Involving Families
Communities are made up of a mosaic of many kinds of families. Each family represents a unique model of what families are and each family contains the promise of what family can be.
Your ministry as a religion coordinator takes place within a school community and concerns the parents of the children within this community. Families need support in connecting Christian values to decisions they make in their daily lives.
Parents need help to keep their children connected to the good and beautiful aspects of life. The school community, with its many examples of caring and giving, reflects God’s creative goodness.
Ways to Involve Families
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Listen to families within the school community. Complement and affirm their strengths as your support them in their efforts to raise children as members of a Christian community. They need encouragement to accept the challenge that the gospel places before them in the modern world.
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Encourage families to take advantage of the opportunities offered in Family Time pages to connect with their children’s religious education. This take-home section at the beginning of every chapter of the child’s book is designed so family members can work together.
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Some schools offer an orientation meeting to explain the family’s involvement with the child’s religious education. If this does not work for your school, consider sending home a copy of the first Family Time pages with a brief note to welcome and embrace parents as partners in their child’s religious education.
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Encourage families to reclaim Sunday as a sacred time to be at peace and to be thankful for God’s blessings.
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Family members can be a wonderful teaching resource. Invite them to participate in their children’s education by sharing their ethnic traditions and holiday celebrations.
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Books
The Gift of Prayer - A Prayer Book for Children
Includes traditional prayers of our faith, prayers to Our Lady and the saints, an examination of conscience and the Rite of Reconciliation.
Call RCL Benziger at 1-877-ASK-4-RCL (1-877-275-4725).
ORDER NUMBER: 0-382-36102-4
The Table Prayer Book
by Beth Thompson and Robert Piercy
Includes 30 short prayers services for the entire liturgical year to by used by families whenever they are gathered together.
Call RCL Benziger at 1-877-ASK-4-RCL (1-877-275-4725).
ORDER NUMBER: 1-57999-203-X
The Value-Able Child: Teaching Values at Home and at School
by Kathleen Long Bostrom
This guide encourages parents, teachers, and group leaders in working as a team to teach values children need to lead happy "value-able" lives.
Available through Good Year Books, 1999
Catholic Traditions in the Home and Classroom
by Ann Ball
This guide looks at 365 days of the year to celebrate being Catholic.
Available through Our Sunday Visitor, 2005
Teaching Self-Discipline to Children - 15 Essential Skills
by Barbara C. Vasiloff
The author provides educators with sample forms, worksheets, poems, songs, activities, and guided meditations to use in developing skills.
Available through Twenty-Third Publications, 2003
Audio/Video
Raising Faith Filled Children in a Consumer Society (25 min.)
This video provides practical and realistic guides to help you child live with Gospel values amid the maze of media messages; discussion guide.
Available through Fisher Productions
How to Raise Your Child with Faith (25 min.)
Here are some practical tips to help parents and teachers take their youngsters on a family faith journey; discussion guide.
Available through Fisher Productions
How to Pray as a Family (20 min.)
See how families of all types can gather and become aware of the presence of God in everyday life; dissection guide.
Available through Fisher Productions
Music
"Gather Your People," "The Goodness of the Lord"
Gifts for a Lifetime Music CD
Call RCL Benziger at 1-877-ASK-4-RCL (1-877-275-4725).
ORDER NUMBER: 0-382-36113-X
Gifts for a Lifetime Song Book
ORDER NUMBER: 0-382-36103-2
Gifts for a Lifetime Accompaniment Book
ORDER NUMBER: 0-382-36104-0
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