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MAPS for life, Catholic Publications & Ministry

Intentional Catholic Parenting Series: Birth through Adulthood
that is focused on the whole child across six areas of child development.
AFFECTIVE - SOCIAL - CREATIVE - COGNITIVE - LANGUAGE - PHYSICAL 

Intentional Catholic Parenting Series

Intentional Catholic Parenting Series: Birth Through Adulthood is an approach to parenting that is rooted in the teachings and values of the Catholic Faith. It emphasizes the importance of raising children for heaven by instilling and integrating Gospel values and principles throughout their daily lives.  This series of books, is focused on six domains of development (affective, social, creative, cognitive, language, and physical) from birth through adulthood.  The series offers parents over 1400 activity ideas and experiences that help parents support and nurture their children's growth, development, and learning.  The activity ideas and experiences incorporate FAITH FORMATION, MORAL AND ETHICAL VALUES, SACREMENTAL LIFE, MODELING, PRAYER AND WORSHIP, DISCIPLINE AND GUIDANCE, FAMILY VALUES, AND SERVICE TO OTHERS.

The Intentional Catholic Parenting Series engages parents in a deliberate and thoughtful approach to raising children in the Catholic faith, with a focus on spiritual development, moral values, and active participation in the life of the Church and the wider community. It is about creating an environment where children can grow in their Catholic faith and values, preparing them for a life rooted in Christian principles.

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What Prompted the Writing of The Intentional Catholic Parenting Series?

  1. Supporting Parenting and Teaching Challenges: We all know that parenting and teaching can be challenging. This book can ease the frustration and difficulties parents and teachers face by showing them what to expect at each stage of development and how to support and challenge children within each stage, following my maxim, “Support children where they are and challenge them to where they have yet to go.”

  2. Knowledge Sharing: I am passionate about sharing my expertise and knowledge in child development to help parents and educators understand the complexities of children's growth and behavior. I want to empower parents and teachers with the information they need to make informed parenting and teaching decisions that are driven by intentionality.

  3. Assisting Parents and Teachers: These six books serve as practical guides to assist parents and teachers in intentionally creating nurturing environments for children from birth through adulthood. My passion is to offer insights into children’s developmental stages and the challenges facing adults in raising and teaching children.

  4. Filling a Gap: There are always gaps in the available resources. This book attempts to address specific needs or topics that are underrepresented in existing literature, ensuring that parents and teachers have access to comprehensive information

  5. Sharing Personal -Professional Experience: Throughout these six books, you will encounter my own personal experiences with child development challenges, both as a parent and as an educator, as I share my journey, lessons learned, and successful strategies

  6. Highlighting Research-Based Information: These publications present scientific research- and evidence-based practices. In them, I try to translate complex research findings into practical advice that can be easily understood and applied by parents and teachers.

  7. Sharing My Passion for Education: I hope the reader will develop their own passion for parenting and nurturing the development of the "whole child".  I have written this series of books to contribute to the field of parent and teacher education, promote best practices for raising and teaching children, and inspire a love of learning in both children and adults.

  8. Advocating for BEST Practices: It is my deepest desire to be an advocate for developmentally appropriate practices and best practices, that defend and support the way children grow, learn, and develop. Our educational system and strong emphasis on curriculum at the expense of children have had a detrimental effect on our children’s ability to learn, readiness to learn, and enjoyment of learning.

  9. Providing Professional Development: I hope this book can enhance the professional development of teachers and educators and serve as a valuable resource.

In essence, writing this series of books about child development for parents and teachers is motivated by my desire to inform, support, and empower those responsible for the well-being and education of children. I acknowledge that every author of parent and teacher publications has their own unique perspective and motivations.  I also believe that our common goal is always to contribute to the healthy development and education of the next generation.

In Exodus 20:6 we read, “For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation but showing love down to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” And again in Deuteronomy 7:9-16, we read, “Know, then, that the LORD, your God, is God: the faithful God who keeps covenant mercy to the thousandth generation toward those who love him and keep his commandments.”

intentional catholic parenting

Parenting Is A Generational Contract With God!

Why begin with these two Scripture passages? It’s simple. We need to claim God’s promise and live like we believe it and desire it; that is to say, we must love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, not only for our own salvation but for the salvation of our children and our children’s children for a thousand generations to come. This is how I want to begin the discussion of nurturing children’s growth, development, and learning.

Children Are Not Born With A Manual In Hand To Tell Us How To Raise Them 

 

Keeping these two scriptures in mind, let’s begin. Perhaps you have heard it said in casual conversations, “Children are not born with a manual in hand to tell us how to raise them.” This is simply our way of talking about the frustrations and inadequacies we feel in raising our children. It is perhaps our way of saying we wish we would have had some training or a few books to read before we actually began parenting and working with children, or it may be our way of saying we wish we had some child development resources right now to refer to as we parent and relate to children.

 

Physicians study medicine and, along the way, build their personal medical libraries long before they give their first medical diagnosis. Similarly, attorneys study law and develop their personal libraries, as do many other professionals. Bringing this analogy a bit closer to home, most have shelves full of “how-to” books and reference the internet almost daily for cooking, gardening, home repairs, computers and computer apps, travel, and first aid. Yet, most of us do not have “how-to” child development books to reference on the spur of the moment or have knowledge of how to search the internet to find ways to support and nurture our children’s growth, development, and learning.

 

I would have liked to have had at least one such book when I was raising my four children. I did have plenty of cumbersome child development college textbooks, but none of these books were parent-friendly. They were simply too theoretical to be useful or even understandable. In the past, I browsed bookstore shelves and discovered numerous books that focused on a single child development topic such as how to discipline children or what to expect during a particular stage of their development.

 

I had yet to find child development resources based on the theories of the most prominent developmental researchers and authors. I researched people who studied the developmental stages of learning, self-concept, morality, socialization and play or leisure, creativity, thinking, language, and physicality, people like Piaget, Kohlberg, Vygotsky, Torrence, Parten, Bandura, Dewey, Gardner, etc., all who wrote about what they researched and learned about our human growth and development from birth to adulthood. I put what they said into a parent-teacher handbook that was written in everyday language, easy to reference, easy-to-read, and above all, easy to use.

 

Each of the books focuses on all aspects of children’s development and offers parents and teachers a comprehensive, user-friendly reference book that defines and describes the development of the “whole child” across six areas of their development called “domains.” Ninety-six developmental characteristics are presented across the six domains. The books then suggest specific activities to do, that support and nurture children in each of the 96 characteristics of their development

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