can actually be ours NOW, as soon as we are able to accept that we will never find fulfillment by our own means). If you realizes that there was a misunderstanding, I think it's always good to clear it up and make an effort to help your child know and feel that he is understood by you, even when you can't grant his request. The books, Non-Violent Communication, by Marhsall Rosenberg, and How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Faber and Mazlish, are very good help for learning to practice validation, which, in turn, facilitates the practice of submission to the Divine Will, excellently outlined in the books Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, by Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jeur, and Blessed Claude de la Colombiere; and Abandonment to Divine Providence, by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Although in my opinion, it's more advantageous to begin with Trustful Surrender, the interior disposition, before trying to change the exterior--Faith before Works.

Some parents inadvertently take on the blame for the child's feelings, saying things like, "You're upset because Mommy won't let you...", "You're angry at Daddy because he..." I would say that it's better to say something like, "You're upset because you wanted... and it didn't work out for you." This is more in keeping with reality (again, see notes below), and will definitely avoid his experiencing those debilitating feelings of victimization which lead to anxiety and the flight from vulnerability, i.e. pride. Even when we apologize for mistreating our children (or anyone), or losing our tempers, it's always better to say, "I'm sorry for the way I behaved today. The things I said/did were unkind/untrue and I wish I hadn't said/done them. I wanted/expected such and such and when I didn't get it I reacted badly/selfishly," (see note from Intro to the Devout Life) or "I'm sorry I hit you," instead of "I'm sorry I hurt you." We can apologize for our own words and actions, or lack thereof, but we can't really apologize for the way another person experiences them. Living this rule will protect us and others from empty, meaningless apologies like, "I'm sorry you were upset by what I said," or "I'm sorry you were offended, etc." Jesus did not aplogize to the crowd for how they reacted to His teaching on the Eucharist. It will also help us not to be utilitarian in our charity, chosing to just do the loving thing whether or not we profit from it. This is a very helpful practice to detach from our horizontal orientation, because we begin to see God's will in all things, and become more blind and deaf to man's will. This will also help us to define our's and other's boundaries, which is essential for our children's healthy individuation, milestones that are necessary for them to reach if they are ever to offer themselves unreservedly to a future spouse and/or God.

(Divine Intimacy, 242, THE OBSCURE LIGHT OF FAITH: Faith is certain because it relies on the word of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived; in this sense we can say that faith is clear, "free from errors" (J.C. SC, 12,3), admitting no doubt, since no one can doubt God's word. But at the same time, it remains obscure, because it does not show us the truths which it proposes for our belief and, therefore, they remain mysteries to us. Let us remember the pitcher that contains a lighted but invisible lamp. This obscure side of faith is, at the same time, both painful and glorious for us. It is painful because we cannot see what we believe, painful because an act of faith often exacts a leap in the dark, a thing repugnant to human nature which likes to be in control, to know what it is doing and to proceed on known facts. (emphasis mine) The more elevated supernatural realities are, the greater is their obscurity--even darkness--to the intellect, which is incapable of proceeding without the aid of the senses, and incapable of embracing the infinite. On the other hand, however, it is this very obscurity which constitutes the merit and glory of our act of faith: merit, because it is a wholly supernatural act based not on what we can see and verify, but solely on what God has revealed to us; glory, because our act of faith gives all the more glory and honor to God, the more it relies solely on His word.)

(Divine Intimacy, 247, THE MOTIVE FOR HOPE: "God wishes the certitude of our hope to rest upon Him alone. Although He demands our cooperation and our good works, He does not want us to base our confidence on them... Souls who are acuustomed to depend on thier own strength and who delude themselves, thinking they can enter more deeply into the spiritual life by their own personal resources, find this lesson hard to understand. That is why when the Lord wills them to progress, He makes them go through painful states of powerlessness, permitting them to feel the rebellion and repugnance of nature that they may be convinced of the vanity of placing their confidence in themselves.")

