Patrick Lencioni explains how to get our kids interested in Catholic traditions over time by showing them what we love about each one.
Transcript:
Host: We go now to Michael in Albuquerque, New Mexico, listening on Immaculate Heart Radio. Michael, you are on with Patrick Lencioni, what’s your question?
Caller: Oh yes, my question is, we have a few foster kiddos in our home, and right now we explain to them a little bit about the season of Lent, but we’re trying to figure out how to explain a bit more the Catholic traditions, like such as Stations of the Cross tonight, and a couple of reasons why we do things in Lent. As they’re really not practicing Catholics, they’re not Catholics themselves, how is the best way to probably go approach this? Especially when they’re like younger kids, say below 14 years old.
Patrick: So they’re like, younger than 14, but what’s their age group, generally?
Caller: Probably like preteen and like elementary kid.
Patrick: Okay, great. I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old and two 18 year olds and so…all boys, by the way, too, so–and I’m not an expert at this, right. The main thing is to pray for them. I mean honestly the main thing is to pray for them, “God, open their hearts.” And I would just say, tell them what you love about it, let them–say “Here’s what I–here’s why I love this,” and tell them about how you learned about it, I would think, and then ask them if they have any questions, and then, you know, I say that because kids that age, sometimes they just they’re just hearing things and soaking things up, and in a perfect world we want them to go, “Gee dad, thanks! That was awesome!” And they’re probably not going to, but expose them to it, explain it to them in terms of what’s going on, why you love it, ask them if they have any questions, and let them know that if they ever have any questions–and it might be two years from now, might be two months from now, it might be the day before Easter, but you can’t control it. I wish I could, ’cause God knows I’ve tried to in my own children and I can’t.
Host: Thanks Michael, thanks very much.