Hi! I have to ask a parenting question. With our oldest, after reading a few of your blogs, we did time-outs. The “two’s” were a breeze! However, he (and now our second child who is almost 3), went through a challenging stage at age three. There’s a ton of STRONG emotion, and, when being babysat, the three-year-old kiddo won’t stay in a time-out. They get into a certain “mode” where they are not listening and there’s no getting through to them.

This makes our kids sound wild, but it was an all-of-a-sudden behavior that happened with our oldest right before we had another baby, and now our daughter who will be 3 in November seems to be starting this same behavior. And we’ll be adding another baby to our family in February.

I guess my question is do you have advice for this behavior? They clearly just need to snap out of it and calm down, but she won’t stay in a time-out. I’m worried about when we are in the hospital having our 4th.

We truly have lovely children! Just a stage. – Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,

Thank you for your question!

Three years old is a CHALLENGE to say the least. 

When parenting children of any age and especially young children there are three things that are really important to remember: first, to always mean what you say, second, to be consistent, and third, to discern why the behavior is occurring.

Meaning what we say as parents is important because it builds a foundation of trust with our child. They know that when we say something we mean it, whether that’s dessert after dinner or a specific consequence that we’ve warned them about. Following through on what you say lets your child know they can take you at your word.

Being consistent builds a habit in both you and your child that certain bad behaviors always get the same dispassionate response. This helps you to respond without reacting when your toddler is throwing a tantrum and allows your child to know what’s going to happen when they choose to act in a certain way.

Discerning the underlying reason that behavior might be occurring helps you help your child in the quickest way possible. Do they always lose it while you’re making lunch? Maybe they’re just hungry and need to eat a bit earlier. Are they upset especially when you get home from appointments or work? Maybe they need a little more one on one time to make it to bedtime without a meltdown.

When your toddler won’t stay in timeout stay consistent and continue to bring her back, let her know that she is free to join the family again once she is calm. If she’s able to talk to you then asking if she needs a hug or a snack can help you get to the bottom of what might really be causing the tantrum. But usually, when toddlers are this worked up it’s something that just needs to be waited out.

Please count on our prayers!
The CAY Team

Looking for more from Kendra about parenting? Here are some posts from the archives with some more tips: Why I Love the Terrible Twos, Mailbag: Please Stop the Screaming, Our One Parenting Rule for a Less Hectic Home

The post CAY Mailbag: Parenting Three-Year-Olds appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Hello,

Thank you for the work you put into your webpage . . . .
I scrolled through the Manual of Indulgences to clarify a question I had about praying the rosary in church. But found that it just states: praying the Rosary IN CHURCH as cause for an indulgence, but doesn’t answer what is meant by “in church.” 

One goes “to church,” meaning, one goes to a service, that’s the typical time one is in church. Do they mean they expect the faithful to be praying the Rosary with others around the time of the service, or can one be praying the Rosary alone in the building? 

Under your listing for “partial indulgences,” it does say, “Recite a Rosary alone,” so that makes me think they did mean with others.

What happens when you are praying the rosary with a group and someone sometimes skips a “Hail Mary,” for example, or I don’t get to say, “May the grace of the Baptism of Our Lord come down upon me.” at the end of each decade? It’s up to the tradition of each parish, right?  . . .  I just feel I can go “deeper” when alone, I’m better able to imagine the mysteries and their meanings because of less distraction.  However, that may not be what Our Lord wants.  So – I know the solution:  pray it twice.

In any case, do you have any comments for me?    

1.) To receive an indulgence one has to devoutly recite the Creed and the Our Father during the “visit”. Would that be outside of saying them within the Rosary? 

2.) What does “make a voluntary Christian witness to others” mean?

3.) One must be aware of his attachment to venial sin.  Right?  I so much wonder how to go about that.

4) How does one “use” a scapular?  It’s not just wearing it around one’s neck?

5.) So, just listening to the preaching of the Word of God gives a partial indulgence? Do you know whether that would apply to the baptized who are unable to partake of the sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Confession? 

6.) Does one “plenary indulgence” wipe out ALL temporal punishment for ALL sins of someone’s life, provided all the prerequisites are met, including attachment to venial sin?

I apologize that this email is so scrupulous.

Sincerely,

Anne

Hi Anne,

Thank you so much for your question and for your patience in our response!

The Handbook for Indulgences states: A plenary indulgence is granted when the rosary is recited in a church or oratory or when it is recited in a family, a religious community, or a pious association. A partial indulgence is granted for its recitation in all other circumstances.

Based on this you can gain a plenary indulgence by praying the rosary either by yourself or with a group inside a church or oratory building. You must also complete the other prayers and sacraments necessary for all plenary indulgences which are: Receiving Holy Communion,  Receiving the sacrament of Confession, praying for the Holy Fathers’ intentions, and be completely detached from all sin.

If you were to pray the rosary alone at home you would gain a partial indulgence.

When you are praying with others and someone misses a Hail Mary, adds an additional prayer that you don’t usually pray, or leaves out an extra prayer that you typically pray when you are praying by yourself, you can feel free to add that prayer in your heart and then trust in God’s mercy that the missed Hail Mary is not something that will keep you from receiving an indulgence. There shouldn’t be a need to pray it twice in this case.

