Since a strong conscience is like an anchor to God’s truth and a life steeped in Gospel teaching, it’s worth some prayerful attention.

Explain it

Simply put, our conscience is how God communicates with us about our words and actions. You can think of it as a muscle that needs to be developed and strengthened. The Holy Spirit helps us hear and properly respond to God’s promptings. Help kids learn to ask the Holy Spirit to help them follow these promptings. Those yucky feelings when we do or almost do something wrong are telling us something. Talk about noticing them, feeling them and responding to them. It’s also important to talk about the outcome when we might ignore them.

Right and wrong

There really is right and wrong, and it’s based in God’s truth. Society today seems to paint a lot of gray, but living out our sainthood requires us to follow God’s laws and Church teachings. Kids need to understand that “getting away with something” doesn’t make it right. My kids hated it when they faced a consequence when others seemed to skate by, but I was always happy to point out that God chose me to be their mom, not anybody else’s. Learning right from wrong – and the why – comes from lots of conversation. Truth spoken in love is the key.

Consequences

Our words and actions have consequences. It’s never just about one person; others are always affected and it’s necessary for kids to see how far things can ripple out. Empathy and compassion are crucial and when we help our kids learn that what we do and say affects others their perspective widens and words like forgiveness and making amends begin to have deeper meaning. Use movies, books or other real-life examples (rather than evaluating classmates or neighbors) to show how actions can ripple out in both positive and negative ways.

Humble focus

A great point of conversation is the reality that things won’t always be fair and doing the right thing isn’t always easy. Humility means putting the Father first … his will, his way, his truth. Sometimes the only reason to do the good thing is because we love God and want to grow closer to him.

Be the mirror

Mercy, honesty, repentance and grace are the reflection of a well-formed conscience. The most powerful way to teach these attributes is to show them, demonstrate them, encourage them and require them from ourselves and our children.