A Family Life Unit (FLU) was launched at the Malabar parish in 2006 and we would like to share three of the events that the unit undertook since its inception.

On November 26, the Women’s Ministry and the Family Life Unit jointly hosted a panel discussion with the theme The Challenges of Parenting in the 21st Century.

The panel was comprised of a couple, Hilary and Sandy Bengochea, a single parent (divorcee) Marcelline Cooper, two youth from GANG, Dayne Marc Chinslick and N’koma Monsegue and a psychologist, Marina Torres.

The evening began with a skit performed by the duo, Patrice Briggs and Darin Gibson from the group Arts in Action. The skit depicted the challenges of a home with a single mother and a young son and was followed by an interesting interactive session ably led by Ms Briggs. This skit assisted in focussing the audience’s attention more keenly on the panellists.

The panellists highlighted family challenges including parenting as seen on TV, the sexual culture - glamorised by popular music and media, the mall – the new community centre, viable methods of communicating with children, conflict resolution and the imperfection of parents.

Banner on display

Fr Robert LLanos

Offertory procession

The views shared were that children are not ours but are given to us by God to nurture so that they can go out into the world and make the world a better place. Parents must be confident to stand their ground and be light in their homes.

They must recognise valid values in today’s society and live those values. Parents must be parents first and not just friends to their children. This mean that as Christ is love, they too must reflect Christ’s love in their homes.

Hug your children, keep the channels of communication open, spiritually, educationally and socially, socialise as a family (show them how to enjoy life and so be less likely to become bored).

Loving also means saying no sometimes, managing time for music, TV, mall, DVD, computer, car, recreation etc.  Parents must speak to their children re their sexual well-being and so combat the other voices on the matter concerning sex.

Parenting requires much loving self-sacrifice and the nurturing role of the absent partner in a single parent family is critical for the holistic development of the child in that situation.

Parents must assess themselves and accept that may not have all the answers and may need outside help to attempt to master parenting. That help may be sessions on conflict resolution that they can practice at home, it may be psychological counselling, or it may be the support of the extended family. Most importantly, the support of God is essential to guide and sustain parents.

The parents and youth in the audience had an opportunity to voice their concerns and the evening ended with a sharing and promise to initiate plans to follow-up on topics related to minimizing the impact of the challenges to parenting.

This discussion was followed by an attempt to encourage more participation of youth at the Holy Innocent commemoration as we recognize the importance of all youth and the need to nurture and not abuse our young ones.

We closed the year with a celebration of family at the Feast of the Holy Family on the weekend of December 31st. The greeters at the beginning of Mass, the lectors/cantor, the intercessors, the collectors and presenters of the gifts at the offertory were all family members whether, nuclear, foster or extended families.

A similar activity took place on the same weekend in all parish communities. The impact of children learning from the actions (positive or negative) of their parents and the reclaiming of the family from the world culture were again emphasised by Father Robert Llanos, Episcopal Vicar for Family Life. These views were well received by the congregation.

It is up to each and every one for us to live that message and be beacons to other families to reclaim the Christian family.