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MarilynW
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Melinda,
Re the internet, we are right to realize the dangers. But the same dangers are around us - in the dress/behaviour/language of extended family, tv, magazines, soccer games, yes even in church and youthgroups.
I am all for protecting and shielding younger children. But as kids hit tweens and teens, we have to teach them about the dangers. We have to be the main parental controls on all technology. We have open discussions with all he children about the dangers of the internet - eg pornography, predators etc. And also about the potential for wasting time, uncharitable behaviour, replacing the real with the virtual etc.
Whilst the dangers do scare me (and I daily ask for the intercession of Saint Michael over our computers and technology) - I also think we live in a world where our kids will have to use it. And the place to teach them self-control etc in our homes.
I know there are benefits to technology, and it is a tool for the new evangelization etc - but personally I don't care much for it. For me the waste of time on it (ask my kids about the 1440 minutes God has given us sermon from me..)is a real problem...but that is for a different discussion.....A couple of my kids are interested in programming, cybersecurity etc - and so they have to be savvy.
But in no way does the need for technology replace our duty and responsibility as parents to watch over and guard our teens purity....
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guitarnan
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Marilyn, thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts. I really appreciate your insights, especially as our teen daughter gradually transitions to college life. She's seen some over-the-top (not stalking, but almost, and not troll-like, but almost) behavior in her online communities, and I'm thankful she's been willing to come to us with her concerns so we can talk through things and help her deal with online bozos. My husband works in the cyber field, so that helps, too.
I agree that self-control plays a very important role. Since I write for websites, it's easy for me to fall into the online reading trap...I can easily spend hours reading interesting things online...but I do need to set a good example for my children!
I think it's worth investing the time, as you have, and as we are increasingly trying to, in conversations with our young adult/teen children, particularly on the topics of online security and self-control. It's not easy, I completely agree. Thank you for reminding me to ask for Saint Michael's intercession - he is one of my daughter's favorite saints.
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cathhomeschool
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I skimmed the article (no patience to read in detail the whole thing). Personally I don't see that our 'problems' and the 'trend of Catholic families' now is any different from 20 years ago when mine were small or 40 years ago when I was small. The culture of death is the same as it always has been. The cafeteria Catholics are the same too. The internet, the profusion of tv channels and the availability of, media at the touch of our phones has only made it more obvious and more available. I continue to raise my children the way I always have and the way in which I was raised. We live the liturgical year, participate in the sacraments, nurture respect for life, choose what they watch on tv, the internet, and xbox. We explain (in an age appropriate way) why we are making those choices. We do this until they leave our home and then when they do leave, it is their responsibility and choice to live their faith or not -- just as it was mine and my parents'. Is hitting our knees and praying the most powerful weapon? Yes. But then it was when they were 2 and 10 also. My parents and grandparents still hit their knees and pray for us even though there is no "fear" of my leaving the Church. It is still their most powerful weapon too. Living in fear is not a good thing. We are not in control. We have to faithfully do our part and trust that God will handle the rest.
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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: Jan 27 2015 at 9:18am | IP Logged
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So there were two pages of new posts I hadn't realized were there when I typed my post above!
SeaStar wrote:
No, you must find out where streams of living water are flowing, where there is that divine “medicine” we read about in today’s Gospel. Find out where kids are being changed and transformed, where there is an authentic exchange of love, ministry, and grace.
OK- so where are these places?? That is my question. I agree that the youth groups I have been involved in are more about showing the kids a good time at church so they will like it there- oh, yeah- and maybe doing a service project- than learning to know, love and serve God. 
Maybe these places are just in our own homes, working and serving as a family, and the places where we volunteer and work together with our children.
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We are blessed here to live in a community that has a great youth group and lots of strong Catholic families. But I grew up in an area that was not that way. The "streams of living water" were found in our home. My parents modeled love, service and living their faith, and we witnessed that and participated in it. (They did send me to catechism class an hour away when I was in high school so that I could meet with other solid Catholics young ladies when a good youth group wasn't to be found close by.) When we left home, it was up to us to make that faith our own. We had to mature in own our faith (or not) just as we had to mature in other ways.
