25 ways to grow your children’s faith

Learn about the saints and tell your children stories of their great lives.
Pray the rosary with your family.
Decorate your home with statues and images of the saints, and display a crucifix.
If your child is named after a saint, celebrate that saint’s feast day.
Tell your children how family members have been heroes of the faith, and try to be one yourself.

Help your children form and regularly examine their consciences.
Joyfully live out your faith day to day, especially in relationship with your children. That will make the faith attractive to them as they grow.
Visit the sick or homebound with your children and talk with them about how such acts of mercy are rooted in our faith.
Show Christian forgiveness to your children by forgiving them when they have wronged you.
Teach them how to resolve conflicts respectfully.

Show your children how to pray at the start and end of the day and at all meals.
Pray for your children every day and ask them to pray for you.
Show your children the importance of your relationship with God by going on an annual retreat. When they are old enough, encourage them to go on their own retreats.
Encourage your children to make prayers of thanksgiving a priority.
Help your children develop daily, monthly and annual habits of prayer.

Go to Mass with your children every Sunday and holy day, and more often when that is possible.
Celebrate the anniversary of your children’s baptism.
Go to individual confession as a family regularly—perhaps on the first Saturday of each month.
Pray in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with your children.
Take your children on pilgrimages to historic churches and shrines close to home and while on vacation.

Read aloud from the Bible to your children.
Make concrete efforts to increase your own knowledge of the faith.
Buy age-appropriate books and videos about the faith for your children.
Use teachable moments in your family and in society to help your children learn their faith.
Regularly discuss basic truths of the faith, showing your children that you also continue to learn by studying Church teachings.

The Criterion