(Intro to the Devout Life, on Confession: "Again, do not be satisfied with mentioning the bare fact of your venial sins, but accuse yourself of the motive cause which led to them. For instance, do not be content with saying that you told an untruth which injured no one; but say whether it was out of vanity, in order to win praise or avoid blame, out of heedlessness, or from obstinacy.")

Patience--Obedience, Humility, Charity

All parents want their children to be obedient, after all, it certainly does make our lives a lot easier! But some of those parents even want their children to have the virtue of obedience. And that is where our focus needs to be, because it's entirely possible for children to be obedient, and not have the virtue of obedience, and obedience that is not virtuous leads to death; but a child who has the virtue of obedience will also be obedient and by virtue of obedience have eternal life.

In St. Catherine of Siena's Treatise on Obedience, God the Father explains that the virtue of obedience is the fruit of charity and humility. One doesn't have to dig too deep to understand that what this really means is that the virtue of obedience cannot exist apart from love of the Cross--embracing suffering, trustfully surrendering to Divine Providence for love of God alone, not by practicing more extreme forms of mortification, but by accepting unconditionally, with blind confidence in God, whatever His will is for this particular moment, stripping ourselves of fear and anxiety. From the Dialogue (all emphasis mine), "And inasmuch as love cannot be alone, but is accompanied by all the true and royal virtues, because all the virtues draw their life from love, [Christ] possessed them all, but in a different way from that in which you do. Among the others He possessed patience, which is the marrow of obedience, and a demonstrative sign, whether a soul be in a state of grace and truly love or not. Wherefore charity, the mother of patience, has given her a sister to obedience, and so closely united them together that one cannot be lost without the other. Either thou hast them both or thou hast neither. This virtue has a nurse who feeds her, that is, true humility; therefore a soul is obedient in proportion to her humility, and humble in proportion to her obedience," and "The sign that you have this virtue is patience, and impatience the sign that you have it not..." We'll come back to this in a moment.

In the supernatural order, man was made to love as Christ loves, unconditionally, and in order to do that he must receive unconditional love, which by its very nature cannot be earned by good behavior. Parents are God's first ambassadors to their children, commissioned to bestow upon them this gift, even as the Wise Men bestowed gifts upon the Christ Child. Parents have the responsibility of being mediators of God's grace to their children by communicating to them His unconditional love, making a gift to their children of the gift of love given to them by God, through the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, Baptism, Confirmation, Confession and Holy Communion. Parents cannot give to their children what they themselves have not received by acceptance as a free gift from the font of God's mercy, merited for us who could not merit it for ourselves, by Christ through His Passion and Death on the Cross.

Returning to the Dialogue, (parenthetical expressions and bold emphasis mine) "[Christ] is the way, wherefore He said, 'He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.' For he who travels by that way, travels in the light, and being enlightened cannot stumble, or be caused to fall, without perceiving it. For He has cast from Himself the darkness of self-love, by which he fell into disobedience; for as I spoke to thee of a companion virtue proceeding from obedience and humility, so I tell you that disobedience comes from pride (which I describe as the fear of suffering), which issues from self-love depriving the soul of humility (love of the Cross). The sister given by self-love to disobedience is impatience, and pride, her foster-mother, feeds her with the darkness of infidelity, so she hastens along the way of darkness, which leads her to eternal death."

All this to say, parents, that we cannot be satisfied with children who simply know how to be obedient out of fear of suffering/punishment. We must desire to instill virtue in our children, and we can't do that by being impatient, employing every means to produce instant obedience in them--the "definitive sign" that we ourselves lack obedience. How many times have we said these words, "You will obey me now or else!"? Love of the Cross is the means to all virtue, and we can't love the Cross without patience. We cannot instill in our children the virtue of obedience, patience, humility, if we ourselves are without virtue. When we lose our patience with our children (usually displayed by anger without meekness), because of their failure to show us obedience, or any other reason, for that matter, that's the time to ask ourselves, "What suffering am I afraid of? What cross am I running from?" Until it is recognized and embraced with faith, hope and love, we're just spinning our wheels, or even worse, driving our children from our arms and from the arms of Christ, outstretched to embrace them upon the Cross.