1. As is the usual practice in the US and recommended by the USCCB the rosary is typically begun with a Creed (more information here) but that isn’t specifically required according to the instructions per the Vatican (more information here) it seems reasonable that it could “count” for both the rosary and the indulgence. Kendra says that in her family “We specifically dedicate the first Our Father of the rosary for the Holy Father, which is also part of the indulgence.”

2. To make a voluntary Christian witness means that you are living your life as a Christian fully, that you don’t hide your faith from others, and that your everyday actions reflect what Jesus asks of us in the Gospels.

3. A great way to become aware of your attachment to sin is to do a daily examination of conscience.

4. Kendra has a really excellent blog post and video all about scapulars and other sacramentals that I’ll link HERE. But the basics is that once you are invested in the scapular (and Kendra talks specifically about the Brown Scapular) that you “share in the spirituality of the Carmelite order.” Which carries with it certain responsibilities and privileges.

5. Indulgences are only available to the baptized.

6.) Yes, you are correct that a plenary indulgence takes care of all temporal punishment as long as all of the prerequisites are met.

And one last note from Kendra: “Scrupulosity is a challenge for many faithful Catholics. I’d really encourage you to remember that none of this is a magic spell. It’s about love and intention. Prayer is a conversation with God. The rosary is a conversation with God through Mary. Someone who loves you isn’t looking to disqualify you from your conversations!”

God bless you,

The CAY Team

Looking for more information from CAY on Rosary and Indulgences? Here are a bunch of helpful posts from the archives!
Catholic Indulgences: What they are, why they are, and why you should care.

The Family Rosary: Why is it SO Hard?

Why I Bother With the Rosary

How to Pray a Family Rosary

And we couldn’t leave out the lovely rosary products from the CAY Marketplace!

Rosary Wrap Bracelets

Rosary Poppers

Our Lady of Lourdes Rosary Pouch

The post CAY Mailbag: Indulgences and The Rosary appeared first on Catholic All Year.

THE QUESTION

Kendra, this is a truly beautiful story with a happy ending. But where does this make space for my dear friend [ . . . ], who at seven weeks pregnant, seven years ago, had to navigate the impossible decision about having to choose her three young children living without their mom vs. her fledgling little one, when her doctor walked into the room and told her that she had aggressive Stage 3C breast cancer and needed a) a mastectomy, and b) must start chemo pretty much immediately? . . .

I ask you this in all seriousness, as I have gotten so much from this site over the years. Where is there space for my friend in this ruling? She is a faith-filled mother, who was pregnant with a child who her family deeply wanted. Please just admit to me that this is an impossible choice. I get that we have to let go and let God. So why don’t we let this be between my friend [. . . ] and God? I think she is and was smart, faithful, and obedient. Why do we think this is our job to question other people’s relationships with our Father?

MY ANSWER

Dear [ . . . ], I don’t think I’ll comment on someone’s life decisions at the request of a third party, when it’s unlikely that the involved individual wants my input. But what I can do is speak to my own personal experience as someone whose husband has stage IV metastatic melanoma with tumors in his brain and lungs. (Read more in his blog here.)

There is no situation in which my husband would sacrifice the life of one of his children to save his own life. Nor would I.

Catholic moral teaching allows for the necessary treatment of disease in anyone, even in an expectant mother, even if it may harm or kill the unborn baby as an unintended secondary effect (see directive 47 of the USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services) but it never allows for the direct killing of the unborn child.

I see these rules as a gift. The Church, in its role as “Mater et Magistra” (mother and teacher) bears this burden of decision for us. I don’t have to, in a moment of fear and panic, make a decision like this. Others, with the benefit of time and wisdom, have considered the moral implications, and my responsibility is to understand that these teachings exist, and use them to properly form my conscience so I can rely upon it in difficult times.

I often think of this quote from Jane Eyre, and find solace in it: “Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?”

For me, it comes down (as so much in life does) to faith and trust. Do I *see* how my life will be okay with ten children, the youngest of whom is two, without my husband to care for us? No. I do not. But I *trust* that God is good, all the time, and, therefore, it will be okay, somehow. I will not choose to sin out of a lack of trust in God. My husband could be miraculously healed, as is our prayer. He could continue to live with his disease for many years, as he has done so far, against all medical statistics. He could die. And in all scenarios, I will trust God.

THE REPLY

Thank you so much for responding! I hope you didn’t interpret my post as incendiary. I truly want all of us to have these kinds of dialogues about what is clearly a moral dilemma for so many, and knowing your family’s journey with cancer, I knew you would help continue this conversation in a way that helps all of us understand each other and ourselves a little bit better.

TO WRAP UP

So, hey, sometimes talking about difficult topics on social media works out! Thanks so much to everyone who commented on Emily’s post. I know it meant a lot to her and her mom that so many of you found their story touching.

Read more on Catholic teaching on this topic here: Abortion and Double Effect and Ectopic Pregnancy and Double Effect

Read more about real people who made heroic decisions in difficult circumstances: 4 SAINTS WHO WERE ENCOURAGED TO HAVE ABORTIONS

Read more about Catholic Bioethics here: The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Read more about our family’s situation here: Another Kind of Meal Train

The post Mailbag: My Friend Had an Abortion Because She Needed Cancer Treatment. Can’t We Agree That’s Okay? appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Note: Since drafting this post, the husband is embarking on another round of tests and treatments. Backstory here. We’d be grateful for your prayers.

Today, I’m sharing a question from the mailbag. Have a question about liturgical living or Catholic life? Send it to me at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com.

