• the prayers of the Rosary: Apostles' Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and Fatima Prayer, the Sign of the Cross (the very smallest of children should know how and when to sign themselves)
• The Nicene Creed
• Blessing before Meals
• Blessing after Meals
• Prayer to Guardian Angel
• Act of Contrition
• Hail, Holy Queen
• The Eternal Rest Prayer

All of these prayers can be found in both English and Latin on the Traditional Catholic Prayers, Creeds, and Ejaculations page of this site (please, if you're able, consider teaching your children some of these prayers in Latin!). Prayer should be further encouraged by placing Holy Water fonts near your front door and in each child's room. They should be taught what Holy Water is, what using it signifies, and how to use it -- and parents should bless their children with it, signing them on their foreheads. Each child's room should also have a crucifix hanging over the bed (these crucifixes should be blessed by a priest).

Ideally, every family should consecrate their home to the Sacred Heart, overtly stating their intentions of making Christ the King of their household. The detailed procedure on doing this will be found on this site's page on Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In any case, you should ask a priest to bless your home as soon as you move into it (aside from the blessing of new homes, there is a tradition of having one's home blessed also on the Feast of the Epiphany).

(Just a little note on setting up altars, creches, etc.: artistic elements should be arranged so that the most important is to the right according to Christ's perspective -- which is usually to the left side from our perspective. Recall how in our churches, the left side of the Church from our perspective is the superior Gospel and Mary side of the church while the right side from our perspective is the inferior Epistle and St. Joseph side of the Church. This is because from the perspective of Christ on the Crucifix which hangs above or sits on the altar, the Gospel/Mary side is to His right. In following this principle when setting up a creche, for ex., Mary should be to Christ's right -- but to our left. So, if you have a Crucifix or other representation of Christ on your altar, keep this in mind.)

Also in keeping with the liturgical Seasons and Feast Days, icons and statues can be covered with purple cloth during Passiontide (the last two weeks of Lent), statues of Mary can be crowned with flowers in May, Advent candles can be set up on the first Sunday of Advent, the crèche ("nativity scene") could be set up here during Christmastide, etc. It is very important for parents to make the liturgical year come alive for their children, to make it a part of the rhythm of their children's lives. This will help them pay more attention at Mass during the Gospel and sermons, and it has the psychological benefit of helping the children feel both "grounded" in a stable, traditional family, and a part of somethng "bigger than they are" in terms of the Church, the cycles of the liturgical year being something shared by Catholics for millenia. These "little things" connect you to your children, your children to each other, and your family to the Church.

Customs for particular Feast Days and Seasons are as varied as the number of families and countries that exist. These customs touch on everything from prayers to food to things like Advent calendars, skulls made of sugar, and bonfires. These are explored elsewhere on this site, but one thing I'd like to mention here is are the starting of Mary Gardens in the Spring and at bulb-planting time.

Catholic children should be taught about our virtuous Saints! Give your children heroes, inspire their imaginations and feed their will to do good. They could be taught about the Saints as their Feast Days are celebrated throughout the Sanctoral Cycle, the family's Name Days can be celebrated, etc. The family as a group should adopt a patron Saint for their home just as each particular church has its own patron and guardian angel; St. Joseph, patron of families, is a natural for this cause! The Church Triumphant should be experienced as being as real to your children as the Church Militant!

...And the reality of the Church Suffering should be clear and relevant to them, too. Though we all have the hope that our dead family members are already in Heaven, it is possible that they are in Purgatory for a time. These dear ones should never be forgotten, and prayer for them should be a part of your children's lives. Praying the Blessing After Meals ensures that the souls of our dead ancestors are prayed for every time we eat.

Parents should also bless their children. The traditional way of doing this is for the children to kneel and for the parent to trace a Cross on the child's forehead (or, for a group of children, make a Cross in the air) while saying:

I bless you, my child(ren), in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

St. Ambrose wrote of this practice:

You may not be rich; you may be unable to bequeath any great possessions to your children; but one thing you can give them; the heritage of your blessing. And it is better to be blessed than to be rich.

On a different level, Catholic homes should be filled with books, art, music, the necessary things to make crafts, etc. There should be plenty to feed the mind and heart, and to engage the body. A well-trained child should never offer "boredom" as an excuse for getting into trouble or whining; he should learn to entertain himself, to imagine new games and to marvel at and learn about the world about him. Young children never hate to read and to learn! That comes later, after television has robbed them of imagination and taught them to think in sound-bytes and quick-moving images. It is television that trains them to feel restless unless pounding music and rapid-fire motion are assaulting their senses. For the love of all that is holy, keep your children far, far from television, at least far from large doses of it (and, most certainly, far from totally vulgar programming).

The other killer of the ability to marvel is the bored adult who's lost that ability himself. Cynical teachers who hate what they do and treat children like inmates; uncultured parents who haven't picked up a book in years; Pharisaic parents who forget that the purpose of rules is to serve charity and who sap the joy out of a child's life; older teenagers around them who do nothing but express angst -- if this is what your child sees, this is what he will model himself after. The growing child must have the space, silence, and tools to marvel, "create" (as it were), think, and learn -- and his desire to do so must remain unmolested by television, and be encouraged and modelled by the adults around him. If you don't read or draw or paint or play a musical instrument or embroider or knit or purl or tat or whittle or carve wood or dance or make furniture or build model airplanes or birdwatch or brew beer or ferment wine or stargaze or make mosaics or learn foreign languages or shoot guns or camp or do archery or garden or bake or work on cars or write stories or model in clay or fly kites or develop screenplays or play sports or collect something or walk in the woods or write poetry or learn about astronomy (or biology or chemistry or History or math) -- I think you get my point -- then turn off the T.V., pick something, and begin now. If you've lost your child-like love of learning and sense of wonder, pray to regain it!

And on a final note, keep your sense of humor! Life is serious -- quite serious -- but it is also wondrous and sometimes hysterically funny. If you are so stressed, so cynical, so rigorist or "educated" that you can't laugh, then something's got to give. Deal with it before you pass that dour trait on to your children or let it infect your marriage. Pray about it and talk to a spiritual director or other wise person. You will be happier and healthier, and so will your family.

Further Reading

There's a Stranger in Your House

The Christian Home: A Guide to Happiness in the Home

Though  this work by Celestine Strub, O.F.M. was given an Imprimatur in 1934 and, so, uses language we might consider "quaint" nowadays, this book beautifully describes what Catholic home life should be like. The book was written in a time when Catholic schools were Catholic, and Catholic periodicals were Catholic, so remember this as you read of these things in the book. Now we must be much more wary of what is passed off as faithful to our religion:

Introduction
Chapter I: Necessity of Religion in the Home
Chapter II: Prayer in the Home
Chapter III: Catholic Atmosphere in the Home
Chapter IV: Good Reading in the Home
Chapter V: Harmony in the Home
Chapter VI: Necessity of Home Life
Conclusion

Beginning at Home: The Challenge of Christian Parenthood

This online book by Mary Perkins includes discussion and study topics that parents should think through together. The husband and wife in a Catholic family should make a conscious effort to, as Mrs. Perkins says, "sacramentalize" family life; in order to do so, they must have that as a clear goal and discuss together ways of bringing it about.

The Christian Pattern
Our Neighbors
"...You Did It Unto Me"
Things
Places
Work
Training for Life's Work and Play
Vocations
Redeeming the Times
Sex Education
Attaining Our Ideals