71. What is the most effective method that parents can employ to raise good children?

The most effective method that parents can employ to raise good children is to teach in the first place by their own example. Children see everything and judge even from a very tender age.

72. What are the duties of parents towards their children?

Parents are entrusted with the noble task of caring for and educating the future generation. Their duties to their offspring are:

1. Each child has a right to be conceived in a sexual act of mutual self giving between spouses, open to procreation.

2. Safeguard the physical integrity and health of their children from conception.

3. Create a stable home that is well suited to education in the virtues and in the faith.

4. Protect them from harmful influences that degrade the human person.

5. Ensure adequate schooling.

6. Educate them in the faith.

7. Ensure that they acquire the good habits, moral criteria, and spiritual formation they need to exercise their freedom responsibly as adults.

73. What actions are gravely irresponsible and immoral with respect to the duties of parents towards their children?

Some actions that are gravely irresponsible and immoral regarding the duties of parents towards their children are:

1. Recourse to methods of artificial fertilization to have children.

2. Embryonic interventions to choose the sex and genetic traits of children.

3. Sex outside of marriage which opens the way to children outside of marriage.

4. Irresponsible use or abuse of drugs or any other type of behaviour that may seriously threaten the health of the baby in the womb.

5. Abortion.

6. Child abuse (physical, verbal and psychological).

7. Using or selling children as slaves for material gain, for example in prostitution and child labour.

8. Abandoning children and extreme neglect.

9. Failure to ensure a minimum of schooling, education in the faith and the acquisition of good habits and criteria so that they can participate in society and in the life of the Church.

74. What are some of the day to day obstacles to raising good children?

Some of the day to day obstacles to raising good children are:

1. Bad example.

2. Poor communication and lack of unity between spouses about their children's formation.

3. Not dedicating sufficient time and interest to family life.

4. Arguing in front of the kids.

5. Spoiling the children with gifts and giving in to their whims.

6. Disorder and lack of discipline.

7. Lack of patience and understanding.

8. Gloominess and over sensitivity.

9. Lack of supernatural outlook when faced with difficulties.

10. Disrespecting the freedom of the children.

11. Lack of humility to ask others for help and advice when this is necessary.

These obstacles undermine family life and over time can completely destroy it.

75. What is required for successful parenting?

For successful parenting, spouses should exercise careful vigilance over their children's health, behaviour and activities, helping, guiding and correcting them out of love, while respecting their legitimate freedom.

They should be good friends of their children, accompanying them through their challenges, joys and disappointments. It is also important for parents to inculcate good habits in their children by practice and repetition. Recommended courses and literature on homemaking and education in the virtues, along with prudent advice, can be of great help for this task.

76. How can parents spend quality time with their children?

Parents spend quality time with their children when they dialogue together with complete trust, when they help each other, when they prepare for and partake in family celebrations and traditions and by sharing pleasant moments together through outings, trips, hobbies, sports, games etc.

The family dinner and family prayer are useful traditions for spending quality time together. Parents can improve the quality time with their children by avoiding a disordered use of Television, Radio, Computer games, Internet and other forms of recreation in their homes that distract from interpersonal dialogue and cause the family members to misuse time.

77. How should parents correct their children?

Parents should correct their children never out of anger or frustration, but out of love, which desires the best for them. To the extent possible they should wait for the best moment to speak privately with the child concerned.

78. What are some practical ways to get children to cooperate without getting angry?

Some practical ways to get children to cooperate without getting angry are:

1. Give a good example of being willing, diligent, generous and cheerful in carrying out one's own tasks.

2. Have some simple spiritual considerations or material distractions that can help to keep calm when patience is running out.

3. Balance correction and stern insistence with unconditional affection to reassure the children that the former is out of love.

4. Parents should never tire of repeating themselves. Children need to hear the same thing many times and in different ways in order to appreciate its importance.

5. Giving orders in a loud voice is a poor strategy for getting cooperation. Children often need to be accompanied in their tasks, especially at the beginning, in order to overcome the difficulties inherent in human nature of acquiring self-discipline and good habits. In the long run a threatening strategy produces the opposite effect because children eventually rebel against doing things against their will.

6. Children are more inclined to cooperate when they receive encouragement and positive feedback for their efforts to collaborate.

7. Give children space to make mistakes. Keep in mind that children, especially when they are young, need to break things and be adventurous in order to learn and to develop their personalities.

8. While parents should discipline without anger they should not permit rudeness, lies or disrespect from their children. These are cardinal rules for the family and children ought to be reprimanded when these are broken.

9. It is very useful for parents to have a sense of adventure and enthusiasm for their task of raising children.

79. How should parents confront the little rebelliousness in their children, particularly during adolescence?

Parents should understand that they too had their little rebelliousness, which comes from a natural desire for independence. Through patience and an open and trusting relationship with their children, they can help them to channel their energies into things that are good and noble and to face up to their responsibilities as young adults.

80. When do parents disrespect the legitimate freedom of their children?

Parents disrespect the legitimate freedom of their children when they pressure them unfairly to follow or reject a determined profession, and, what is more grave, to follow or reject a particular path in life, be it marriage, priesthood, religious life, or simply remaining single to carry out a specific apostolic mission.

81. What are some practical recommended ways to ensure order, discipline and harmony in the home?

Parents should keep in mind that habits of order and discipline take root during the first three years of a child's life. Some practical recommended ways to ensure order, discipline and harmony in the home are:

1. Teaching practical rules and ways to take care of personal things and to keep the home tidy, from a very early age.

2. Having a simple timetable for the affairs of the house.

3. Having a list of chores that are fairly assigned.

4. Giving little pocket money (keep in mind that no one values what he or she has not made an effort to obtain).

5. Teaching good manners and proper hygiene from an early age.

6. Tasty and well balanced meals.

7. Good humour.

8. Open and trusting dialogue.

9. Daily family prayers

82. Is it true to say that a marriage without children has failed?

When procreation is desired but impossible through illness or other natural causes, the marriage does not lose its value. The love of the spouses should grow continuously, overflowing in other services to society such as a deeper dedication to their own profession or jobs, the exemplary care and upkeep of their home, works of education, help to other families and care for needy or handicapped children. Marriages without children may also adopt children if they so decide based on prudent advice and sincere consideration in prayer.