Posts by Jeffrey Arrowood
Preparing Yourself to Discuss the Deep Moral Issues
If you don’t feel knowledgeable or equipped to discuss the deeper moral issues with your child, don’t worry. You are not alone. Several factors make these moral issues challenging to approach: Catechesis in moral issues has been lacking and even confused since the 1960s. Fully understanding moral theology requires a bit of philosophical knowledge that…
Read MoreCivility: Time for a Comeback
Download the PDF A recent experience literally made me stop in my tracks in disbelief. While on my nightly walk, I noticed a group of grade school children arguing in a neighbor’s yard. Their voices were extremely angry as they stood face to face poised for physical combat. Unmistakably, a line had been drawn about…
Read MoreCan You Celebrate Your Family in the Face of Imperfection?
Download the PDF Over the past ten months, we have reflected on various themes about what it means to be a family. In doing so, we have been joining the Church in an ongoing reflection. This reflection could be said to begin with Pope Saint John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Familiaris Consortio, “The Role of…
Read MoreKnowing and Choosing the Good
“And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God” Romans 12:2. One of the biggest surprises to me as a parent is how difficult it can be to teach my children…
Read MoreIntellectual Maturity: How Do We Know What Is True?
“And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God” Romans 12:2 Many times my middle school daughter has come home saying that a teacher or a friend challenged a truth of…
Read MoreAre You Teaching Your Family the Way of Love?
Teaching children about selfless love is not an easy task. It’s even more difficult when you realize how important your own example is. How can you become a more selfless parent to lead your children on the Way of Love?
Read MoreHaving Necessary Conversations About Human Sexuality
Necessary Conversations As a parent of a son and daughter, both in middle school, I am deeply concerned about the perception of sexuality that my children are absorbing through the culture they are immersed in. The sexual revolution has caused us to accept a number of assumptions about sexuality rather than the good news that…
Read MoreTeaching Manners
Showing good manners is part of social maturity. It is the we express the kind of love the Greeks called storgè – basic respect for human dignity. Since human dignity is so important, every culture has created a set of norms intended to show respect. Unfortunately the modernist culture our young people are immersed in…
Read MoreHelp Your Child See and Respect Dignity in All People
Raise Them WellSocial Maturity TRAIN THE YOUNG IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO;EVEN WHEN OLD, THEY WILL NOT SWERVE FROM IT (PROVERBS 22:6). A mother of a 4-year-old is anxious that her child will take toys away from other kids at preschool. A father of an 8-year-old son learns that bullying is happening at school. A…
Read MoreUsing a Family Media Plan to Protect Your Children – and to Teach Virtue
Does your family have a media plan in place? I love technology. When used and managed properly, technology can change the dynamics of a family in very good ways. Last Christmas the one gift I wanted to get for my family was a large, flat-screen television. But we didn’t connect this television to cable or…
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