Another method of so-called discipline that doesn't "work."

This article seems to have some good insights, and at first blush appears to be attachment conscious, but I'm afraid after all is said and done, it does rather miss the point.

The problem isn't the mother's failure or inability to understand how unpleasant it is to wait, or feel hungry, or tired, or bored, or hot, etc. She's human--she's felt all these things. The problem isn't that the children are undisciplined or that the mother lacks planning abilities. All these factors may be true, but as problematic as they may be, they are mere symptoms of a disease, which in no way will be remedied by the forewarning of consequences, or the right kind of threat, or a spanking, or a snack, or a nap, as the author of the article suggests (though some of these tactics may "work" for a quick fix in the moment).

The root of this problem, plain and simple, is that the relationship is not working for either the mother or the children. There exists no secure attachment between these children and their mother. (Of course, I realize I can't actually know that for sure, not having a relationship with either the mother in the post or its author, but based on my own experience I can guarantee it's a likely possibility, and for the purpose of making my point, I'll assume this is the case.) When Mother is not attuned to her children's interior lives, children, feeling this disconnection, tend not to be oriented by faith (i.e., trust, confidence) toward pleasing her. This mother, and very probably the mother writing about her, fails to grasp wherein lies a parent's power to woo the hearts of her children. It is not in bullying them, or outwitting them, or even in becoming an excellent planner-aheader, for all these "techniques" have their limitations and are not suited to every possible scenario. Her power to parent, like the Christian's power to draw others to Christ, resides in the faith, hope and charity that binds together--and to God--souls who have transcended the squalor of servile fear.

All parents have the power to woo the hearts of their children, but unless they realize it, and conquer their fear of it, it is useless to them--even counterproductive. In their fear of being manipulated, parents teach their children to be manipulative; in their fear of being bullied, they make victims of their children, and in their fear of being victimized they make bullies of their children; in their fear of being humiliated they provoke their children to pride; in their fear of being slaves to their children, they make of their children and of themselves slaves to their passions; and in their fear of The Cross, they make worldlings of their children and themselves. And how do they do this? By judging external appearances as the world does (“Vanity of vanities…”), and failing to communicate love to these little ones, rather than by disposing themselves to glimpse through God’s eyes the brilliance of the Blessed Trinity in the souls of His children, and radiating to them the grace Christ won for us through His Passion, becoming instruments of His mercy and justice at once. (How can one possibly see the Blessed Trinity in a child they refer to as a "brat?")

This is wherein virtue lies--for parent and child. Not in scolding, threatening, bribing, spanking or time-out. Virtue springs from charity, which must be communicated to the beloved, not just felt or willed by the lover. Love which is not communicated is like the grain of wheat that does not die. It remains always and only a grain of wheat. But even a grain of wheat that dies, can become Christ communicated. How much greater than a grain of wheat is a soul in the state of grace? Through the grace of the sacraments, every baptized soul has the power to love as Christ loves, which is scary because that also means to suffer as Christ suffered--especially humiliation, for without humility there is no virtue. But it can be done! When parents overcome their fear of their children's dependence on them, their littleness, their seemingly insatiable need for unconditional love that is known and felt, embracing every single suffering of their lives, past, present and future, they can hope to love as Christ loves, which is the only kind of love our children can benefit from? If we wish to make disciples of our children we must love them as Christ loves them. And preying on their fear of suffering in order to put an end to ours just isn't cutting it.

