Mar 13, 2024
Parents Must Wake Up to the Dangers of Screen Addiction by Maggie Phillips at Word on Fire. Melanie Hempe is the founder of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based organization ScreenStrong, which is aimed at preventing and reversing screen addiction in children and young people. She is also the mother of sons. One son, Adam, her eldest, developed a video game addiction, which eventually became the impetus behind ScreenStrong, and the basis of a spiel she now gives at ScreenStrong events… ScreenStrong medical advisor Dr. Adriana Stacey, who often co-presents with Hempe at events…said her preferred approach to social change is the one often attributed to Mother Teresa—“If you want to bring peace to the world, go home and love your family”—and she sees much of the harm from screens coinciding with the breakdown of the American family. Read
4 Reasons Every Student Should Read the Federalist Papers by Mary Frances Loughran at Cana Academy. Why should every high-schooler read The Federalist Papers? Winning American independence from the British empire was a monumental feat. Launching and maintaining the new republic proved even greater. Students have no better window into the vision and strategies of the Founders than by closely reading what Madison, Hamilton, and Jay argued. Read
Stop Constantly Asking Your Kids How They Feel by Abigail Shrier at The Wall Street Journal. Emotion ‘check-ins’ can encourage a self-destructive mindset in young people, who need to learn to manage and sometimes ignore their fleeting feelings. Hang around families with young children for an afternoon and you’ll hear parents checking that their kids are enjoying their ice cream, excited about school the next day, that they had fun at the park. So many questions are about their feelings in the moment. The signal to kids is clear: Your happiness is the ultimate goal; it’s what we’re all living for. But we may have this backward, according to some research psychologists. Read
Chris McKenna on Parenting in a Digital Age by Chris McKenna at The Heights Forum. Listen in to hear more about how parents can flip a challenge into an adventure by accompanying their sons through a digital world where pornography and distraction saturate the landscape. As always, the obstacle becomes the way, and by keeping our sights set on the good while fearlessly walking with our sons, we can rely on grace to help our boys grow into men with hearts capable of profound and lasting love. Listen
2 Female Saints to Inspire Catholic Educators by Isabella H. de Carvalho at Aleteia. A conference in Rome highlighted 2 female saints that made it their mission to teach all…The event focused on the stories of 10 holy women and what they have to teach both men and women today. For the panel on “charity in education,” the speakers focused on St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Mary Mackillop, whose stories, despite both being marked by adversity and difficulty, showed their dedication to providing education for all. Read
Nature Journaling and Rendering by Colleen Richards at The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. Spring is the perfect time for nature journaling, especially in those regions with pronounced seasons. Many a classroom teacher has asked students to list the signs of Spring. How much better it is to go outside and engage deeply with the created world: to run, to play, to put hands in the dirt, and also to see. Read
Catholic Group, Others Advocate for Tax Credits to Benefit Kansas Private Schools by Rachel Mipro at Kansas Reflector. Parents who send their children to un-accredited private schools in the state could receive a hefty tax credit under new legislation. Public school advocates warn against the proposal, characterizing the move as a blatant voucher scheme that could harm the state’s public school system…Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, testified in support of the move. Read
Catholic Schools in New York Fight to Stay Open by Madalaine Elhabbal at CatholicVote. Catholic schools in New York are struggling to remain afloat as financial resources dwindle. According to a local report, Catholic schools in Western New York are fighting to stay open since the Diocese of Buffalo was “forced” to stop providing financial support. To combat school closures, a new local charity organization, the Catholic Children’s Learning Corporation (CCLC), has launched a campaign to raise awareness of financial hardships that need to be overcome by the diocese and its partners to promote Catholic education. Read
Mary Rice Hasson Named Visiting Fellow for Franciscan University’s Veritas Center by Kate Quiñones at Catholic News Agency. Franciscan University of Steubenville has announced that Catholic writer and speaker Mary Rice Hasson will be a visiting fellow for the school’s Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life…The Veritas Center’s mission is “to bring faithful Catholic scholarly reflection to bear on the most pressing ethical questions in contemporary culture — questions of marriage and sexuality, war and peace, life and death, as well as economic and social justice,” the school’s March 5 press release read. Read
Throwback Thursday
The Countercultural Practice of Virtue by Daniel McInerny at The Catholic Thing on August 14, 2015. Children can commence the study of arithmetic at the age of six or seven, if not before, because arithmetic is aimed solely at the student’s burgeoning understanding. Not so with ethics and politics. Success in the study of ethics and politics demands that the student come to class already in possession of a decent amount of experience and moral formation…Children absorb more about what it means to be a decent human being by watching their parents and relatives than by listening, or half-listening, to the explicit moral instructions these same parents and relatives give them. So what we most need in order to effect moral and political change are practices in good working order – first among them being, of course, the family. Read