I would think this fundamental aspect of parenting would go without saying, but often it does not: Sometimes a child doesn’t abide by basic Catholicism because he is completely undisciplined by his parents and basically does whatever he pleases.

You can’t train your child to be Catholic if you have no control over him in the first place.

While discipline is beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say that healthy, firm, loving, discipline is essential to raising and keeping your children Catholic; and children must learn self-discipline to be successful in life. (This, of course, means you have to teach it to them.)

If your children flagrantly and fearlessly flout what you tell them to do, you aren’t really disciplining them correctly. Furthermore, if your child can’t ever tell himself “no,” he will quickly destroy himself as an adult.