Discovering God Together (Sophia Institute Press)

Raising faithful Catholic children in today's generation is a challenging task for even the best parents. The amount of evil in the world is more visible and more accessible than previous generations. Due to the importance of this subject, Dr. Gregory Popcak and his wife Lisa have written a book entitled Discovering God Together. The book begins with an invitation, to not only pass on the Faith to your children, but to also deepen your faith in the process. It then proceeds to list the "Five Marks of a Faithful Family." They are as follows:

1. Catholic families worship together.
2. Catholic families pray together.
3. Catholic families are called to intimacy.
4. Catholic families put family first.
5. The Catholic family is a witness and a sign.

The rest of the chapters in Part One provide you with a general overview. Chapters walk us through the importance of rituals and routines, including ones for work, play, talk, and prayer. There is also a chapter on walking your children through the stages of faith, which go all the way from birth to late adulthood. Part Two of the book focuses a lot on prayer life and how to develop one as a family and also for your children. In this section of the book, there is also a chapter which speaks specifically to fathers )and mothers as well to some degree). There were some statistics in this chapter that were both eye-opening and sobering. It is the father more than the mother that will ultimately determine if their children grow up to become practicing Catholics. That's a lot of responsibility! The last part of the book focuses primarily on the Sacraments and has chapters for Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, and Confession. There is also a chapter on parish life and its importance that I believe parents and priests could both benefit from reading.

The book is an easy and practical read by respected Catholic authors who know a thing or two about parenting. What I like best about this book is it is like there is a workbook built into it. There are reflection questions, a test to take, and some lines to fill out for brainstorming ideas. This is a valuable read for parents at any stage of the journey, but I would definitely recommend it most of all for new parents, because it is never too early to instill a love of God and the Church in your children.

This book was provided to me for free by Sophia Institute Press in exchange for an honest review. If you found this review helpful, please click here and hit Yes!

Children's Corner: Winning the Discipline Debates

Today in Children's Corner, I'm going to review a book that one would normally classify as a "children's book." This isn't a story book or a book with a lot of pictures, but instead a book to help you be a better parent, which is beneficial for your children. Is it a stretch putting this book in the "Children's Corner?" Maybe, but it is here nonetheless.

Dr. Ray Guarendi is a clinical psychologist, author of numerous books on parenting, and a radio host of the show The Doctor Is In. Most importantly though, he is the father of ten. If anyone knows something about parenting and discipline, it's him.

Spanning 25 chapters, Winning the Discipline Debates walks a parent through common parental-child discipline scenarios, including temper tantrums, fighting siblings, and cell phone privileges, to name a few. Each discipline scenario is laid out in the form of a mini-play with roles. The children are cleverly named to illustrate the problem, i.e., Rip who won't get out of bed in the morning is named for Rip Van Winkle, and Tattalia is a tattler. You get the idea. He then walks you through a common problem and gives you examples of a poor way to discipline and better way to discipline. I thought I would hate this method of writing at first, but it grew on me.

The book is chronologically laid out in that it starts with kids ages 4-5 and builds up to a 16 year old. Yes, your child may exhibit discipline problems earlier or later than the ages of the the kids described in the book, but I think he did a masterful job targeting the common discipline problems for a typical age range. I really enjoyed reading this book as I could easily relate to it. I was able to look back on my childhood and see how I acted like most of these children at some point or another and also look at current peers and family members and see how they discipline compared to the book.

There is no manual on how to raise children. You'll make plenty of mistakes, especially with the first one as you are still learning how to be a parent. However, this 5 star book gives you a leg up on one of the harder aspects of parenting. Will you automatically become an awesome parent who never disciplines poorly from reading this book? No. Will you adopt every solution that Dr. Ray suggests in his book? Probably not. You will get solid gold advice and methods that have worked for him and others. This book was provided to me by Franciscan Media in exchange for an honest review.