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anitamarie
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cathhomeschool wrote:
| I skimmed the article (no patience to read in detail the whole thing). Personally I don't see that our 'problems' and the 'trend of Catholic families' now is any different from 20 years ago when mine were small or 40 years ago when I was small. The culture of death is the same as it always has been. The cafeteria Catholics are the same too. The internet, the profusion of tv channels and the availability of, media at the touch of our phones has only made it more obvious and more available. I continue to raise my children the way I always have and the way in which I was raised. We live the liturgical year, participate in the sacraments, nurture respect for life, choose what they watch on tv, the internet, and xbox. We explain (in an age appropriate way) why we are making those choices. We do this until they leave our home and then when they do leave, it is their responsibility and choice to live their faith or not -- just as it was mine and my parents'. Is hitting our knees and praying the most powerful weapon? Yes. But then it was when they were 2 and 10 also. My parents and grandparents still hit their knees and pray for us even though there is no "fear" of my leaving the Church. It is still their most powerful weapon too. Living in fear is not a good thing. We are not in control. We have to faithfully do our part and trust that God will handle the rest. |
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This! We are not able to make our kids be Catholic. They have free will and concupiscence, just like us. I think some of the JPII generation were under the impression that poor catechesis was the root of their own bad choices. I think they felt that by properly catechizing their children and keeping them from the world, the children wouldn't fall away. Unfortunately, there's no magic formula and our kids have free will and concupiscence just like we do.
Do we catechize as well as we are able? Yes.
Do we practice the faith to the best of our ability? Yes.
Do we pray for them? Yes.
Do we try to foster that personal relationship with Christ? Yes.
Do we try to protect them? Yes.
After that, it's between the child and God.
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Martha
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Nm dbl post
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Martha
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Martha
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What I find troublesome in this blog and many conversations is the focus is on preventing kids from falling.
But we know for a fact that they will fall. Many times. Same as we all do.
People say, "OMG it can't be unseen!" (And this isn't about modesty. I'm just using a common for example.) While that might true, it also isn't what matters. They are going to without a doubt see, hear, and do things that can't be undone. But what matters is how they react to that. And how we react to their falls.
Here is a short interesting piece that resonated to me bc it reveals what I personally think the focus should be on and frankly, I think it's something everyone is scared to talk about. As though admitting to what we all know will tarnish us as parents. And it's also private bc no one wants to trash talk their kids. (I hope.). Which is a reason most parenting discussions are younger moms and the older moms are silent. It's why I am a lot more silent now than 10 years ago. And my teens/young adults haven't even been all that awful. ;)
This was the key phrase that I was nodding to in the post:
"My goal as a parent should never be to keep my children from falling but rather to teach them how to get back up and try again, every single day until they draw their last breath on this earth."
I've never read her before so I can't vouch for anything else. Cay Gibson posted this on her Fb and that's the only reason I saw it.
Link to the blog post:
On loving my family "as is"
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Martha
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MarilynW
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Martha wrote:
Which is a reason most parenting discussions are younger moms and the older moms are silent. It's why I am a lot more silent now than 10 years ago. And my teens/young adults haven't even been all that awful. ;)
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I think I am just too tired to join these discussions! When all my kids were younger I was happy to discuss parenting and theories - now I am too busy living this out!! I have no issues with any of my kids - but parenting and homeschooling are hard work regardless. And when I get to the end of the day I want to relax with a good book and a cup of tea, or potter in my yard, or knit or cook - and not over analyze or compare myself to anyone.
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MarilynW
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I just wanted to share on of my daughter's favorite quotes from Benedict XVI.
"Even suffering is part of the truth of our life. Thus, trying to shield the youngest from every difficulty and experience of suffering, we risk creating, despite our good intentions, fragile persons of little generosity:The capacity to love, in fact, corresponds to the capacity to suffer, and to suffer together."
We do have to let our kids suffer, though goodness, it is so hard for a mama to see her kids suffer.
And my prayer is that although I don't want to shield my children from pain and the cross, I so don't want them to fall away from their faith or have a big moral fall.
The more I go through life the more I realize that I am not in control. Sometimes homeschooling can make us think we are in control. But each day I just have to surrender to God's will and know that He loves my children so much more than I do, and He will never let them go.
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Martha
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MarilynW wrote:
I think I am just too tired to join these discussions! When all my kids were younger I was happy to discuss parenting and theories - now I am content to just live!!! I have no issues with any of my kids - but parenting and homeschooling are hard work regardless. And when I get to the end of the day I want to relax with a good book and a cup of tea, or potter in my yard, or knit or cook - and not over analyze or compare myself to anyone.
