How to raise good Catholic kids

"How to Raise Good Catholic Children
is the most amazing combination
of experience, common sense,
and down-to-earth sanctity
that has yet been printed."

Sister Mary de Lourdes

How to Raise Good Catholic Children (cover)

First published over fifty years ago, How to Raise Good Catholic Children is a rare treat for today's parents: a wise and readable book on child care that derives its wisdom from the Catholic home rather than from psychologists.

Author Mary Reed Newland here draws on her own experiences as the mother of seven to show how the classic Christian principles of sanctity can be translated into terms easily applied to children --- even to the very young!

Because it's rooted in experience, not in theory, nothing that Mrs. Newland suggests is impossible or extraordinary. In fact, as you reflect on your experiences with your own children, you'll quickly agree that hers is an excellent commonsense approach to raising good Catholic children.

Catholic Educational Review:
"This book will reassure parents that, with faith in God's love and grace, they are as well-fitted for the rearing of saints as were the parents of saints."

Mary Reed Newland
will show you how to:

• Develop in your kids a love for purity
With Newland's help, you'll soon be able to approach sex education in terms of God's plan • Teach your children to respect their bodies • Be frank, but prudent in explaining where babies come from • Help your children deal with impurity in friends • Discourage vulgarity in speech • And emphasize God's wisdom in designing the human body

• Teach your children to love the Rosary
Here are ways to motivate your children to pray the Rosary • Help them ponder the Mysteries • Use drama, games, and art to help them remember the Mysteries • And show them the power of the Rosary

• Make your children feel secure
Newland shows how you can assure your children that God will always provide for them • Convince them of your loyalty to them • Teach them to unite sickness with Christ's sufferings • Help them see their own physical shortcomings in perspective • Encourage them to try hard in school • Help them accept a new sibling • Encourage them to find courage in God

• Train your children to be good students
Here are wise tips to help you teach your children the Faith at home • Keep your children mindful of the Faith even in public schools • Remind them that learning is their vocation • Instill in them a love of learning • Support and respect their teachers • Work with teachers to help your children improve • Help them develop character in school • And even encourage them to witness to their Faith

________________

Mary Reed Newland
was a pioneer in adult religious education, especially interested in helping people come to know and love the Bible. A wife, mother of seven, lay leader, artist, storyteller, gourmet cook, and biographer of saints, she also produced a television series on storytelling and teaching the Bible to children. She wrote many books, including The Year and Our Children: Planning Family Activities for Christian Feasts and Seasons.

• Teach even your littlest ones to pray
You'll be able to show them how to examine their conscience • Explain prayer intentions to them • Teach them to love and thank God • Show them how work and play can be prayer • Help them offer up sufferings • And grow in habits of holiness

• Help your children to participate at Mass
Here are wise ways to explain the meaning of sacrifice • To show why only Christ could atone for our sins • Encourage your children to participate fully during Mass • Encourage them to donate to the collection • And help them see the hidden grandeur of the Mass

• Teach them death is the gate to eternal life
You'll learn how to calm your children's fears about death • Give them honest answers about suicide and murder • And take the worry out of death

• Train your children in good behavior
Here are tactful ways to emphasize the importance of truth • Teach your children to love obedience • And help them master their tempers

• Encourage them to love the world rightly
Mary Reed Newland gives you easy ways and the right words to show your children how nature reveals God • That sin, not God, causes nature's harshness • And that they can --- and should --- see Christ in others

• Develop your kids' creativity
Help your children discover and develop their gifts • Foster good taste in them • Provide materials for young artists • Help them enjoy rhyming and dancing, singing and acting • Teach them how to see beauty in daily life • And help them become creative in all types of work

• Nurture devotion to Mary and the saints
With the help of Mary Reed Newland, you'll soon be able to teach your children to live under Mary's watchful care • Train them to imitate Mary's purity • Follow her example of modesty • Look on Mary as their Mother • Come to know the saints • And much more!

How to Raise
Good Catholic Children
(Former title: We and Our Children)
by Mary Reed Newland
$16.95 pbk 352 pages

Sophia Institute Press
PO Box 5284
Manchester, NH 03108
www.SophiaInstitute.com

Toll-free: 1-800-888-9344

From Chapter One:
Introduce your child to God

He's very little, and one day it's time to tell him. We pat him dry, after his bath, and kneeling there, loving the marvel of his neat little body, we say, "Stephen, do you know who made you?"

"Who made me?"

"God made you, Stephen."

"Oh." And he stops, and thinks, and confirms it. "God made Stephen."

And the gift of faith is at work. If one can say that God waits for things, then God has waited for this since forever. It is the beginning of why Stephen is here: "To know God . . ."

And he trots down the hall to his crib, a different child that night because now he knows who made him. Many wise men may know many more things than Stephen, but may not know who made them.

When you tuck him in and say, "Do you know why God made you, Stephen?" he will hardly ever answer, "No." But almost always, "Why?"

And you tell him, "Because He loves you."

And Stephen knows the most important thing in all the world.

I asked a little boy of two and a half, "Why did God make you?" and he gave me such a look --- didn't I know?

"Because He wants me!"

And he laughed and laughed. Such a joy, to know one is wanted.

This is security, the first and last and only real security. And we must make it so real for our children that they will look out at the world from the snug safety of God's love. They must know that He loves them as though they were His only love, and that they need not fear the dividing of His love because it's indivisible. It's like the flame of a candle, which will light another candle, and another, and another, and still burn as before.

Nowhere is there more love than this. This is all love, it never changes, and they may turn to it from the middle of sin or sanctity and always find asylum.

A little boy of four told me, in great excitement, "You know what? God didn't make me like you make a house. You know how He made me? He just thinked, and there I was. Like this . . ."

And he stood very still and blinked his eyes once, the best way he knew to express in physical terms how God made him.

Just to think, and make a little boy. What could be more wonderful?

For a child to learn that he is loved and wanted is pure delight, but to root it deep in his soul takes care and practice, and we must teach him to delight in it often.

"God made you, dear, ages before He put you on this earth. You were in the mind of God so long ago that even Mother can't tell you when it was. Always He knew you, always He wanted you, and because He knows all things, He knew when was the perfect time for you to come so you could do what He has planned for you."

It's easy to take these beginnings for granted, but if we stop to consider them as acts of great supernatural significance, we learn much faster to appreciate the vast potential waiting to be developed in the souls of the smallest children . . . .

How to Raise
Good Catholic Children
(Former title: We and Our Children)
by Mary Reed Newland
$16.95 pbk 352 pages

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