In last week’s reflection, I expressed some lofty thoughts on parents needing to make the invisible God visible to their children. I would like to get more concrete about how this can be pursued in daily family life. Here are some things for parents to chew on. This may take a few weeks.
We make the invisible God visible in the Christian home by:
- Saying prayers in the morning and evening. (See my posts from August 2018.)
- Remember to keep the fasting days on Wednesdays and Fridays and the four fasts of the year. (See my August 2018 posts.)
- Whenever you find your children fighting over what “is mine”, discipline them by having them take a time out. Don’t conclude the time out until they can commit to, and come up, with a way they can share family items and cooperate with each other.
- Don’t ask anything of your children that you aren’t able to do yourselves.
- Don’t be afraid of admitting your short comings to your children and to ask forgiveness of them.
- Do not allow verbally abusive language.
- Do not tolerate acts of physical violence in the family. We only use violence to purge self-willed passions out of our lives that separate us from Christ. “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force” (Matthew 11:12).
- Make sure as parents you are not trying to punish violent behavior by using violence yourselves. This will not eliminate violence; it will only increase the ways it will express itself later in a child’s life.
- If you are afraid of answering some tough questions your kids ask you, talk to someone you trust to figure out why.
- Don’t be afraid to tell your children “I don’t know” if you can’t answer their questions. Let them to know you will work on finding the answer for them.
I will continue this list next week. The blessing of the Lord be upon you.
The unworthy +Paul