Parents will go to any extent for raising their little ones in the faith. Here are some strategies that can guide you along the way.
- Develop a Strong Relationship with God
Children learn and imitate by observing the actions of their parents. Setting a good lifestyle and spiritual attitude is the best advice a parent can ever provide for their children. Kids should love to learn the love of God and develop a strong relationship with the Father through their relationships with their mother and father. Take interest to show them what it looks like to love Christ through your words and actions.
2. A Rhythm of Liturgical Year Can Help You
Our days, weeks, months, and years are in a rhythmical manner. Families can follow the beauty of following the liturgical year is that parents don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but can teach the faith through simple customs that have been handed down for generations. The parents can learn the traditions we follow in our faith and observe them at home with kids and this will help you to bring them into the best spiritual experience. They will wait for the next year for doing it.
3. Enact Sunday Gospels at Home
Families can do something special to honor the Lord’s Day, which is Sunday. Having a special dinner at home or out can be a nice idea. The picnics will refresh your mind and body. Along with that, you can do something interesting in touch with the Gospel of the day. After reading the Gospel part and you can enact it at home with simple settings. That can help your kids to visualize and keep the Gospel in their minds forever.
Another approach, is to encourage the children to think about what it would have been like to be there with Jesus, to close their eyes and picture themselves in the Gospel scene, asking questions like “What was the weather like? What did it look like? What did it sound like?”There’s something so special about reading the Gospel and talking about it as a family.
4. Set a Time and Space for Prayer
Setting aside a space in the home for prayer is a wonderful idea. There should have a prayer corner for the children and even for parents to go at their times of difficulty and gratitude. Change out items on the prayer table seasonally, such as putting funeral Mass cards or old family photos on the table in November, images of the Nativity during Christmastime, pictures of Our Lady in “Mary’s month” of May, or images from the Stations of the Cross during Lent.
By having a physical space to pray, parents can make times of prayer a natural part of everyday life. Pray throughout the day and point out the good things God has given us. At night before bed, talk over the day and the gifts, graces, and blessings God has given today. When you do these simple things when they are little, it gets ingrained into their hearts and who they are as persons.
5. Read out the Bible, Lives of the Saints, and Classic Stories
The saints’ lives can inspire children to imitate their examples. The stories from the Bible help children get to know Jesus and the stories of God’s People. Classic children’s literature plays an important role as well, as many good books celebrate virtue and give examples of heroic actions to emulate. All of these things form a child’s moral imagination, the understanding of right and wrong.
6. Help them to Make Heavenly Friends
The saints and the angels are an important part of faith formation. Parents can help a child grow closer in friendship with a particular saint and his or her guardian angel. You can tell them to talk about our special team in heaven. They are God, Mother Mary, our patron saint, and our guardian angel.
Little by little, each of these small acts of love and prayer adds up to thriving and joyful family culture and domestic church, gently forming children into the saints God has called them to be.