Dear Kendra,

Really quickly . . . I attended the Catholic Homeschool Conference online this past year and like many of the listeners LOVED your morning prayer routine. Would you consider sharing it in a blog post? I jotted parts of it down on a misplaced piece of paper (argh!) but would love to use it as an inspiration/template for our own domestic church. I have two little boys so I definitely remembered the “run around outside first” bit.

Happy Feast Day of St. Matthew! I made silver dollar pancakes and they were a big hit with the littles. We also turned on Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew.

Thank you for all that you do. I’m a big fan of Maria von Trapp (Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family) and I have The Year and Our Children on my shelf, but I turn to you for the updated inspiration for liturgical living TODAY, in the 21st century, with cell phones and laptops and all.

God bless you and your family!

Respectfully,

Elaine S.

Our Morning Prayer Routine

Thanks Elaine!

​Here’s what our morning prayer routine looks like:

Days sometimes get away from us, right? It happens. So whatever we choose to do FIRST in the day, that’s the thing that we are giving the highest priority, the thing that is least likely to get skipped or glossed over. For us that’s prayer and catechesis. That’s what we do first.

Because even though, yes, math and science and grammar are important, my children’s faith formation is the MOST important.

They aren’t going to get it from the world. Who else are they going to get that from but me? So THAT comes first, every day.

1. Run Around Outside

The pregame is to run the kids around outside for a few minutes for exercise. This makes what comes next more successful.

2. Say “Good Morning” to Your Guardian Angel

Then we come into our schoolroom and we begin our day with morning prayers. We kneel down and pray the Morning Offering and the Guardian Angel Prayer.

Then we stand up and we say “good morning” to our Guardian Angels, then we say “good morning” to everybody else’s Guardian Angel, and then everyone hugs each other, usually in a big “group hug” while we also shout “group hug.”

This is a little thing, and it feels like a fun, silly thing, but, really, it gets to the heart of practicing what we preach, which is so meaningful to children. If we believe what we say we believe about our guardian angels, wouldn’t we acknowledge and interact with them?

We would. So we do.

3. Read a Bible story

Then we sit down. The kids each get a lit candle in front of them, which really does seem to help them stay quieter and more focused for this part, and we read a section from a children’s Bible. We begin at the beginning and just keep reading it cover to cover over the years. This allows us to be familiar with the stories and characters and promises of the Old Testament, which helps us to understand how they are fulfilled in the New Testament.

4. Goals and intentions for the day

Then we go around the room and each of us says a goal for the day (something we hope to accomplish this day with God’s help, if it is God’s will) and an intention for the day (someone or something that we are praying for). I think this process helps create a feeling of community. Sharing our prayers and goals with other members of the family helps make us accountable for those goals and lets us pray for each other.

5. Two Minutes of “Silent” Mental Prayer

Then we attempt two minutes of silent mental prayer. Sometimes this might be a guided meditation, in which I try to help us envision ourselves in the scene of the Bible story we read, other times it’s just two minutes of (relative) quiet. Some days are quieter than others, but we keep at it.

Then we blow out our candles. And because everything is a competition, they like to see whose candle smokes the longest and therefore “wins” at lifting our prayers to heaven. 

6. Feast Days

At that point we switch to the liturgical calendar. We’ve got a wall calendar, and a more interactive daily calendar with a cute sticker for each day and a little summary of the feast days (available as part of the CAY Membership here), and we take the sticker off the calendar for the day and read the little summary.

And, usually, that’s it, we move on to the rest of our lessons, which include singing liturgically relevant hymns and memorizing catechism, but . . .

That’s what we do together each morning. It takes 10 or 15 minutes.

7. Liturgical Year Bonus Stuff

But if it’s a feast day that’s of particular importance to our family or the Church, we spend some more time. I’ve got The Catholic All Year Compendium that tells the history and backstory of a lot of feast days, and I’ve got The Catholic All Year Prayer Companion that includes prayers and devotions and Bible readings that are associated with those days, so it’s all right there compiled already and I don’t have to be fiddling around on my phone looking for information or the version or translation of the prayer I want.

And I also have my liturgical year meal planner that has ideas of feast day meals, and I use that too, for planning. 

8. All Feasts are Movable Feasts

Now, WHEN we do this part varies depending on the feast day and our family schedule. It’s usually my preference to involve as many people as possible in our more important feast day observations, so if we can throw a party and invite the neighborhood, I’ll do that. If we can have the whole family together at dinner and do our prayers and readings and discussions all together, I’ll do that. But sometimes better is the enemy of good enough, so if that doesn’t seem likely to happen, I’ll do our feast day readings and prayers and devotions with my school kids. We can always do them again with the family if things change. Sometimes we even move the day we celebrate the feast as needed. We are in charge.

9. Feast Day Activities

Especially for younger kids, I sometimes plan a little activity for them, which makes a feast day feel more special. Honestly, it’s usually as simple as a saint coloring page which I can hand to them as I get started on the school day with the older kids. There are lots of great Catholic artists with coloring pages on Etsy, and Shining Light Dolls puts out a coloring book for each month, which is very convenient.

Catholic All Year Subscription Boxes also come with fun feast day activities for the family . . . that we use in our family!

