Parents need to love the Faith, love God, love the Blessed Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and have the saints as their friends and real-life role models.

If the parents are warriors and love the Faith, spending lots of time & effort on it themselves, the children will perceive that the Faith is something truly wonderful, good, and valuable.

There must be love and spiritual happiness/peace in the household, with serving God as the foundation. There should be "peaceful consciences all around" which is the ONLY foundation of any kind of happiness or peace.

And yes, it's important for the family to do things TOGETHER, to form close bonds. Including things related to the Faith.

The Faith is not about pure negativity. If it's all sour faces, privations, isolation, beatings, hypocrisy of the parents, self-indulgence of the parents, etc. then yes, the kids won't be on board.

And last but not least, children form their idea about God's fatherhood from their father. Is he absent? Well then God is far off and absent, and doesn't love them. Yes, you MIGHT be able to override some of this with enough prayer/study/training -- but human nature is the current of the stream. You will be forever swimming upstream, which is far more difficult. You don't want psychology/human nature to be your enemy, EVER, if you can help it. Psychologically, children get their idea of God from how their earthly father behaves. It's how they learn about fatherhood, authority, Providence, father's love -- and God.

It's how God created and designed the world. He gives us visible stand-ins (representatives, vicars) for Himself in different contexts: the Pope, our earthly fathers, etc. We call it "having authority". It's why fundamentally, with rare exceptions, Catholics are not rebels. Only under certain very specific circuмstances should Catholics "rebel".

God created the "Patriarchy". Interesting how that's become the worst thing ever, in current year, according to feminism. Also, Americans are allergic to any kind of authoritarianism -- any kind of top-down authority that doesn't originate with the ones governed (which is ludicrous, if you think about it. If I give permission for you to rule me, then I'm really ruling myself)

And to be fair, traditionally, it wasn't within the "life kit" of Catholics to seek adventure and to be bold in the practice of one's faith.  You could simply rely upon the priests and the magisterium to set the course, and fulfill your baseline obligations thusly.  That is how the post-Vatican II juggernaut of modernist error swept through like a hurricane, some folks might not have liked the changes, might not have understood their implications, but obeyed because they were told to.  (That, plus the itch to be like the larger society and to have an easier life, marry people they should not or even could not marry, practice contraception, get divorced, eat meat on Fridays, be like Protestants and have a vernacular liturgy, and so on.  There was no shortage of priests telling their penitents that "conscience" trumps everything else, and for many, their moral reasoning began and ended with whatever a liberal priest told them.)

What disturbs me as a parent, that a priest can say Mass to fast.  So, I actually see, youth of school age, with parents at Mass without missals. I don't like what I see.  Young men with hands in their pockets to receive Our Lord.  Parents, right there behind them.  Young ladies who could wear clothing, more that is and show less skin such as arms and such.

Now, where is their heart? The elderly see this and say, "Where is the reverence?"   

Knowledge= shows in attitude, and = to behavior.  It starts at home, parents

How about everybody focus on themselves, instead of worrying about other people and how they raise their children.

It's not just about raising children, but the children's apathy is a bad sign of a bigger problem. Children should be the last ones to lose a sense of wonder and adventure.

Quote from: girlytrad
If the children are apathetic it is only because the parents are apathetic, in a spiritual sense.

We're not in this life to have adventures. But to embrace The Cross.

I fully agree with this post. However, embracing the Cross is the greatest adventure one can ever have. We are not in this life for comfort, novelty, or fleeting thrills. True heroism and eternal reward come from taking up the Cross, following Christ faithfully, and enduring all trials for His love. As Scripture says, “And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38, Douay-Rheims). This is the supreme adventure, the path that leads to Heaven.