Popular radio host and Catholic psychologist draws crowd, discusses challenges of parenting

Ray Guarendi, PhD, speaks during a summer event hosted by Guadalupe Radio Network/KSHJ at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Houston on July 26. (Photo courtesy of Wyatt Goolsby/KSHJ)

HOUSTON — Raymond Guarendi, known as Dr. Ray with a PhD in clinical psychology, kept a crowd laughing July 26 despite the serious topic of parenting as part of a fundraiser for the Guadalupe Radio Network (GRN).

“Saying ‘a difficult child’ is redundant,” Guarendi told the chuckling crowd at the station’s summer speaker series event at the Lone Star Flight Museum. An advocate of common-sense approaches to child-rearing and discipline, he said the bulk of his real-world experiences come from being a father of 10 adopted children, partnered with his wife.

“Love without discipline is child abuse because the world is going to hurt them,” he said.
Father Thomas Smithson, SSS, with the Corpus Christi parish in the Archdiocese, led the prayer to open the event. 

Guarendi’s program airs on GRN’s local station KSHJ 1430 AM at noon on Tuesdays through Fridays with his live call-in show “The Doctor is In.”

Joining the line of attendees buying Guarendi’s books while he signed and chatted with them was local fan and licensed counselor Julia Sauceda, LPC. 

“I listen to his broadcasts during my lunch hour. It has helped me become a better counselor because he gives great advice. I remember him saying, ‘No one is born angry,’” she said.

“The culture is no longer on our side. You are a sliver of our country,” he told the mostly Catholic crowd. “At a restaurant, my wife and I are asked, ‘Are these all your children?’ I tell them, ‘No, the oldest is at home babysitting the twins.’”

“The new moral high bar is that the kids are not on drugs,” Guarendi said. “But those who seek God may be one in a hundred. Fluff them up before you drop them. If they are disrespectful in words, tones, looks or body language, don’t argue. Assign them a 500-word essay on respect. For every day they don’t turn in the essay to you, take something away from them — phone, computer, whatever — they have no idea how much you control.”

He acknowledged that grandparents play a big part in their grandchildren’s lives if certain circumstances are met. “If you are sloppy in your parenting, kids will write you off or don’t want to see you.”

But bottom line, he said, “Our Lord Himself could not get all the people to follow Him. We cannot control our children,” only guide.

He said one of his proudest moments was when his kids, now in their 20s and 30s, told him they were looking to enroll their children in a Catholic school.