I also think it’s important to remember to mentally “count” non-desk time as school when applicable. I like to associate family outings with particular feast days whenever I can. So we’ll go to the zoo on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, and we’ll go for a hike on the feast of Pope St. John Paul II because he enjoyed hiking, and we do a little Marian pilgrimage on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and those are all learning activities!

We read picture books about the saint or the day at storytime. (Find those books here.)

I also do a lot of cooking with my homeschooled kids and I think that’s really educational. There is so much that goes into getting a meal on the table. As a person who didn’t learn to cook until I was a newlywed, I remember vividly how challenging it is to cook before one has learned about planning ahead, and measuring properly, and doing things in the right order, and getting the math right when you need to triple or quadruple all recipes all the time. There’s a lot of learning to be had in cooking, not to mention an example of service to others, so I count that as part of “school” and as part of our liturgical living in the home.

Hope that helps! You can do it!

AMDG, Kendra

Posts with links to books we use

How to Raise Good Little Catholics

The Ultimate Liturgical Library Post: Saint Books for All Year Long

And posts with Father’s Day resources

Twelve Free Father’s Day Printables

Movies for Father’s Day That Don’t Hate Dad

Some products for Father’s Day:

All-Natural Sacred Heart Lotion Bar

St. Benedict Medal Car Magnet

St. Augustine Coasters

The post Our Catholic Morning Prayer Routine with Kids appeared first on Catholic All Year.

First, thank you for your blog. I’ve been reading it for a while now and it’s been a big help [to] me as a convert of a few years ago . . . .

I wanted to ask how you guys handle sick kids, as we move into our umpteenth minor illness of the year so far. I want to be sympathetic but also, I feel like crud myself and stuff still needs to get done. Those minor things like feeding the kids, clothing the kids, educating some of them. . . . And our kids are little enough that we have a zero screens policy with them, so no cartoons here.

Particularly, how do you handle:

• Sick kids who usually share a room with currently well kids
• Kids who are definitely under the weather but not exactly bedridden
• Kids who have clearly been praying strenuously to Our Lady of Lourdes all morning based on their miraculous recovery once the thing they didn’t want to do is over

I grew up with parents who had to send me to school unless I had an actual fever or D&V because they had to work, and it was miserable. My husband grew up able to stay off school whenever he wanted, even if he was just kinda tired. We both did fine at school and fine handling sickness in ourselves as adults, but I can’t seem to figure out a reasonable sickness policy for our kids that’s somewhere in the middle – not making my kids slog on for the sake of it, but discouraging malingering and laziness.

Suzanne

Hi Suzanne,

Yes, it’s hard to know exactly how to handle it! As moms we want to be loving and sympathetic, but we also don’t want to get scammed, er, let our kids wallow in sickness for longer than they need to. We’ve ended up needing to limit screens on sick days, to keep kids from doing that rather than sleeping or trying to catch up on homework. We allow audiobooks and if, in my determination, someone really can’t read or listen or sleep, I’ll allow a movie in the afternoon when homeschooled kids are done with schoolwork and they could watch together.

There’s always the “Newton’s first law effect” to contend with. A child having sick days tends to stay having sick days. If they’re over quantifiable symptoms I have them get up and get dressed in the morning, then if they STILL say they feel sick, I’ll let them stay home. But it’s too easy to decide you couldn’t possibly go to school from under your warm covers.

The flip side of that, of course, is what you mentioned, being too sick to do school or morning chores, then miraculously better when it’s time to go to the park. So if, in the morning, you’ve declared that you need a sick day, you don’t get to change your mind and participate in out-of-the-house activities later in the day. And you have to take a nap, which is very discouraging to my older kids. But I do encourage the kids to go out in the yard and get some fresh air if they’re home sick. We’ve got a swinging couch outside that is the preferred napping spot of sick kids around here.

We haven’t ever changed up beds. My babies are light sleepers, so the current youngest gets her own little room, then the rest of the girls have one room, and all the boys have another. They sleep like rocks and don’t seem to notice if one is up sick.

Different families have different policies on this, but our policy is that kids sleep in their own beds. Kids who barf at night come to our room to tell us and I get them cleaned up and back to their beds. My kids are usually one-and-done on the barfing. But we’ve got an old crib mattress we keep under the bed in our room for night bedwetting training, and I’ll put a kid on that if it seems like it’s going to be a long night.

We are fortunate now to have big kids old enough to pick up the slack for me if I’m sick, and we don’t ever seem to all be sick at once. But back when we were on zone defense, we just did our best on sick days and things like laundry and homeschool can wait a couple days until mom is feeling better. I remember being sick and setting little kids up with coloring pages and play-dough and an audiobook while I slept on the couch in the same room, and we all survived!

Anyway, I don’t feel like there’s any one right way to do it, but that’s what we do!

AMDG,

Kendra

The post Big Families and Sick Kids: Catholic All Year Mailbag Is Back! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Question:

Dear Kendra,

I have followed you for over a year now and it has been wonderful adding more liturgical traditions to our year!

I’m pregnant and it’s a big shock. We have always been generally open to life, and in fact, my husband gets more excited each time, which is such a blessing! It is me who gets to doubting that I will be able to handle months of illness and another challenging delivery.

Looking for a helpful perspective,

Teresa

Answer:

Dear Teresa,

First off: Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Second: It sounds like you have real and legitimate concerns, and I hope you’ll be able to enlist the help of your husband and family and friends to lighten the load for you a bit over the next few months.

