Being a parent is a challenging and sometimes thankless job. We here at the school want to partner with you as members of the school and parish community to raise healthy, faithful and independent children. It is important today to try to balance the freedoms that children are seeking with the responsibility of placing healthy boundaries on their freedoms. Many times it is hard to know how much freedom to give our children and how to best prepare them for being adults. It can also be a challenge to know how to best help our children when we see them struggling.

There has been a rise recently in the levels of anxiety in children, which can lead to parents trying to minimize the struggles that children have to go through, but there can also be consequences to trying to remove challenges from our children. According to the Center of Disease Control, (CDC) the levels of anxiety and children aged 6–17 years increased from 5.4% in 2003 to 8% in 2007 and to 8.4% in 2011–2012. Anxiety has also increased from 5.5% in 2007 to 6.4% in 2011–2012. Attached is an article that gives practical information about some ways we as a community can prepare children for challenges and triumphs today.