Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 372 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 372 – Part II. How do parents respect their children?

(Youcat answer - repeated) God entrusted children to parents so that they might be steady, righteous examples for those children, that they might love and respect them and do everything possible so that their children can develop physically and spiritually.   

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2223 a) Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom.

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Children are a gift from God and not the property of the parents. Before they are their parents’ children, they are God’s children. The primary duty of parents is to present to their children the Good News and to communicate the Christian faith to them.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2223 b) Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones" (CA 36 § 2). Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them: He who loves his son will not spare the rod.... He who disciplines his son will profit by him (Sir 30:1-2). Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4).  

(This question: How do parents respect their children? is continued)