But third: It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the beginning stuff . . . difficult pregnancies, difficult births, those first few weeks and months of maybe reduced sleep and almost certainly reduced productivity. Even financial challenges.

But I think it’s important to remember that when you’re open to life you’re not open to “a pregnancy” or “a baby.”

You’re open to a PERSON.

You’re open to a sibling for your children. You’re open to an aunt or uncle to your grandchildren. You’re open to another loved one at your deathbed. This tiny new person will, God willing, be in your life until you die. Who knows the comfort and support one more child, one more sibling might be to you and your existing kids?

I have done difficult pregnancies, I have done uncertain futures, but it has always felt so SO worth it, when viewed with that long-term lens.

Hang in there, mama,

Kendra

P.S. My friend Monica makes this important addition . . .

Just to add: Even more than a just person for this life, it’s a person for eternal life. What an amazing thing that we, as Mothers, can do like changing eternity! We can bring souls with us to eternity. There’s nothing else on earth that we can bring with us to heaven—not all the wealth or possessions in the world. But we can bring our children. It’s such a gift God has given us.

Note: This particular reader message is an amalgamation of a few similar emails I’ve received.

_________

P.P.S. for all the dads in your life, for Father’s Day coming up, I wanted to remind you of a couple things we’ve got in the CAY Shop.

Coasters!

Available in full-color reusable coaster board in two sets: St. Augustine Quotes and Catholic Beer Quotes

Plan of Life Notepad

Based on the recommendations of Saint Josemaría Escrivá, this notepad can be used by men, women, and kids to keep track of daily spiritual practices and goals. 6×4 inches. 100 single-sided sheets per pad. Printed on 70 lb. premium stationery paper with a cardboard back. See it here.

The post Being Open to Life Is Being Open to a Person appeared first on Catholic All Year.

QUESTION

Hi Kendra,

Thank you for all that you do. I enjoy reading your blog. The articles are thoughtfully written and also very helpful.

If you are able, I would love your insight on another matter: tattoos and piercings. Our oldest is 20 and recently got a tattoo. Initially I was hurt that he didn’t share until afterward, but was happy to learn he did research what the Church taught. He understood that getting a tattoo is not a moral issue, but what you get as the tattoo is a moral issue.

He is our oldest and we had never really discussed our rules around getting a tattoo. He has two younger sisters (16 and 14) and realize we may need to talk about this. The 16 year old talks about getting one someday. While I have many family members and friends with tattoos, personally, I do not like them and feel like it is clouding my judgement going forward. I would rather they wait until they get their first job outside of college. They would be older and outside of the college/campus atmosphere and having to think about this permanent decision within in a professional atmosphere. Some say I would only be inviting rebellious behavior as they can do it on their own at 18.

As a Catholic mom whose insight I respect, I would love your take on the issue.

In Christ,
Jennifer

ANSWER

Dear Jennifer,

Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate your support! My oldest son is almost nineteen, and doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings (of which I am aware). But I don’t feel like I have the secret to getting kids to not get them. I do, however, have some personal insight into what might tempt an otherwise very loving and relatively well-adjusted teenager from a supportive home to flout her parents’ reasonable rules against getting tattoos.

Yes, this is a challenging issue for parents. I feel like it’s a particularly challenging for me because I was that rebellious kid. I had (have) SUPER loving and supportive parents who were REALLY against tattoos and piercings. I remember my dad basically telling me in high school that if I got a tattoo he would withdraw his financial support from me completely.

And so, in my slightly warped teenage brain, I think I saw it as the ultimate test. Would he still love me if I did the ONE thing he said not to do? So I got a tattoo in high school, and kept it hidden (because it turns out I was a pretty cowardly rebel) and I got two more and some piercings in college. And they were dumb and it was dumb and finally one Christmas break my mom saw one of them and it was a whole to do around the Christmas tree, but . . . it turned out that they DID still love and support me. So, in that way I won. But also I really regretted them pretty quickly, and went through the very painful process of having them removed, so overall my parents won. ​

Anyway, coming from that perspective, now as a parent, I have tried to frame tattoos as something one should be smart about, not as a moral issue or a line in the sand. I’ve shared with my kids that I had them, that it was about me trying to be a rebel, that mine were dumb, and that there’s a terrible burning smell when you get them removed. Since kids always want to be cooler than their parents, I assume kids of parents with tattoos probably want them less.​

I agree with your son’s assessment of the morality of tattoos. I think they can be cool, and Catholic, and a tool for evangelization. I think that the New Covenant means that as Christians we are not prohibited from having tattoos. I love that there is a 700-year-old tattoo shop in Jerusalem that caters specifically to Christian pilgrims. But I think, as it seems you do, that it’s a big decision that should be undertaken only by persons with fully-formed brains. Which is, apparently about 25. (But I got married at 24, so . . . )

Overall, it’s probably not something you have much control over. You can advise, but I wouldn’t draw a line in the sand. And I’m sure you, like my parents, will love your kids anyway, even if they get tattoos. And maybe, like my parents, you’ll help them pay to get them removed if they change their minds.

God Bless,

Kendra

P.S. My mom and dad are still amazingly supportive. Case in point: The husband and I were away for a couple days this week and my parents came up to watch the kids, and this is what that looked like yesterday.

