It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here! Parents and parishes, we’d like to introduce you to Real Love & Real Life: Living the Faith, Family Honor’s new take on one of our classic parent-teen programs.
For those of you who are “Family Honor Real Love & Real Life Alumni,” you’ll likely remember a program that you attended with your 7th or 8th grader. It had lots of colorful graphics and posters, big chart pads and easels, folders with handouts, funny skits, and, of course, props and equipment.
Well, the large graphics and posters are gone, as are the folders, easels, and chart pads.
What families will experience now is a program that responded to feedback from moms and dads, looks more contemporary, and meets the needs of today’s families in several ways. Here’s a brief overview:
♥ A Parent-only Session
It’s tough raising kids at any time, but our culture today is aggressively pushing harmful ‘choices’ to kids that look and sound appealing. As a parent, it can be hard to know how to respond to your young teen’s questions or ‘statements’ that don’t reflect your family’s values. In RL&RL: Keeping the Faith, we devote all of Session 1 just for parents. We’ll provide resources and research that will assist you in responding effectively to your child’s questions – and challenges – on some of today’s key moral issues.
♥ Parent-Teen Togetherness
In the older version of the Real Love & Real Life program, we had a couple of ‘breakout’ sessions, with parents and teens separated; parents were in one room and teens in another. In RL&RL: Keeping the Faith, parents are together with your son or daughter during all of Session 2 and 3. (Note that for the Fertility Appreciation segment, we do have dads and sons in one room and moms with their daughters in another.) This program is a tremendous opportunity for parents to sit shoulder to shoulder with your teen and hear about some of the most important topics in life TOGETHER.
♥ Virtue and Vocations
In RL&RL: Keeping the Faith, we’ve included a bit more material on virtues, both the virtue of Chastity and the four Cardinal Virtues. We know that providing an understanding of virtue is part of the key in helping young people make wise choices.
Likewise, we’re including a couple of beautiful personal testimonies from a young priest and a young religious sister regarding their vocation choice and their desire to be closer to God.
♥ Graphics
Many will be happy to learn that 90% of our graphics and visual material will now be presented via colorful PowerPoints and videos!
♥ The Best of the Rest
We have kept some of the content from the older Real Live & Real Life program, including the Honeymoon skit and the Peer Pressure skit. Families consistently rated those segments as both fun AND effective in getting their message across. We also kept much of the content of the Fertility Appreciation segment, but it has been updated with fresh, new PowerPoints.
Parents, pastors, and ministry leaders: it is absolutely critical to provide young people with the truth and meaning of God’s gift of sexuality and the virtue of chastity. The messages they are receiving via social media, music, sports figures, and celebrities are leading many impressionable teens away from their faith and into activities and beliefs that will only cause them heartache and pain.
We plead with parents to engage with your teens and children on this critical topic. Our faith teaches and research shows that it is parents who are to be the primary educators of their children in this important area:
The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family
Remember, Family Honor is here to help and support parents. To find out more about bringing a Family Honor family-centered program to your area, please contact us today by using our Contact Us form or 803.929.0858.