CATHOLIC DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS: Lesson Six: Seven Warning Signs to teach your children about the Devil.

In all my lessons learned about how to traverse the minefields of life without being maimed and wounded by Satan, there are seven that every mom and dad should make sure they teach their children. Parents are the best teachers for their children because they shape not only what they think but also how they think about everything. Growing up, children see their moms and dads doing something and follow it, until they realize why they do it. The big caveat in this, of course, is that parents can’t force belief about Jesus on anyone, least of all on those they love. The basics of human nature kick in early in life, when individuals become individualistic and take on their own view of reality. The best parents can do is to give them what best equips their individual personalities to be aware of their Catholic heritage.

Like our animal lineage, mother polar bears teach their cubs how to survive in the environment. The young learn from the old how to act, but eventually, as is proper, become independent and forage out on their own—the same with your children. What you can do, while you are with them face to face, is, like the mother polar bear, teach them survival skills. You don’t, and in fact can’t, know what your children will face in the future, or even whether they will fall away from the Church (think of St. Monica’s frustration with an early Augustine). One thing is constant in what a parent gives to their children. I will love you deeply as long as you live, with whatever life choices you make, but you must know that my most important trust from God, as a steward over my children, is to tell you when you think you are doing something right that God thinks is wrong. What you do with the advice is why you have reason and free will. No one forces love, but you can do your best, as moms and dads, to give them how to ward off the attacks of the Devil on their humanity and their Catholic heritage.

I offer these seven as discussion topics between you and your children.

SEVEN SHORT PITFALLS MOMS AND DADS SHOULD ADDRESS WITH THEIR CHILDREN.

1. Know the difference between television and literature in terms of what is real and what is fiction. What you see on television may or may not align with what God shared with us as our heritage.
2. There is a difference between the absolute truth from God and the opinions of other humans. Trust in God alone, not in the trappings of wealth, nor the adulation of people whose only reason to love you is like cotton candy, with no substance, even if it tastes good.
3. Beware of any human political party or humanistic way of thinking that seduces you into thinking they possess moral truths and are the only way to be human. The Devil uses the human desire to help others to mislead the young (not in age) into thinking what is evil is good.
4. Just because your road in life is rocky, doesn’t mean you are on the wrong road. Choosing to be Catholic means a constant conversion of false self to true self. The Catholic Church helps us do that visibly, while Christ and the Holy Spirit are with us spiritually in the upper room of our inner selves, which you need to use daily.
5. Your purpose in life is to know, love, and serve God with all your heart and all your mind, and abandon what is easy in favor of taking up the cross to be with God in Heaven. You must choose what your center is based on the purpose of your life. You can’t be Catholic with a false Center of money, fame, adulation, seeking to be fully human without entering and maintaining the spiritual universe within you.
6. God gives humans boundaries not to limit their choices but to help them recognize which choices are good or bad for their purpose in life.
7. The Catholic Church is not there to force you to believe in these boundaries, some of which may be inconvenient, but to allow you to work through the minefields of life with others who are your adoption as sons and daughters of the Father and heirs to the kingdom.

If you allow the public schools, political parties, activist causes that seek to divide people from Christ, those psychologies that deny that evolution is a process of movement from complexity and consciousness to some unseen point in the future, you are already a hostage of Satan and don’t even realize it. Christ is the Pontifex Maximus, the North Star, the only personal Center that has the energy to lift you to that next level of human evolution, being an adopted son or daughter of the Father, and heir to the kingdom of Heaven.

This is your charge, moms and dads. You can’t teach what you don’t know or have experienced with Christ. First, convert your heart, mind, and soul to love Jesus without reservation and Do What He Tells You. The Devil will win out over your stewardship if you are not prepared yourself for what you must teach your children. This is the reason we have the Catholic Church: to help us help our children to find THE way, the truth, and the life that leads all of us to fulfill the destiny of our human nature and not fall victim to the snares of the Devil. St. Michael, be our defender.

Copyright, 2026, Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D., The Center for Contemplative Practice. All Rights Reserved.