P.S.S. Speaking of dads . . . (I’m all about that segue), The newest limited-edition wooden set in the shop is here! These engraved wooden coasters feature Catholic beer quotes and quotes from St. Augustine, a patron saint of beer. They are generously sized to fit under a beer stein, and come with a holder. Maybe you know a dad who might enjoy these for Father’s Day? Swipe through to see more photos. Get the details and order here.

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The post How to Encourage Your Kids to Get Tattoos (based on my personal experience) appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Here goes . . .

Q: Do your kids have phones? Do they have smartphones and social media accounts? What kind of access do your younger kids have to devices? How do you manage peer pressure and kids’ desire for technology vs what you want for them as a parent?

A: The older kids do. Only the eighteen-year-old. None. What I think is right as a parent wins every time over what my kids think they should have and ESPECIALLY over what other people’s kids think my kids should have.

That’s the short version. The long version is that I know that this is a sensitive subject and I’m not here to cast aspersions on decisions that other people have made for their own families. If you are doing something that’s working for you, that’s good. Feel free to just scroll on down to read about how you guys crashed my IT guy’s server and how Emily and I are scrambling to try to make more box subscriptions available. But for those of you who maybe aren’t feeling great about decisions you’ve made, or those of you who are facing these decisions in the future, I’d like to share a little about what didn’t work for our family and what seems to be working now.

First off, I’ll say that I don’t think that the way we as a society are currently using technology—and specifically our phones—is the way that we always will. What society sees as a normal, healthy activity changes as we see its long-term consequences. Even very entrenched behavior patterns change with time. When I see photos of people in groups and at parties all holding their phones, I think of how in photos of previous generations everyone in groups and at parties was smoking. Then, eventually, we all decided that smoking wasn’t necessarily a great lifestyle choice and now, most group photos don’t feature everyone holding a cigarette.

We aren’t bound to make choices for ourselves and our kids based on what everyone else happens to think is a good idea at this particular moment in time. As Catholics, we have an eternal perspective. So, with that in mind, we’ve made some eternally-minded counter-cultural choices for our family.

None of our minor children have smartphones. Our older teenagers have flip phones. Our younger teenagers have Kindles. Our kids under thirteen don’t have access to cell phones or iPads. We have . . . a landline telephone. One. With a cord. On a wall in the living room. (It’s also a rotary dial, just to really commit to this thing. #notkidding)

Like most counter-cultural choices, these were a bit of a leap and a bit of a process for us. When my oldest kids were little, we had an iPad for them. We incorporated it into our homeschool day. The school-aged kids had some educational games they were allowed to play on it. The toddlers had some swipey Duplo games they were allowed to play while the older kids did school. It seemed like a good plan.

But it was not a success. My school-aged kids did not learn anything meaningful on the iPad. Full disclosure: they did win a presidential trivia competition at the Reagan Library based on knowledge gained from a game called Presidents vs Aliens, but that’s really the best we can claim. On the horrifying side, they were exposed to explicit cartoons that they accidentally happened upon. 

My toddlers were not made less distracting or troublesome by the iPad. In fact, the very existence of the iPad, and the possibility that one might be granted access to it, became foremost in their minds. They exhibited addictive behaviors around it. They would fiend for it. It was a source of unhappiness and conflict.

So, now, none of the kids under thirteen in my house have access to devices. We just went cold turkey on it about six years ago and never looked back. I never, ever hand my phone to my babies, toddlers, or kids. Ever. (It’s a standard, Always Mean What You Say, “not for babies” situation.) They have limited community-only access to TV and video games, but no access to personal screens. They get to be kids without the burden of the desire to be iPadding.

Eventually, we start stair-stepping them up in supervised access to devices, in a way that we hope encourages their responsible use.

At about thirteen, our kids get access to an ad-free Kindle tablet. They can use it for ebooks, audiobooks, music, and email. We use parental controls to turn off the internet browser and app store, and we set a curfew on it, so it’s not accessible when they should be sleeping or doing school. There is a stated policy of no expectation of privacy on devices around here. They belong to mom and dad, and we have complete access to everything on them. We understand that the kids certainly could find inappropriate material on them, even with access to only the aforementioned platforms, so we talk to them about pornography and why it’s so devastating, we show them this video by Fight the New Drug, and we monitor their use as much as possible.

If Kindle-users around here misuse them or are unable to avoid temptation or if they need more time to focus on school or getting to their chores, the Kindle goes away for a time.

At about sixteen, our kids get an old-school flip phone. They can use it for phone calls and texts. The browser is disabled if possible, otherwise it’s just off-limits. (We have a freestanding GPS in the car for navigating.) They are required to be accessible by phone when away from home (which means remembering to keep it charged and bring it along and answer it when possible) and to respond to texts from mom and dad in a timely manner. They (and the younger teens) also have access to some computer-based google chats with classmates, also with the understanding that they are not private, and that access to them is dependent on appropriate and charitable use. But that’s it. They get to be teens without the burden of social media.

At about eighteen, our oldest got an iPhone and got to choose whether or not to join social media. He has a couple of accounts, but isn’t a big user of social media, which I think is a good choice for a college student. I first got on social media at thirty-seven, which seems about right to me, but we watched The Social Dilemma together, then left the decision up to him.

