Parents and their children participated in numerous activities during the faith-based, nationally-recognized Family Honor program, which places a special emphasis on chastity.

By Amy Cherry
Daily Press Staff

As a catalyst to help bring families closer together, students and parents recently participated in the nationally-recognized Family Honor program. 

Forty families gathered at Elk County Catholic High School on Friday and Saturday as part of the faith-based program which focuses on providing tools for parents and their children to connect on important life issues, with a special emphasis on chastity and God’s gift of sexuality.

“One of the unique aspects of this program is the requirement that the parent(s) attend with their child,” noted Laurey Kraus, a local Family Honor team member.

Joining Kraus in bringing the program to the St. Marys area are local Youth Minister Aaron Pfoutz and fellow team member Marilyn Keyes.

As part of the program, parents and their children participated in a variety of activities which included games, skits, straight talk and a Powerpoint presentation. Separate sessions were conducted for parents, children, family, men and women.

The six presenters, including three men and three women, included two teenagers to help give creditability to the program and help children better relate to the topics.

A big premise of the program draws lessons from Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”, his teachings on the subject of human sexuality and that the body is a vehicle through which we speak the language of love.

Other topics discussed include a healthy family life, psychosexual development of children and adolescents, communication skills that support family “connectedness”, history and trends in sex education and fertility appreciation.

A catalyst to the founding of the Family Honor program is the growing crisis of children not respecting their bodies and shown in the rise in sexually transmitted diseases in younger adolescents as well as the issue of teen pregnancy.

“The program emphasizes that our sexuality if a gift from God, not to be abused as some people see sexuality as recreational instead of a life-long commitment,” said Pfoutz.

Pfoutz added that much of the program’s research is based on a variety of government studies and is primarily geared toward middle school students.

He explained that surveys conducted in the late 90s show that parents still have the most influence over their children as compared to their peers.

“Parents needs to be taking over the responsibility of this issue. Many times they don’t realize the influence they have over their children,” Kraus said. “They can really give them the direction they need.”

“It’s not so much irresponsible parenting, but rather parents that don’t know what to say,” Pfoutz added.

The program supplies the parents with a means of communicating this delicate issue to their children. Friday evening’s session focused solely on communication issues.

“When a parent chooses not to talk, they say a lot,” Kraus said.

Local organizers learned about the Family Honor program after being notified by area parishioners who attended an event with their children in Erie last April.

“The Family Honor program is the only Catholic family-centered program of its kind,” said Keyes.

The program began 18 years ago in South Carolina and is growing in popularity across the country.

Pfoutz and 12 team members participated in program training offered through Newman University in Wichita, KS, consisting of 120 hours of coursework. After the initial training process, the group traveled to South Carolina to finish the classwork. As part of the final requirements team members hosted this weekend’s event, observing presenters from South Carolina.