Helping Parents Teach Family Catechesis Lessons at Home

One of the key components of family catechesis is parents working on faith formation lessons at home with their children. Some parents are more comfortable than others when it comes to teaching lessons at home. It’s important to know, however, that teaching faith formation lessons is different from teaching other subject areas, because in faith formation, we’re not really teaching a subject at all. Rather, we facilitate an encounter with Jesus Christ. With that in mind, let’s look at some tips for parents who are facilitating faith formation lessons with their children at home as part of a family catechesis program.

Reassure Parents

Many parents will initially feel that they are not qualified to teach their children faith formation lessons. One of the first and most important things that you can and must do, as the leader of a family catechesis program, is to reassure parents with the words, “You can do this!” Remind parents that they have been teaching their children every day since they were born. Parents taught children how to walk, speak, eat with a fork, ride a bike, look both ways before crossing the street, tie shoes, know right from wrong, and much more.

Now, parents are going to teach their children how to follow Jesus. Assure parents that they don’t have to be theologians to accomplish that. To follow Jesus is to learn how to love God and our neighbor. Faith is a relationship. Remind parents that it’s OK if there’s something about their Catholic faith that they do not know or understand and to tell their child that they’ll do a little research to find the answer.

Make This a Special Time

Parents often find themselves sitting down with their children to supervise or assist with schoolwork. When it comes to doing faith formation lessons, encourage parents to set this time apart so that it does not feel like another school task. Encourage parents to make this a priority and not just to lump it in with other homework that needs to be completed. Help parents to approach this time as sacred family time.

Direct parents to take a few moments before their family session to look over the assigned chapter from the textbook to become familiar with the main concepts being presented. Encourage them to reflect on what these concepts mean to them personally, how they affect their day-to-day living, and what stories or insights from their own lives they can share to enhance the learning experience.

Create Sacred Space

To reinforce that faith formation is unlike the school subject areas that their children are studying, encourage parents to designate a separate space for working on faith formation lessons. Set a sense of the sacred by placing a Bible, a crucifix, a candle, or some other sacred object in this space. Help parents to remember that they are not teaching a subject; rather, they are helping their children to encounter a Person, Jesus Christ.

Encourage families to begin their formation time together by lighting a candle and asking children who and what they would like to pray for as well as naming people or things for which they are thankful. Then take a moment to pray together, either spontaneously or using a traditional prayer, beginning and ending with the Sign of the Cross. Remind parents that their children’s religion textbook includes prayers that they can use for each session.

Provide an Overview and Accompany Children

Direct parents to take a few moments to tell their children what the main focus of their lesson will be, and ask them what, if anything, they may already know about the topic. Invite children to share what they recall learning from previous lessons. Tell them why this topic is important to know and understand.

Parents can then help their children navigate the lesson, alternating between reading aloud and working independently before asking for a summary of what the children read and learned. Parents can assist their children with any activity pages in the lesson and, when the lesson calls for a pause to pray, should take a few moments to pray as a family.

Parents should make sure that their children can articulate the main point or “big idea” of the lesson and recall key vocabulary words. Key words can be found in bold print so that they stand out, and, at the end of each chapter, parents can find a summary of the main points of the lesson.

A significant part of parents forming children in faith is telling them their own insights, stories, and experiences related to the topic. For example, if the chapter is about prayer, parents can talk to their children about how they pray. If it is about Bible stories or saints, parents can tell about their favorite Bible stories or saints. The more parents share personally, the more their children will know that faith is a priority in this family.

Review

When families have completed a lesson, they can review what was learned by focusing on the summary or review page of each chapter. Parents can also use the review resources that the textbook publisher’s website provides. As families complete the lesson, they can talk about what the whole family and each individual can do in the days ahead to put faith into action.

Be sure to remind parents that they are not on their own and that the parish is just a phone call away to assist them. Reassure parents not to be embarrassed if there is something they don’t know or understand, and encourage them to ask for help from their pastor, catechetical leader, or their child’s catechist.