Of course, our parenting decisions change based on the needs of individual kids and particular circumstances. But this parenting decision that seemed crazy and unusual at the time, and—I guess—was, has turned out to feel like one of our all-time best. It’s really been a way to help safeguard our kids and their free time in an era when busyness reigns and bullies are faceless and childhood innocence is often lost early. Fortunately, Tierneys have a strong family culture and are not beholden to “everybody else is doing it.” And we are really blessed to have a great school and community around us in which our kids are NOT actually the only kids without access to smartphones. I mean, we’d still do what we think is right, but it IS nice to have that backup.

So, if you’re considering un-devicing your little kids, and taking it slow with older kids and phones, I say: Do it. Ten out of ten. Would recommend.

Best,

Kendra

The post Kids & Tech: What We Do and Why We Mostly Don’t appeared first on Catholic All Year.

“Spy” Wednesday is the name traditionally given to the Wednesday of Holy Week. This is the day Judas betrayed Jesus, telling the high priest when Jesus would be in a place where he could be more conveniently arrested, in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. It’s called Spy Wednesday, because of Judas’ sneakiness.

Betrayal and suicide are heavy topics for anyone, and especially so for kids. But we’ve had great success introducing the events of the day and even those big related topics, with a fun little activity that’s appropriate for families and classes.

But don’t take it from me, let ME tell you all about it. With the able assistance of some cute kiddos. (Special appearances by the children of my friend and favorite squad organizer Micaela, and my goddaughter Maryam, whose Mom makes these videos!)

Get the Catholic All April printable booklet, with the reading featured, plus prayers and devotions for Holy Week, the beginning of Eastertide, and the whole month of April here, or find it on Amazon as a paperback here.

That connection, between Judas and Peter, that I talk about in the video (and talk about in more detail in the book) feels so profound to me, and gives me so much hope, as strange as that might sound. No matter how great our sins have been or how many our small sins continue to be, we ALWAYS have recourse to humble repentance. We can choose to be Peter and not Judas in the face of our failures. And God will still have great plans for us.

Over Lent, I again picked up a set of daily devotionals that I’ve had and enjoyed for many years called In Conversation With God. (This set would make a great gift for someone entering the Church at Easter, or a teenager being confirmed, or a husband, or anyone looking for a devotional with a scholarly/unsentimental/reusable feel.) Anyway, today’s entry touched on a question that I think many of us struggle with:

How could someone who was Jesus’ friend and companion, who knew firsthand Jesus’ goodness and power, betray him?

Fr. Fernandez had this to say:

What can have happened to his soul that he would now betray the Lord for thirty pieces of silver?

For it to be explicable, there must have been a long story behind the betrayal that night. For some time Judas would have been distant from Christ even though he was still in his company. On the surface he would have remained normal, but he must have changed inside and become distant. The split with the Master, the loss of his faith and his vocation must have taken place little by little, as he yielded in more and more important things. . . .

In contrast, perseverance is doing the small everyday things with faith; it is supported by the humility of beginning again when we go astray through weakness.

This just makes it so real for me. It gives a window into not only how Judas could have betrayed Jesus then, but how beloved family members, friends, and priests can betray Jesus now.

But yeah, the, um, quarter thing is super fun. Definitely try it.

Speaking of fun . . .

Good Friday

I wrote a column for Endow Voices this week:

Keeping Good Friday From Going Badly

In it, I address our strategies for Good Friday with little ones, including fasting, avoiding our usual occupations, and keeping ourselves quiet and occupied.

2024 Update: This article isn’t available anymore, but you can find more ideas for how to do Good Friday with your family in this post, and in this one too!

These coloring pages are a big part my strategy for that last bit.

The day before that post was published, I saw a discussion in a Catholic FB group I’m in about whether it’s appropriate for a mom to let her kids participate in their secular preschool Easter egg hunt on Good Friday. I’ve addressed that issue for Holy Saturday in a post already. And I was reluctant to jump into the discussion there, because so many had counseled her to not worry about it, and not disappoint her kids, and it wasn’t a big deal, and that seemed like the answer she wanted. Of course some had an opposing viewpoint, but most were nonplussed by the idea.

I didn’t want to pipe in with a giant footprint EXPERT OPINION and crush her dreams, but I keep thinking about it since I reread that column for Endow. I figure since you guys came onto my blog of your own free will, I’ll lay some unpopular opinions on you here.

If it were my family, *I* would decline to participate. This is a GOLDEN opportunity to say with actions what I would have trouble getting across in a thousand speeches: that our faith is important. It’s something we live. It’s something for which we are willing to make sacrifices. Good Friday is the day Jesus suffered and died for you, for me, for your preschoolers, and my preschoolers.

How better to make that real for our kids than to sacrifice on that day, and to explain why?

I try to keep the mindset on that Friday that one would have on the day a loved one was suffering and facing death, perhaps having a risky surgery, or being bedridden in the end stages of a serious illness. Yes, I’d have breakfast, but it wouldn’t be something I’d necessarily relish. I’d do the most necessary chores, but what I could forego I would. I would be at my loved one’s side if possible. If I couldn’t be, I would look at a photo of him, or call him to talk. No matter what else I was doing during the day, he and his plight would be on my mind. I wouldn’t participate in unnecessary recreational activities. I wouldn’t have the heart to do it. My kids would certainly understand why we would skip school and activities that day.

Even young children can understand this at their own level, and know that Jesus is suffering on this day, so we keep to our family traditions. As they grow older, it will make the triduum and the stories they hear and the images they see more understandable, more real.