Noticing vs. Praising

Praising a child usually involves passing judgement on him or something he's done, albeit favorable, usually in order to manipulate him into repeating a desired action. It creates expectations in the child's mind that he may not always be able to live up to. He may wonder if we still accept and think well of him when he tries his hardest, but we don't praise him because we can't pass a favorable judgement without stretching the truth. It awakens vanity and narcissism in him because it directs his focus away from doing the act to getting the praise. It creates anxiety ("What will they think of me if I ever fail in the future?"), invites dependence ("I'm not good unless you say I'm good.") and evokes defensiveness ("I'm not the most wonderful child in the world. Last week I wanted to push Johnny down the stairs."). It violates trust in the relationship in the same way punishment does, because it leads him to believe that we don't think him capable of doing good things without being coerced with rewards. It can also rob him of the opportunity to store up riches in Heaven. True praise is due to God, alone.

However the human brain needs feedback to survive--the brain without feedback is like the man who cannot see, hear, feel, smell or taste--senseless. High-quality feedback speaks to the child's efforts and accomplishments rather than his character and personality. It's saying, "This place was a mess before you cleaned it. I didn't think it could be picked up in such a short time. This was a really hard job you did, and I can see by the smile on your face how proud you are. Thank you!" (Harmful praise would have said, "You are such a wonderful child and such a skilled housekeeper. I am so proud of you!")

There are a few criteria for high-quality feedback:

Generally, the more often children receive feedback, the better; the more specific the feedback, the better; the more immediate the feedback, the better; and the more we notice and the less we judge, the better. High-quality feedback encourages a child to continue his efforts. From our feedback, he is able to judge for himself how close he is getting to he mark he has set for himself.

Evaluative praise, on the other hand, can actually be discouraging to a child. Sometimes what we say translates in the mind of the child into something we really didn't mean. For example, after a child hits a homerun in baseball and we say, "You're great! You have a perfect swing. You should be in the Majors!" the child is likely to think to himself, "They think I'm so great, but that was just luck. I didn't even have my eyes open! That may be the only homerun I hit all season. If I never make it to bat again, they'll never know I'm really not such a great ball player anyway. I wish I never hit the homerun at all." It would have been more encouraging for the parents to simply say, "You connected with that ball and sent it sailing right over the fence. I can see how excited you are to have scored for your team." This would likely have translated in the child's mind into, "They were paying attention to me. They like to watch me play ball. I'm valuable to my team."

When we notice our children, simply by saying what we see and how we feel about it, we are showing them a reflection of the beauty that they are without making them feel self-conscious. By noticing, rather than praising, we are acknowledging that we cannot presume to know the wonders God is working in them, only that we see that He is working wonders in them and that we like what we see. We model humility by this acknowledgement, and in so doing begin to sew this virtue in our children's hearts as well.

Heaven and Hell--Reward and Punishment?

In attempting to reconcile AP principles with Catholic doctrine one must address the concept of punishment and rewards. Naturally, the question arises, "Does God reward and punish sinners?"

Catholic doctrine teaches that Heaven is a free gift of God, the good do not deserve it, nor can they earn it. Therefore, one cannot think of Heaven in terms of a reward.

The opposite of reward is punishment. The dictionary defines punishment as "a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc." But God does not inflict Hell on unrepentant sinners. Quite the contrary! Hell is but the truly natural consequence of a resolute turning away from God--a conscious decision to orient oneself horizontally rather than vertically--to worship oneself, rather than the Almighty Creator on whom one depends for his very existence.

The souls in Hell cannot be happy in Heaven. Their failure to repent in the end is but their refusal to forgive God for loving them enough to create them. Such close proximity to the object of their hatred would be far more unbearable than any pain Hell can offer. In fact, since God is everywhere, even in Hell, and loves every one of us always, the pain experienced by the souls in Hell is because of His presence there and the certain knowledge that He still loves them. The souls of the unjust can no sooner sustain such close proximity to the Almighty, Perfect God than a dry leaf could sustain itself in the heat of the sun. Hell is God's merciful provision for those who refuse to be loved by Him.

A Secure Child, from Bishop Robert Vasa, Baker, Oregon

This is outstanding! Bishop Vasa and a team of priests and doctors have developed a program designed to teach parents the importance of attachment and how to cultivate it, in order to protect their children while bringing them up in the faith to be strong soldiers of Christ.