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Ha! That too! I do a lot of knitting and most of parenting discussion activity boils down to just knitting some more while I listen to the moms of only younger kids talk about college prep and high school prep and so forth. I used to share more of what I've learned or am learning, but truth is folks aren't interested. They want to hear that if they do x they will get y result. And relationships just don't work that way.
ETA bc it cut off for some reason:
And I'm not interested in debating and over analyzing either. I'm not going to argue about doing what I think best for my kids. I don't care who is or is not in doing it too. Maybe what they are doing is interesting and I might give it a go, but I'm not trying to compete with other parents. That's very disheartening when parents divide into sects of parenting ideologies. And it can be spiritually abusive to push one as required to be "good christian" parents.
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CrunchyMom
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Well, I for one learn a TON when you two ladies share your wisdom as experienced moms.  Truly.
I think I freak out (in my head) about the "not unseeing stuff" thing because it is so much more likely to happen today than ever in the past. It is such an insidious evil and increasingly pervasive as young people carry their phones around all the time. It is not really my kids' access to that sort of thing in our own home that scares me most. And I guess it is just part of parenting throughout the 20th century that society changes so rapidly, we are faced with parenting our children in a world that looks so different from the world we grew up in.
Also somewhat related, recently, some friends of our went to a wedding between two young people, both from Catholic homeschooling families. Really great kids and not fallen away or anything, but the music and dancing at the reception sort of scandalized my friends. They aren't prudes or anything and kept their sense of humor about it all, but they were kind of sad thinking that if this is what the really good kids enjoy, what hope is there for our culture?  I can laugh and sing songs from Bye Bye Birdie about these crazy kids today  , but I really want so much more for my children, yk?
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MarilynW
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CrunchyMom wrote:
Well, I for one learn a TON when you two ladies share your wisdom as experienced moms. Truly.
I think I freak out (in my head) about the "not unseeing stuff" thing because it is so much more likely to happen today than ever in the past. It is such an insidious evil and increasingly pervasive as young people carry their phones around all the time. It is not really my kids' access to that sort of thing in our own home that scares me most. And I guess it is just part of parenting throughout the 20th century that society changes so rapidly, we are faced with parenting our children in a world that looks so different from the world we grew up in.
Also somewhat related, recently, some friends of our went to a wedding between two young people, both from Catholic homeschooling families. Really great kids and not fallen away or anything, but the music and dancing at the reception sort of scandalized my friends. They aren't prudes or anything and kept their sense of humor about it all, but they were kind of sad thinking that if this is what the really good kids enjoy, what hope is there for our culture? I can laugh and sing songs from Bye Bye Birdie about these crazy kids today , but I really want so much more for my children, yk?
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Dear Lindsay,
I so understand. I want more for my kids too.
And whilst I think every generation has had its bad influences, our culture right now has to be at a nadir.
I think that the loss of modesty, the lack of shock factor and the frightening pornography statistics, are of concern to parents - justifiably.
I think that your worries about phones are very valid too. A phone has the potential to be dangerous. I read this story recently about a Catholic teen who died of a drug overdose. I was struck by the words of his father cautioning giving young kids cellphones.
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Marilyn
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Martha
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Well to be fair, it wasn't that long ago that the waltz was a scandal.
None of my kids get internet or cellphones or their own email account before 16 and we are very vigilant. And it's on my account not their own, so everything they do shows up on my phone too. And still they know I'll take their phones in a heartbeat. We also don't allow social media before 18 and spend a lot of time walking them through that too.
It's not that I think modesty should be tossed to the wind. But I do see extremism in the other direction too. and I do think that is just as harmful.
And REALLY, I don't want this to be about modesty. I was only using a common topic as an example. 
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Martha
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For me, my views on tech stuff has nothing to do with modesty issues. I just simply view the Internet like an ocean. It's never safe to swim alone, but before age 16 they need to have more than a parent watching from the shore because they don't have the maturity to calculate the million and one things going on at the same time and predict what it means. It has nothing to do with being good or smart. They need to have a parent in the water with them. At 16, well I'll keep a sharp eye from the shore and they better not give me any attitude about it or its out of the water for them.
I also personally think that tech before a certain development age literally changes brain wiring and I prefer they have more naturally developed wiring.
