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At Home with our Faith,
the spirituality newsletter for families.
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Nine issues a year
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Packed with practical ideas and tips
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Inspiration for parents who care
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Basics of the faith you can teach your children
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Support to help you be the parent you want to be.
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Recommended resources that fit your life
Each month, ten times a year, At Home with Our Faith's editors Mary Lynn Hendrickson and Cathy O'Connell-Cahill pull together practical ideas, inspiration,
reflections, and resources for parents who want to raise their kids with
a living faith. Parents appreciate their down-to-earth approach and real-life
stories. Sign up to get help delivered to your home. (Special bulk rates
available for churches and parent groups. Call 1-800-328-6515.)
Order At Home with Our Faith
Book recommendations from At Home With Our Faith
In Daddyhood: This Changes Everything!
author Daniel W. Driscoll offers stories and reflections on entering this new life. Driscoll is obviously quite involved in the lives of his four kids and sees this not as a burden but joyful opportunity. He also takes a thoughtful look at what it means to be a good dad. He writes, "The reflections in this book are by no means written by an expert. They are written by a daddy and a husband who seeks to find meaning in this new life as a father. Often this is not easy to do, but at night, when it is quiet and the children are asleep, sometimes God's clarifying grace penetrates the darkness."
Driscoll sheds plenty of light in these short chapters through his wit and perceptiveness and spiritual depth. This is a great Father's Day gift from Sorin Books ($11.95).
Raise kids who are good to the core
Every parent is aware of the pervasive forces that exert negative influences on their children. Ron Taffel, Ph.D., compares these forces to a "social smog—an almost invisible yet powerful fusion of pop culture and peer influence that wafts into our homes." He calls these forces the "second family," because they have such an impact on kids. He says the best defense is to shore up our children's core self. "In my view, children get into trouble out of a thwarted need to connect with their core."
His book Nurturing Good Children Now: 10 Basic Skills to Protect and Strengthen Our Child's Core Self
, written with Melinda Blau, offers specific steps to build your child's inner strength. Chapters range from teaching your child methods to master his or her moods, to protecting your child's enthusiasm and love of life, to fostering gratitude as a basis for faith and spirituality. This is not a book simply offering techniques to manipulate children, but sees and values kids' depth and worth. Taffel and Blau show great appreciation for and passion about kids.
When there are tears on your pillow
Our Fast-paced Culture makes little Room for those who are grieving. Grieving takes time. Too often those who have experienced significant loss are either urged to "Get over it!" or are left in the dust.
Among our friends and family we have experienced a certain amount of major loss this year. I realized how much it was affecting me when I came across Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss by Pat Schweibert and Chuck DeKlyven and illustrated by Taylor Bills. This is a wise and generous book to help anyone going through grief, as well as to guide those who love them in how to be truly helpful.
The illustrated storybook format is perfect for engaging that deeper part of you, the part that comes alive when you hear the words, "Once upon a time." And that's the part of us where grief resides and where grief must be attended to and embraced. "What's true about soup making is also true about grieving," say the authors. "Making soup is an art, and you are the artist."
In the tradition of great illustrated storybooks, this book is right for everyone, from children on up to adults. If you or someone you love is carrying grief, this book will help. It's distributed by ACTA Publications, 1-800-397-2282.
A great read-aloud gift book for Christmas
One of the best gifts my family ever gave to ourselves was our nightly reading time. For a number of years when our kids were younger, my wife or I would read aloud to the rest of us. This usually took place in the winter, when homework was done, and by the coziness of candlelight. We read the Little House on the Prairie
books, the Jennifer series of books my wife owned as a young girl, Homeward Bound, and a number of other engaging stories. When I recently got my hands on a new book, Monsieur Eek
(HarperCollins) by David Ives, we revived the ritual of nightly reading, much to our delight.
Ives, renowned playwright (All in the Timing
, Mere Mortals), turns his wizardry with words to the retelling of a bizarre and possibly true story of a medieval law case in which a chimpanzee was put on trial in a remote coastal town of England. Ives weaves a story of adventure, hilarity, and wonderful lessons about the dangers of ignorance, mob psychology, intolerance, and fear of the stranger. The story will have your family laughing out loud as well as moved to deep emotion. To prevent Christmas frazzling, why not observe Advent by quieting down the household and reading a half hour a night with your family?
Other recommended books:
The Christian Family Toolbox: 52 Benedictine Activities for the Home
(Crossroad Publishing) by David Robinson.
Crack the "boy
code"
When
your daughters become teens, hand them a copy of Mary Pipher’s
groundbreaking book about young girls, Reviving
Ophelia
, and hand your teenage boys Real
Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood
(Owl Books, 1999)
by William Pollack.
Pollack is codirector of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he has conducted a long-range research project called “Listening to Boys’ Voices.” He’s done the research on what boys go through in our society, and he cares deeply about their well-being. Pollack explores the “boy code” by getting “behind the mask of masculinity, a mask that most boys and men wear to hide their true inner feelings, and to present to the world an image of male toughness, stoicism, and strength, when in fact they feel desperately alone and afraid. This book is the result of listening to and learning about boys, and thinking about what we can do to help them become happier, more successful boys and men.
This book features special chapters for moms as well as dads and will help you better understand how to best relate to the men and boys in your life.
Compassionate kids
When Jan Johnson talked to teachers while putting together a violence prevention
curriculum, they all pointed to empathy as the key. Kids with empathy weren't
violent kids, they told her. Kids with empathy could see the world from
another's perspective and were less likely to bully, taunt, or tease.
In Growing
Compassionate Kids: Helping Kids See Beyond Their Backyard
, Johnson
shows parents how to integrate compassion-building activities into daily
family life. She draws from her own experience raising kids as well as the
experience of many others who sought ways to raise kids who care about others.
Johnson says there are many side benefits to involving our children in compassionate
activities, including becoming better parents ourselves. Says Johnson, "When
you're volunteering at a soup kitchen you end up not fussing so much at
your kids. It helps put your priorities in order and theirs, too." She offers
many easy-to-adopt suggestions such as packing lunches for homeless people
before going off on errands so you can hand them out when people ask for
spare change.
Raise kids who care
We parents need all the allies we can find as we try to raise moral kids
in a less-than-moral world. One of the most astute and helpful commentators
on the spiritual development of children is Kathleen O'Connell-Chesto.
In Raising
Kids Who Care: About Themselves, About Their World, About Each Other
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Chesto offers specific ideas and suggestions based on her considerable research,
study, and, best of all, personal experience. Never one to offer glib answers,
Chesto reaches deep to suggest how to lead a child through sibling rivalry,
how to deal with lying as a coping skill, what to do about crises of divorce,
sex, and latchkey situations.
"Affluence is placing a great strain on our ability as families to
teach self-sacrifice," says Chesto. "Sharing works best when there
is not enough. . . . A television for every room and separate phone lines
may eliminate arguments, but it also inhibits community and the possibility
of learning to live for and with others.
Raising Kids Who Care is a resource for parents and anyone who works with
kids in the skills needed to motivate kids who will care about themselves,
the world they live in, and about the people they encounter in the course
of their daily lives.
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