Sharing the Catholic Faith With Our Kids

These were exactly my thoughts some years ago. Although I had let go in other areas, I still wanted to retain some control over the teaching of religion. Could we be unschoolers who unschool everything except religion?

I’ve discovered that many unschoolers do make an exception for the faith. Parents decide that they want to take an active role in teaching the faith. They might organise structured religion lessons and insist their children join in with the activities and devotions. But for us, I have found that formal lessons, and insistence, aren’t necessary.

Like other Catholics, we live our faith. We breathe it in, like the air around us. It’s essential. We don’t have to think about making it into a lesson. We don’t have to separate it out from our lives and place it in the context of ‘school’. This doesn’t mean we don’t need to learn about our faith. We are very aware that all of us need to learn more, parents as well as children. Learning about our faith is a life-long process. We never know enough.

So the most important way of sharing the faith with our children is to live it and talk about it. Our example teaches our children a lot. They watch and listen as we rejoice in our blessings, and deal with our sufferings. They see our faith in action and hear our words. They learn to view the world through the eyes of faith. Kids also need to see that we love our faith. We live it, not because of duty but because of love.

Every morning, we pray together as a family. I never insist my children join in with the prayers, but they arrive without fail. We pray, we read the daily readings and take the time to discuss them briefly. It’s amazing how much knowledge of the faith and how to live it, can result from discussing short mediations every day.

And then there are faith resources. I go looking for things that might interest my children, just like I do for everything else. I might strew these resources or offer them more directly.

I find good books. I invite my children to join me for read-aloud chapters. They never refuse my invitation. I’m sure they enjoy the books as much as I do. As we read, we get a warm feeling, knowing we belong to the Catholic Church. We feel all ‘cozy’! You will have to read The Creed in Slow Motion by Ronald Knox to understand that sentence. It’s a wonderful book that we read several times a few years ago. More recently, we’ve read 33 Days to Morning Glory by Fr Michael Gaitley as a family and then we renewed our consecration together. During Lent or Advent, we might choose an appropriate book to read. One Lent, we read The Hidden Power of Kindness by Lawrence G Lovasik.

Reading leads to discussion. I’ve never asked questions in an attempt to test my children. We just start chatting, with everyone adding their own ideas. Sometimes we want to know more so we do some googling. One thing leads to another, and we seem to cover a lot of interesting ground very quickly.

There are many wonderful online resources such as the Formed website. We listen to podcasts including those of Fr Mike Schmitz. We subscribe to Youtube channels such as the Ascension Presents one. I often tell my kids about things I’ve read or watched or listened to. Sometimes they tell me about faith-related things they’ve enjoyed.

When my children were younger, I bought lots of saints books, Catholic stories, and children’s Bibles. Now that they are older, they dip into the adult Catholic books that fill our shelves. A few years ago, Imogen returned from a Catholic youth mission school with a list of spiritual books she wanted to read. We had most of them on our bookshelf.

Mission schools and spiritual retreats and get-togethers with other Catholics are wonderful ways of learning more about the faith and sharing it with others.

We discuss Church news. We buy each other religious presents such as beautiful sets of Rosary beads or medals.

Of course, we go to Mass as a family. Everyone comes along. Do our children have a choice? No one has ever questioned whether they have to come or not. I guess they must all want to come. We are very involved in our parish. We sing and read and help organise parish events. Everyone has their place and is a valued parishioner. We all feel like we belong.

My children even learnt a lot about their faith through my regular chats with my Jehovah’s Witness friend who used to drop by our house. It’s good to be able to defend our faith. Of course, we have to be respectful of other people’s beliefs. Learning to discuss things in a friendly way is a good skill for everyone to develop. Maybe that ability begins when we listen to our children’s opinions without putting them down.

So our children have learnt about our faith without me planning a single lesson. But what about the catechism? Surely every Catholic child needs to be able to recite these questions and answers? Can my children do this? Most of them can.

Some years ago, Father James Tierney was writing a new catechism: The Catholic Family Catechism Disciples’ Edition with 50 Questions and Answers. Father sent the draft copies to our family asking our children to ‘try it out’. We always love being involved in Fr Jim’s projects so no one objected. We were all willing to help out. Soon my children had the words memorised. Of course, we also discussed what those words meant. Really they are just a summary of what they’d already learnt about their faith from living it, reading about it and discussing it.

Father Tierney’s catechism was published, and then Father decided he’d like to have a chanted version available on CD, to help people memorise it. He asked my daughter Felicity to teach our children how to chant the catechism. Then, when everyone was ready, they recorded the chants using the computer. Andy helped burn them onto CDs, ready for sale. This was a great learning experience which they all enjoyed.

Sophie and Gemma-Rose were too young to learn the catechism when all this was going on. Then one day, Sophie said, “Remember how the older kids learnt their catechism? Perhaps Gemma-Rose and I could learn it too.” I wanted to learn it as well because I didn’t really master it the first time around. We decided we could learn it together. I have to admit that this good intention never came to anything. Unlike their older siblings, my two youngest children can’t recite the catechism questions and answers. But they do know their faith.

Maybe the key to making sure our children know their faith is to live it, share it, read about it and discuss it. If we do all of these, we can’t fail to know what it is about. And the catechism? If our kids are interested and willing, we could learn it together.

Have we faith-proofed our children? No one can do that, whatever method of education we choose. All I am certain about is this:  Our children do know where to return if ever they stray. Maybe love will draw them back to where they belong.

If you’re interested, Father Tierney’s Catholic Family Catechism Disciples’ Edition in 50 questions and answers is available as a free download. It can also be bought as a paperback book, which contains lots of extra information, from Cardinal Newman Faith Resources.