This is my neice in the picture!

(aka Attachment Parenting)

At the Service of Love--Cultivating Virtues in Our Children

Every sincere Catholic parent wants to raise saints, and we all know that in order to do that we have to raise our children in the school of virtue. When I was a very young mother I got a hold of a copy of David Isaac's book, Character Building, which is a one of a kind book that helps parents teach their children 24 different virtues, all geared toward raising happy, holy adults. I didn't really understand most of what he was talking about when I read it 15 years ago. I looked at the little chart that suggests which virtues to concentrate on when, and jumped right into teaching my under-seven-year-olds the virtues of obedience, orderliness and sincerity. Little did I realize how dangerous only a parital understanding of a thing can actually be.

Hold On To Your Kids has been for me a sort of Rosetta Stone for decoding the mysteries of parenting. Now that I have the key, I've been re-reading Character Building, and anything else I can remember feeling the same way about in my pre- HOTYK days. I believe David Isaac's book completes what for me is a syllabus of parenting.

If I'd only understood the importance of the parent/child relationship, the tantamount role of unconditional love, the damaging effects of fear-inducing anger, and the love-excluding nature of punishment, perhaps our family life up to now would have been very different. But since I cannot go back to change anything I must begin anew today.

Dr. Isaac's Character Building is a tremendous wealth of Catholic wisdom--much the same as
Hold On To Your Kids, only openly Catholic. And while he doesn't come right out and admonish parents against punishing their children, he certainly believes it to be a counter-productive approach to teaching virtue, since it relies on the child's own self-interest as a motivation to virtuous actions, which are necessarily directed toward God and one's neighbor. It is a method inherently self-contradicting.

Early on in the book he emphasizes that it is only in the family that we are accepted and loved unconditionally. The world will judge us for our usefulness, but in the family we are not judged for what we do or who we are. Our actions may be judged to be good or bad, right or wrong, but we, ourselves, are loved and accepted for just what we are--our parents' children. The surest way to protect our children from being seduced by the world is to create a haven as unlike the world as we can. Some parents argue that the world is cruel and unfair and that children are better off if they get used to it as soon as possible. Years later, they can't understand why their children don't want to come home. It's very difficult to distinguish between home and elsewhere when the environment at home was not starkly opposed to the ways of the world, in practice as well as in principle.

In the chapter on responsibility, Dr. Isaacs writes, "If [the child] is to act responsibily, in the true sense, he needs a motive for everything he is asked to do, a relationship with another person, for instance his father." While Issacs doesn't use the word "attachment" anywhere in the sense that we use it when talking about "attachment parenting," the principles are upheld throughout his book.

One of the great mistakes of our parenthood, a mistake in which I think we are not alone, was to view obedience as the highest virtue of childhood. We believed that if we could just teach our children to obey our orders instantly, everything else would so very easily fall into place. I guess I missed this line in the book: "I should clarify one more point: obedience is not a virtue designed for small children, it is not meant to make life easier for parents." After exploring several possible motives for obedience he writes, "What sort of motivation could we suggest to small children for being obedient and what is the best way to instill this motivation? A small child can obey because he intuitively recognizes his parents' authority. They give him security, affection, and a sense of well-being, and all this leads him to do what his parents want, even though he feels also inclined to disobey in order to test his own strength and his scope and ability to act independently." This is what Dr. Neufeld calls "mixed feelings," and what Dr. Craig calls "conscience."

In the chapter on prudence Dr. Isaacs describes the prudent person thus: "In his work and in dealings with other people the prudent person gathers information which he assesses in the light of right standards: he weighs the favorable and unfavorable consequences for himself and others prior to taking a decision and then he acts or refrains from acting, in keeping with the decision he has made." Prudence is the virtue which regulates conscience. It is necessary, along with fortitude, for the cultivation of all the other virtues which are at the service of love. When children are forced to ACT virtuously, the possibility of love is excluded from their motives.

