Patrick J. DiVietri, Ph.D.

See Formation in Christian Love: V 1: Christian Family Life Education

Family Life Education is the communication of values and knowledge from parents to their children.  These values reflect and guard the intimacy of the members as they reveal themselves and grow to maturity.  These values reflect the dignity of the human person and bring the freedom of the person to give and receive the sincere gift of self.

         Family Life Education uniquely takes place within family life.   The formation of values takes place in a unique way within the family.  Values unite a family and are acquired, cultivated and shared within a family because only the family can know and love its members personally and unconditionally.  Although these values are contained within society they overflow from the family and are realized in a personal and intimate way.

Values are unique within a family

      The uniqueness of family life is based upon the uniqueness of the relationship between the parents.  Parents present the total gift of self expressed and protected by the goods of marriage and the vow of unconditional love based upon those goods.   The virtues and values that support, express and manifest that love in daily life are the subject of family life education. 

         The family creates an atmosphere of trust and respect.  The intimacy of the person can be revealed and guarded while one changes and grows,  developing the freedom to give oneself as a gift, first within the immediate family, to God and then to others.

         Properly speaking education involves the formation in love of a person’s intimacy.  This occurs under the guidance of those who are committed to guard, encourage and form that person in a spirit of unconditional love for all of life.  It is this quality that separates family life education from all other forms of education.  This education finds its foundation in the unconditional love of parents for their children and the parent’s unique knowledge of each child.

  It is the sharing, acceptance and respect of intimacy

      Intimacy is the radical knowledge of a person.  The more radical the knowledge, the more personal and thus the more private and therefore the more it is to be protected.  Intimate things must be presented in an intimate setting.  The family is the most intimate setting.  This is why they family has an irreplaceable role in the education of children.  There are things that cannot be dealt with outside of the family setting.

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