All our devices are used in common areas. Including mine and dh's. From TVs and computers to DSi, iPad, and cellphones.
All of which is veering off topic.
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SeaStar
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That is a good analogy- the tech world is like an ocean, and I like that you posted your age limits for these things, Martha. That is very helpful.
I also feel like bad stuff is at the finger tips of our kids via technology... something new that previous generations didn't have to deal with. In the 1950's. a big offense at school was chewing gum. Now it is carrying a weapon. Times have changed!
But this has been a very helpful conversation for me- even just knowing that we are all out there struggling and trying to make sense of this day and age and how to steer our kids through it.
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cathhomeschool
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I love the ocean analogy too, and can see that as a useful tool for explaining to my kids.
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JodieLyn
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I like it too. Makes sense.
We do let the kids have email accounts very young. But they're through gmail and we download them to the main computer(outlook express) so that EVERYTHING goes through mom/dad before it gets to them. (Which btw, I've been very pleased with gmail's spam guards.. rarely does anything get through) But they don't access those online, they don't see the spam that's pulled out. They only see what I move into their folders on the computer. 
We allow facebook at 14.. lots of oversight, I check what they're doing etc. But most of their friends are extended family.. grandparents, aunts and uncles, a couple of cousins (the others are too little).
My kids only have dumbphones until they can afford to get their own.. My oldest is 17.. almost 18 and she does have a smart phone, that she bought, that she pays for service, that I still can take and check. She has experience dealing with the lower tech phones and that seems to have gotten her past the worst of the "glued to her phone" stuff.. well other than the initial "I just got it and it's so cool"
I also try and remember that our perspective is a bit skewed because of the internet. One of the other bad parts which has nothing to do with the bad stuff on it.
When we were growing up.. you'd hear about stuff in your own town. Maybe the bigger town nearby (if you weren't in the bigger town) really big stuff in the state and then usually only major stuff that effected the whole country. Now we hear about stuff that happens EVERYWHERE. So going on with the ocean theme.. growing up we'd see a few bad things that happened in our little section of the ocean.. a drowning or a boat capsizing etc. But now it's like we think we're still seeing the same amount of ocean but we see all the drownings and capsizing and other disasters that happen anywhere around the country and around the world. It looks way worse than when we were growing up. Except that if you really look at the stats.. we just are seeing more ocean so of course we see more problems.. but it's not worse.
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Patty
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I sense that the mom who wrote that article is passionate about bringing her children to Christ, but I sense a lot of fear, too. Of course we do want to protect our children from awful stuff, and to let them have the innocence of childhood as long as possible, but some of the sewage will seep through at some point. It will. It did when I was a kid growing up in the 60's and 70's, without the help of the Internet. Porn existed back then, and so did smutty talk and meanness and gossip and greed and all the rest. Our kids will be exposed to sin. They will sin themselves.
But...when you get dirty you take a bath. You ask for God's mercy and you go to confession, receiving absolution AND the tremendous graces of the sacrament. I am not saying to have a casual attitude about sin! Not at all. But, we have fallen human nature and we need confession. We need the Eucharist. Thank God for the sacraments!!!
The blogger mom seemed to think that there was something special about the JP II generation and that somehow that specialness has been lost in the last twenty years. Every single person is special and unique, and God can work through anyone who will yield to Him. He raises up saints in every generation. Also, I really don't try too hard to analyze this. His ways are mysterious!
I liked the article Martha linked to, especially the quote from Elder Pophyrios about banishing darkness by letting in the light. So true. We are almost to the end of our homeschooling years and have one teen left at home, two in college, three twenty somethings out on their own (one engaged to a wonderful Catholic young man) and the oldest is in a religious order.
Recently I was talking to a mom of two priests and confided that people ask me "how did you do it" when they find out our oldest is a religious sister. She laughed and said, "You two?" We both agreed that we are not super moms! It is God's grace. You yield to it. Prayer and the sacraments. When you fall you get up and run to Him again. Open the door and let in the light.
God bless you, ladies! Keep on keeping on!
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SeaStar
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Patty, you are right. God does raise up saints in each generation. Thank you for reminding me of this!
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CrunchyMom
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I just came across this article on Conservative and Popular Culture and thought it had a lot of good thoughts pertinent to this discussion (the article is not really political in nature).
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Lindsay
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: The Hard Truth About Raising Catholic
