Children receive a lot of input about what it will take to succeed and be happy. How can we communicate the truth that will help them realize their own potential?

So by my faith I know that the purpose and power of women in marriages, families and communities, as mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, is to pray for our men so as to fully communicate the love of God expressed in Romans 8:38-39, and by faith equip their hearts and minds with abundant grace, as fathers, husbands, sons and brothers. This can only be accomplished when I ask for divine guidance in responding to the …

By my faith I know that something is only true if I allow it be so in my own mind. For I know that the only free society on the planet emanated from acting on one mustard seed of faith that God grants every human being intelligent life and free will. This is power that can never be taken, but is easily surrendered. This is the hope for all generations. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Psalm …

Daily offers compelling insight about the neuro development of the reward systems of the adolescent brain, the shame experiences of childhood, and the nature of addiction as an illness that can be successfully treated when we focus on the illness, which he posits is not about the drug. “Addiction is an illness resulting from affect dysregulation,” he said. “It is a pathological relationship to intoxication. So it does not matter which drug is involved.”

When my youngest (who is 25 years old today) was 12 years old, he called me into the garage. He had been sorting the recycling. That was one of his incomes in addition to a paper route and walking dogs in the neighborhood. “Oh maaaa-ther!,” he called, in a very whimsical tone. He opened the garage door from the hall in our home, to reveal all of the recycling sorted, and in the very center were all of the empty wine bottles… and there were a lot of them. It is important to note here that I am the consumer of wine in our home. I usually have a glass at dinner and while preparing dinner. He smiled and suggested, “Let’s count them, shall we?”

What do tech-savvy teens need from parents? They need parents to provide a safe place where they can talk about the real pressures and insecurities they face.

Every modern parent must consider that in their cyber realm, youth accessing and using drugs without direction of a physician may seem like such a normal thing to do – especially when responding to the amount of stress and peer pressure hyped in social media.

Bob Holmes is a one-man volley ball team who travels the country engaging teens to think radically differently about their value and their future in the face of enormous bullying pressure in their social networks to believe they are small and insignificant.

A recent article in the Setonian features the dangers of texting while walking on campus, including bumping into walls and other people, tripping and falling and walking into oncoming traffic. In this way, with the advent of mobile connectivity, I have learned that being present is something that we take for granted, as if it is some kind of an effortless thing when indeed it is not. And the more we experience the impact of mobile connectivity seemingly omnipresent in every device, room, gathering and relationship – well, it frankly, becomes more difficult to simply be present and give one another undivided attention, much less pay attention to our surroundings while traveling by foot or from behind the wheel.

According to a recent report from Aleteia, at the fall annual assembly of U.S. Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, scheduled for November 16-19, there will be a vote to issue a general statement about pornography as a “pastoral crisis”. The purpose of this general statement is to educate clergy, parents and young people about this crisis for families and society.