Someone mentioned to my wife lately that she doesn’t usually read my fatherhood/homeschooling columns because I use too many sports analogies. For instance, over the years, I have written that baseball is like “raspberry sorbet for the mind;” I have said that life is about “how many shots you take, rather than how many baskets you make;” and I recently wrote that being a good father was like being a “hockey goalie,” and so forth.
Read More »‘The First Christmas’ Crossword
Download this ‘The First Christmas’ Crossword! A fun activity to challenge your knowledge of facts and trivia on Christmas. For all ages! Answer questions like: 1) Catholics celebrate the feast of the Immaculate ___ of Mary on December 8. 2) The feast mentioned above means that Mary was conceived without ___ sin.
Read More »Why We Should Sit at the Kids’ Table
As I took a little trip down the memory lane of my mind, I started to explain to my little children that, although I was 42 years old, I had never quite “graduated” from the kids’ table. At first this bothered me, but I had come to respect the camaraderie, the conviviality...
Read More »How to Homeschool Better… Immediately
As we parents sit down to help our children with their homeschooling, I think we would have to admit that some of the biggest distractions are often the ones inside ourselves—the ones that keep popping into our minds as we attempt to teach.
Read More »Homeschool Organization for the Disorganized
Some think that a chaotic home means you can't homeschool. John Clark disagrees, and encourages you to focus on establishing something more important first.
Read More »Training Our Children to be Urban Legend Detectors
Of all the cultures and all the philosophies and all the religions which have been known in the world of men, none have placed truth on as high a pedestal as the Catholic Faith. Truth is literally our God.
Read More »Growing Up and Growing Old: They Happen Too Quickly
Clichés tend to become clichés for their accuracy. “Life goes too fast” is one. A few weeks ago, a longtime family friend of ours visited us with her nine-month-old daughter.
Read More »Thank You Cards: Keeping it Grateful
When a person complains, his creative abilities break free. But it’s also proof to me that we fallen humans don’t commend people well; we don’t thank them enough; and we pat each other on the back far too little.
Read More »Un-Common Core: Where Does it Go?
There has been a lot of worry lately among homeschooling parents regarding the “common core” curriculum. Judging by the amount of views by readers of this journal, it is the biggest issue of the day. But the problem is not so much in merely having a common core—it is in what that common core consists. Some cores are good and some are rotten.
Read More »Pope John Paul II on Family Prayer
by Pope John Paul II | Family prayer has for its very own object family life itself, which in all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God and lived as a filial response to His call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments...
Read More »Marriage, the Family, and Home Education
by Fr John Hardon | Home education means the teaching by the parents at home, by both parents. A father’s contribution to the home education of his children is indispensable.
Read More »Our Lady of Good Remedy
Over 800 years ago, thousands of Christians, men, women, and children, were being captured by the Moslems and sold into slavery. St. John of Matha of France was concerned about the sufferings of these captives.
Read More »Diary of a Country Mother: A Year Remembering Tim
After you finish the last page, there are books that you forget about right away. But then there are those rare ones that remain with you forever. Cynthia Montanaro’s Diary of a Country Mother is one of those. This book is a biography of her mentally-challenged son, Timothy, whose life was cut short in an accident as a teenager. Montanaro, a homeschooling veteran, says that she wrote it as a celebration of Tim’s life, but most of all as a “thanksgiving journal to God.”
Read More »4 Ways to Stop Blaming Yourself as a Parent
First, stop insisting that you “went wrong” with your kids. I don’t know exactly how Jesus felt when He was betrayed by Judas. But I do know this: I know that Jesus did not wonder where He went wrong with Judas. Jesus didn’t “go wrong.”
Read More »Ten Books That Changed My Life (And Might Change Yours) Part II
I was asked to write an essay about the book that had most changed my life. This book was my answer. Relating the account of Denton’s ordeal as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for nearly eight years, it is clear that his struggle to practice his faith and keep his sanity during this time were beyond heroic.
Read More »Ten Books That Changed My Life (And Might Change Yours) Part I
My father, an accomplished carpenter, always seemed to be building “one more bookcase” to meet the literary demands of his wife. For all the things that our large Catholic family did not have, we had a treasury of books. My mother’s consummate genius in homeschooling pedagogy reached its zenith with a simple rule for her children: you can stay up as late as you want as long as you are reading.
Read More »Cookie Cutters and Angels
It’s often lamented that babies don’t come with manuals. Of course, this isn’t true—babies do come with manuals. They are called “parenting books.” There are books that tell you how ...
Read More »Suffer the Little Children
When I was growing up in the 1970’s, many Catholic parents took turns going to Mass: Mom might go to an early Mass while Dad stayed home with the kids; ...
Read More »7 Tips To Improve Homeschooling This Year
At the beginning of every school year, I make a little personal checklist as to how I can improve homeschooling in the upcoming year. I don’t always stick to the ...
Read More »The Primrose Path
When I was about five or six years old, I remember that my maternal grandmother had a beautiful garden in her backyard that she spent many hours cultivating. Among her ...
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