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Dr. Ray Guarendi’s show, “The Doctor Is In,” is heard Tuesdays through Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. on station KJMA, 89.7 FM, Guadalupe Radio for South Texas.
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SAN ANTONIO • Family LifeWorks, a non-profit organization that offers education and formation programs to help families in building strong family life, brought to the Alamo city Oct. 16 a popular Catholic speaker who provided essential tips to survive today’s counter-family culture.
Dr. Ray Guarendi, psychologist and host of “The Doctor Is In” radio program — heard on the Guadalupe Radio Network — gave a dynamic and humorous presentation to an audience of 300 at Antonian College Preparatory High School Friday evening, encouraging attendees to nourish family traditions and values in energetic and innovative ways.
Much of the talk was familiar fare to regular listeners of Guarendi’s show, airing at noon Tuesdays through Thursdays on KJMA 89.7 FM, in which he emphasizes strong characters and wills sustained by solid formation.
“What we are witnessing in America today is unprecedented. Parents used to have instincts, they used to understand things,” said Guarendi, who spoke on the theme “Standing Strong as a Parent.”
“You discipline because you can’t establish character or morals without it,” he said. “If you want to hurt a child — don’t discipline them.”
Guarendi humorously told listeners that under age 5 or 6, discipline is as easy as it gets, “Its just repetition 50,000 or 60,000 times,” he laughed.
He emphasized to listeners the importance of having a standard and enforcing it, asking, “What do you want looking back at you at age 22?”
Guarendi lamented, “In the 1990s, you would get grief from your children for disciplining them. Now you get grief from the people who are supposed to be on your side,” citing examples of family members, friends, and colleagues who undermine parents who have strict disciplinary standards.
In looking out over the crowd, the clinical psychologist and public speaker had words of praise for San Antonio. “I typically don’t get many fathers at my parenting conferences,” he said in examining the audience that had about a 50/50 male to female ratio. “The large number of men here speaks to the quality of families and of this city.”
However, the radio host cautioned, “I’m hearing more and more that women are doing the heavy lifting and parent disciplining alone. Men, stand up and protect your wives,” he urged.
Guarendi, whose experience includes work with school districts, mental health centers, substance abuse programs, and juvenile courts, said the United States is in big trouble when psychological correctness replaces moral correctness.
“Experts are not coming from where you are. They are promoting aspects they think are psychologically enlightened,” he explained. “Experts believe that self-esteem is the most important virtue, and humility is nowhere to be found.”
In the past, said Guarendi, there was a much stronger sense of confidence among parents. Now, 70 percent of parents describe their children as “strong willed.”
“The phrase ‘difficult child’ is redundant,” said the father of 10 to howls of laughter from the auditorium. “The strongest willed of children do not have a stronger will than their mother.”
Guarendi, who is also the author of several parenting books, called the current culture, “a microwave society. We want results and we want them now.”
In his private practice, he estimates that 95 percent of the counseling time is spent talking with parents.
“It’s not that we don’t know what to do. It’s that we don’t do what we know,” said Guarendi. “Love without discipline is child abuse, and the reaction to discipline depends on how the child perceives you.”
The speaker, who describes himself as a family advocate, called psychological correctness a “quagmire,” adding, “Kids have not changed. It is the big people who have changed. There is no way you can be a nice person if you don’t have any authority.”
He closed by saying, “The culture is way too toxic and it is shaping our kids right under our nose.”
About Family LifeWorks
Family LifeWorks offers conference and courses with the aim of providing every member of the family and families in all stages of life with valuable devices that will enable them to become better persons, in the vocation each is called to develop.
Their primary course material is based on a 27-session seminar for teen-agers in middle and high school, covering topics including personal knowledge, sexuality, dating, chastity, media, alcohol and drug abuse, and pornography. Modules are designed to lead the student to discover the truth about these subjects through participation in classroom exercises and a moderate amount of lecture.
For more information, visit their Web site at www.familylifeworks.net, or call (210) 479-7152.