I don’t say this to shame or coerce anyone. This is not canon law, and you get to make the choices that work for your circumstances. I might well have attended a preschool Easter egg hunt on Good Friday when my oldest two were little, before I had really considered all this. But I do want to share from my personal experience with my own family, that this type of real, memorable family culture choice, thoroughly and lovingly explained, has made our faith a deeply ingrained part of our real lives. It really is an OPPORTUNITY, if you look at it like that.

The Stations of the Cross printable booklet, perfect for Good Friday, that we’ll be using with our preschoolers through teenagers, is available here.

A Palm Sunday Postscript

The Catholic All April booklet features the l o n g Bible reading of the passion (see the Good Friday section), so you and your family can peruse it at your leisure, if by some happenstance you are busy during Mass trying to avoid palm sword fights and/or tending to poked out eyes. It’s also got illustrated step-by-step instructions for how to make a palm cross when you get home.

I also just put the Holy Week Meal and Activity Planner on sale for only $1. So you can have your most organized Holy Week ever!

I will direct you, for the rest of the days, to the many old posts I have on the subject of Holy Week!

Holy Week Declutter and Donate

Family Movies for Holy Week on Netflix and Amazon

Lent: The End Begins (Ideas and Printables for Holy Week and Easter)

The “You Can Still Do This” Guide to All Things Holy Week

The post A Spy Wednesday Activity We Love and Good Friday Activities We Avoid appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Q: I’ve heard people talk about Advent and Lent both being seasons of penance during the liturgical year. Can you help me understand how to explain the differences in the seasons to my family, and how to observe them in the home?

A: Ooh, good question! As I was first starting out on my liturgical living in the home journey, it took some time to figure out how to create the right atmosphere for the different liturgical seasons. And even exactly what the difference between the seasons of Advent and Lent IS. Here’s how I see it, and the focus we try to keep in our home for each.

TLDR: Advent = Preparation, Lent = Penance. Original sources below, if you’re into that sort of thing, or, just scroll past the italics to get to what this looks like in our home.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (524) says of Advent: When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming.

In preparation, we are encouraged to “humble ourselves and become little.”

The USCCB says: The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas.

Of Lent, on the other hand, the Catechism (1438) says: The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church’s penitential practice. These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies and pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works).

And (540): By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert.

The USCCB says: Lent has had a different history than Advent among us. Beginning with the powerful lesson of Ash Wednesday, it has retained its ancient appeal to the penitential spirit of our people. It has also acquired elements of popular piety which we bishops would wish to encourage. Accordingly, while appealing for greater development of the understanding of the Lenten liturgy, as that of Advent, we hope that the observance of Lent as the principal season of penance in the Christian year will be intensified.

So, we can see that while both seasons have a character of both preparation and penance, Advent is PREDOMINANTLY preparation, and Lent is PREDOMINANTLY penance.

In my home and heart, I want Advent to feel like a building up, and Lent to feel like a tearing down. I want Advent to feel like a sturdy foundation upon which I can set the Christmas season. But I want Lent to feel more like a clearing away of brush and sticks and old dwellings, so Easter can stand, alone and radiant. That’s how I want my kids to experience the seasons.

This is reflected in our decorating. In Advent, we slowly add elements in, one or two at a time. Slow and steady. For our nativity set, we set up the stable first, and add the animals and shepherds, then Mary and Joseph, then the baby Jesus and the angel on Christmas, and finally the wise men on Epiphany. Ideally, something comes out each day, homemade or from our collection, of books, Santa mugs, wreaths and garland, paper snowflakes, and eventually, our stockings and the Christmas tree.

Then all those decorations that went up during Advent STAY UP for the entire Christmas season. (At a minimum through Epiphany. Sometimes through the Baptism of the Lord. Maybe even until Candlemas.)

Lent, however, has an entirely different feel and focus than Easter. We decorate our home for Lent on Ash Wednesday — well, usually just the mantle or dining table — with purple and/or burlap cloth, some rocks, very big nails from the hardware store, maybe a potted cactus or succulent, or a crown of thorns.

The only change to our decorations during Lent is that on the 5th Sunday, we also veil our living room crucifix (many churches veil all statues and religious images).

Then, on Holy Saturday, ALL the Lent decorations get cleared away, and replaced with flowers and eggs and bunnies for Easter.

Both seasons involve waiting, and when there is waiting + children there will be MANY questions as to when the waiting will be over. So I like to have a Lent calendar, in addition to the more familiar Advent calendar.

Our Advent calendar builds UP to something. It’s a quilted stuffed tree that hangs on the wall. Each day of Advent, we add one ornament, and by Christmas day it’s filled and stays on the wall as a Christmas decoration. You can kinda see it in the back of this photo. (A similar version is available here.)

But our Lent calendar gets printed and cut and goes up on a wall or door on Ash Wednesday, and each day, one piece gets taken down. On Holy Saturday, the last day’s piece is removed, and we crumple up the rest and toss it! (The set is available here.) It gets replaced for Easter with a poster that says, “We are an Easter people, and hallelujah is our song.” (Get it free here!)

I’ve also got a simple, one page version here, where you just cross off days.

There are other differences, of course, between Lent and Advent, notably fasting and voluntary Lenten disciplines. But, figuring out THIS particular distinction, was helpful to me as I was starting to try to observe some liturgical living in the home. I hope it’s helpful to you

The post Lent vs Advent: Penance or Preparation, Counting Down or Counting Up appeared first on Catholic All Year.