I mean taught in catechism classes and in Catholic books and magazines. Really, even officially what the Church had to say about non-Catholics and the likelihood of their salvation changed considerably with Vatican II, and it resulted in an entirely different attitude "on the ground" among your average Catholic, as well.

Well, it was taught to children that it was wrong to attend any Protestant service, and now that isn't taught. Is this a change in actual Church dogma? No, but it certainly is a change in what was taught to the people.

Teaching the consequences of sin doesn't have to involve emotional manipulation, though. A formed conscience causes guilt whenever one does what is wrong, you don't have to TEACH children to feel badly about sin. Teaching right and wrong, love of God and Truth, will result in healthy, not overboard or scrupulous, guilt when one acts against one's conscience. Focusing on teaching children to feel badly constantly is what leads to scrupulosity, which is as dangerous to one's faith as laxity. All I'm saying is that the notion of Catholic guilt arose because catechesis sometimes went overboard, teaching and encouraging Catholics to feel guilty for every little thing, and to fear sin and Hell without an accompanying trust in the mercy of God. Catechesis was unbalanced, just as it become unbalanced in the 70s and 80s as the situation was "overcorrected" into an opposite error. Rejecting the initial imbalance doesn't mean I'm promoting the equally false "overcorrection."

I'm sorry, that doesn't follow logically. Lazarus died because sin had entered the world, as did death, but not because of "our sinfulness" but because of the Fall. Jesus wept at the death of his good friend, that doesn't mean that he wept in this instance because I sin.

Where does Scripture or Church doctrine teach that Christ wept for our sins? I know some saints encouraged such pietistic and emotional meditations and other saints discouraged them, and I'm free to choose sides.

What grade range is All American History aimed at? Is there a website?

I'm not who you are quoting, but those things AREN'T designed to cause emotional manipulation, and that image is, and I have a major problem with that. It wasn't my language, but I could see labeling that sort of emotional manipulation as "disturbing."

I'm sorry, I don't disagree with teaching the consequences of sin but I very much disagree with emotional manipulation and intentionally encouraging guilt. It is simply NOT the same to me as encouraging proper formation of conscience including knowledge of the consequence of sin. Our sins don't make God sad, our sins offend against the Truth and against God's goodness. You don't need to layer sappy sweet emotion on this to communicate the Truth, I absolutely believe that it detracts from the Truth, rather than encouraging it.

But do you use the term "Catholic guilt"? I only ever hear this particular phrase used by lapsed or ex-Catholics, as meaning a sense of guilt that is sticking around and that they can't get rid of, although they'd like to do so. Now, yes a practicing Catholic will probably have a more sensitive conscience than a lapsed Catholic, but I don't hear them use the term "Catholic guilt." They tend to consider the term slightly offensive or misplaced.

I do want to point out that this isn't an issue of doctrine, but an issue of catechesis or teaching. The trend was to purposely instill guilt and fear in order to get children to behave. Catechesis has moved far away from that, in my experience.

"Catholic guilt" is mostly just a catch phrase, and I find that the people most likely to use it are those who are no longer practicing Catholics. They tend to mean that they feel guilty about things that they intellectually believe are morally fine, or feel guilty for little or no reason. In the 40s and 50s the catechesis (religious education) of Catholic children tended to be very rigid, very black and white and intentionally guilt inducing. I think the notion was that you should scare the children into being good. To me, images like this one (from a catechism I own but chose not to use) are designed to be emotionally manipulative and guilt inducing: I could find you more examples from this text, like information about how our sins made Christ suffer, encouraging children to think about their own sinfulness when they see a crucifix. Not the sort of thing I like to encourage, myself.

I do think that eating healthy and caring for oneself in general is important, BUT you can do everything "right" and still die a horrible, painful death. You may be less likely to, but you're not guaranteed a nice ending.

Yup, which is why we would not become a member.

Different diagnoses on the autism spectrum can look very different, yet I've also seen people who seem to use their child's diagnoses as a way to gain attention. These stand out, because the VAST majority of parents with a child with a diagnosable condition would never do this. So you could be right that something is "off." I don't really know how to handle it, though. One of my husband's sisters seemed to do this, and her behavior was in marked contrast to his other sister with a child with AS, and my family that I know with kids with AS. We'd tried to be truly supportive without feeding the apparent attention seeking behavior, but this didn't work out. This summer she decided that her family wasn't supportive enough, and she hasn't talked to us for several months. So apparently we fubared that one.

:iagree: Someone can very much dislike one part of their lifestyle or a choice they've made, while that choice is still the best choice for their family.

Absolutely. Kicking a cat is worth more than an apology, though, there should be concrete work on anger management.

I have no experience with it myself, but am curious and am considering it next year.

I couldn't get it to load, but had no trouble saving it. Right-click on the link then choose "save link as."

Any information helps! Reading through all the reviews, I'm thinking that I'll just wait until my oldest is ready for level 2, and not bother about level 1. Now I just need to find something else to do for next year.

Mainly because I like the idea of using different history sources, to counter bias. I like that HO uses more than one spine for this reason. Thanks for the links! I'll check those out.

I had this problem for parts 2 and 3, and downloaded them a second time. They installed OK that time.

I did the first lesson of beginning reading with my 4 1/2 year old, and did lesson 30 of Funnix 2 with my first grader. Beginning Reading is very similar to the methodology of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, but I don't have to be the one to sound like an idiot. ;) It was fine. I liked the lesson from Funnix 2, I think we'll likely keep using this, we were looking for something different for my first grader.

I'm looking for a secular, or at least non-sectarian, literature-rich history program, and this is the closest I've found to what I'm looking for. However, I haven't heard much about it. Can anyone share their experiences with me, what you liked and what you didn't? Anyone have other suggestions for history? Some things I'm wondering about: Does it work well to combine two kids at differing levels? How do you choose a level if your kids aren't at the beginning? Next year my kids will be in K (who I'll probably just ignore for history), 2nd and 4th grade, and I'm not sure whether we'd want to start with the ancient history grammar level or not. I wouldn't be able to bring my 4th grade through 3 four year cycles, but the four year cycle also isn't very important to me. We've been lax on history, and my first grader isn't doing history this year, my 3rd is doing American history, based solely on biographies. Is it mostly open and go? I do a horrible job of getting around to planning and prep and need something easy for me. We do have an all-in-one printer/copier/scanner so copying isn't a huge deal.

I downloaded and installed the first part with no problem, but I can't get the second part to install.

Nope, Catholics believe we are saved by grace and grace alone. That grace results in both faith and the capability of doing good works and it demands our acceptance and cooperation, but it all originates in grace merited by Christ. From the Catechism: 1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46 1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church. 1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.47 There's much more here: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a2.htm