For Parents & Newcomers
Give your child room to think deeply.
Most days leave little space for a child to sit with a question, a feeling, or their own inner life — let alone their spiritual one. Maybe Montessori first showed you what that space could look like. Maybe your family’s already part of a CGS atrium and you’ve seen it firsthand. Either way, here’s how to bring more of it home.
not just one more activity
A foundation for your child's spiritual life, no matter where they go.
Most of what fills your child’s week teaches valuable skills — but the values attached to sports, lessons, and school can shift depending on where your child is standing. What’s rewarded on the field isn’t always what’s asked for at home. In the atrium, morality isn’t a separate lesson. Instead, it grows out of a relationship that stays constant wherever your child goes.
The atrium experience invites children to enter their own inner lives. Exercises in focus and silence, activities which show children how to calm their bodies, and presentations which call them to linger over ideas and images — all these are part of life in the atrium.
Adapted from “Talking to Parents about CGS in Plain Language” and “Equipping Parents for Life in the Sheepfold,” CCTheo
start here
Grace Space Families
This is where CCTheo brings the atrium home — prayer practices, book lists, and resources built for whatever your family’s rhythm looks like, whether or not you have a church home right now. How do I pray with my child? What if I’m not even sure how to pray, myself? That’s exactly the territory Grace Space was built for. From there, Grace Space goes deeper still — including what your child’s own spiritual life may already look like, long before you named it.
Right now on Grace Space Families: a free printable — Making Space: Prayer Spaces for Kids — simple ways to create a space in your home for your child’s own prayer.
"Our overarching dream for parents: to encounter God, to know Jesus as the children know him, to recognize the Holy Spirit at work in and through their child and themselves."
Want to go Further?
CCTheo also offers deeper, more structured paths for parents.
If Grace Space Families’ at-home resources aren’t enough, the Center for Children & Theology also offers online courses, both on-demand and live, cohort experiences. Here are some of our offerings.
Just Curious
Life in the Sheepfold
Free · Self-directed · Account required
A free, go-at-your-own-pace deep dive taught by Catherine Maresca, CCTheo’s founding director — a way to put language to what you’ve already sensed about your child’s inner life. No live sessions, no schedule to keep.
Ready to Connect
Baptized: Opening the Gift
4-week live class · Meets weekly
A live class for parents, not a lecture at parents — four weeks exploring what your child’s baptism means for your own faith, alongside other parents asking the same questions.
Ready to Build
Parent Toddler Course
Paid · 5-day in-person or 7-day online
For parents and caregivers ready to build a dedicated space for their toddler’s spiritual life — at home or at church. Families who’ve taken it describe a real community forming around it, with bonds between families that outlast the course itself.
"Our overarching dream for parents: to encounter God, to know Jesus as the children know him, to recognize the Holy Spirit at work in and through their child and themselves."