RCL Benziger's Faith First for Families Site

Four years ago, our entire diocese began to use RCL's Faith First Legacy Edition for Kindergarten through grade 8. (This was back when it was still just RCL, before they absorbed Benziger and Silver Burdett Ginn.)

A big selling point of Faith First was their website faithfirst.com. It contains links for students, catechists, religious education leaders, whole community catechesis and families. It is their link for families, found at http://faithfirst.com/html/family/family.html
that we're going to explore.

There are fourteen links on the Faith First for Families site, half for parents to use on their own and half for the parents and children to use together. These links are especially helpful for families using the At Home Family Guide for home-schooling, as it gives them extra resources These links appear to be updated at varying times over the course of the liturgical year.

The parent links include: Just for Parents, currently an excellent list of 10 reasons why your family should eat dinner together; Make a Difference; Gospel Reflections, which was being updated and thus was unavailable; an excellent piece called Questions Kids Ask, (also available in Spanish) which has a terrific response to "What makes Catholics different from other religions?"; an About Your Child section that explains where your child is physically, cognitively, relationship- and religious growth-wise; Saints--which lets you know where the current saint can be found in the Faith First Legacy Edition books; and Current Events, with a pertinent, yet outdated article on the Respect for Life theme evidently written in October of 2008.

The family together links are: Bible Stories, which also includes a background to the story for parents, as well as where in the text series the scripture occurs; Story Time, a children's story I found puzzling as it was unconnected to anything else on the site; Family Prayer; an informative Tour of a Church; Games, which were very simple with out-dated graphics; Movie Reviews by Kids, all of which were done by one young person, and which were also outdated; and Family Meal Prayer.

James Fowler's Stages of Faith, The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning presents a continuum of faith development with six stages. Stage one is generally ages three to seven; Stage two is up until puberty; Stage three--typically adolescence, although some adults may remain stalled here; Stage four---the point at which the late adolescent or adult must take responsablity for their own lifestyle, beliefs, etc; Stage five--"dialogical" faith, rare before middle age; and Stage six--rare at all.

On the purely parent side of things, the website challenges the parents even up to Stage 5, especially in parts of the Just for Parents link and the Current Events link. It would be beneficial if the Current Events could be that=>Current, however. On the family together side, while it's touted as being for K-8, I saw nothing that would truly engage a youth beyond Stage 2, except perhaps the Church Tour, but that is a one-time-only activity. The Prayers were well written, and would draw in adults, at any stage, but the Games and Movies skewed very young, and, again, outdated. In this day and age, it is vital to stay current with technology and information.

Overall, and especially for parents looking for background information to help them to stay informed as Catholic Christian parents, I would recommend the RCL Benziger Faith First for Families Site. Keep checking back on a regular basis to see their updates!