Let Go Of Your Catholic Kids!

Christ is the source of all true happiness, just as the mother is the source of all things good and needful to the baby. Everything we seek in this world as a means to happiness, every pleasure and the fear of losing anything, is our own vain attempt to fill ourselves with something other than Christ. But WE ARE SEEKING HIM nonetheless. When our children find joy and consolation in other things (which isn't always bad or wrong) they are ultimately seeking Christ. When they have our unconditional love and accpetance we free them to seek Him. When they don't have that from us, we insert ourselves into their lives where Christ should abide. We make ourselves obstacles to Christ in their lives, as are they in our own lives. But when we let go of all worldly attachments, even our children, we gain everything, we radiate Christ to our children, thereby allowing Christ to use us as a means to fill the void they are seeking to fill with material things--including US! We must die to ourselves so that Christ lives in us and then through us our children find Him. And when they are fully mature, they can die to themselves so that Christ lives in them.

All the suffering of our entire lives leads us to Christ. He wants us to realize that we can find no happiness in anything of this world. Only in Him can we find true happiness. Man's deepest fear, I contend, is the fear of being unloved and unable to love. We were made for God--to be loved by Him and to love Him. We needn't fear being unloved except by our fellow man, God always loves us. Our deepest fear is being unable to love HIM! If we are unable to love Him we will never find happiness, never reach the end for which He created us, we will wallow in the misery of Hell for eternity. But to love Him we must let go of everything of this world, ourselves, our families and our friends and every material thing. When we do that--which we're afraid to do because we're afraid of losing happiness--we gain everything because we gain Christ! Then our only fear is losing HIM! Our only fear is offending HIM! When we possess Him we can radiate Him to the world and bring others to Him--including our children, our families, our friends.

The saints mortified themselves because they feared with every fiber of their being losing HIM, feared that anything else should creep in to replace HIM who dwelled within them, He was their life and to lose HIM was to die eternally. St. Paul said, "I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me!"

Of those to whom much is given much is expected. Only those who possess Christ can, with sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, reject HIM. Until one possesses Christ, every sin is a vain attempt to find that happiness for which God created us.

When a baby cries out for his mother's breast and we give him a pacifier or bottle instead, or leave him alone to "take care of himself" we risk teaching him that the true source of his happiness lies outside the parent/child relationship, outside the creator/creature relationship.

Just as the babe spits out the pacifier or the bottle or the formula, until futility sinks in and he realizes that he's not getting the real thing, we would find in every earthly thing a poor relacement for the true source of our happiness if we depended on Christ for everything. We would find sin repulsive, abhorent, just as the babe does the pacifier, the baby sitter, the security blanket, the doll, anything meant as a relacement for the parent, the "giver of life" before futility sinks in. When the small child is left to sleep alone at night, and he's scared and lonely, and he seeks to soothe himself he's seeking to fill a void with something other than the comfort and security of his mother. He's seeking the happiness God made him to enjoy, but he's seeking it through channels that can never satisfy his need. As parents we must not provoke our children, we must not throw stumbling blocks in their way. We must teach them that Christ is the source of all their happiness, by allowing Christ to come to them through ourselves, through being His instruments, through radiating Him, through detaching from everything of this world and desiring only Him. We do this by first dying to ourselves, and then by imitating Christ in all our interactions, not just with our children but with everyone; by loving God with our whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, and whole strength; by loving our neighbor as ourselves for love of God; by doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.

The practice of the virtues, kindness, generosity, etc. are good habits to form, but until we die to ourselves and embrace Christ we are fighting an uphill battle. Once we detach from all the things of this world, especially the fear of being unloved and unable to love, and desire nothing but Christ and fear nothing but losing Christ, the battle is easily won.

Much is expected of the soul who has fully embraced Christ, but when this happens, it is no longer "I" who live, but Christ in "me" and we can accomplish all things in Christ who strengthens us.