My husband and I attend church so we would take our child with us. However, if he got to a certain age and wanted to go to another church or didn't want to go at all we would respect his decision. We believe that everyone should be able to make their own decisions about spiritual matters. A difference in beliefs would NEVER keep me from having a loving relationship with my child.
What are you going to teach your children about relgion?
by reneeisorym 34 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Save My Soul
My wife is active, I encourage my children to go to the hall and give talks. I want them to be great speakers and have awesome conversational skills. I think the public speaking has helped me a great deal.
\I filter the BS for them.
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GoodnessGracious
To Not Become a JW , LOL..
If he wants to then I will make him promise me to wait until after college ... :)
I generally believe most religions are the same. But my mother is one of those screaming hooping and hollaring, if I give my last 5 dollars I will become rich Creflo Dollar followers. ANd I believe that movement is lunacy as well
But when my mom and husband are around each other for a while LOL .. It is Hilarious!!! -
reneeisorym
Study: Religion Is Good for Kids
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
By Melinda Wenner
Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development.
The conflict that arises when parents regularly argue over their faith at home, however, has the opposite effect.
John Bartkowski, a Mississippi State University sociologist and his colleagues asked the parents and teachers of more than 16,000 kids, most of them first-graders, to rate how much self control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.
The researchers compared these scores to how frequently the children’s parents said they attended worship services, talked about religion with their child and argued abut religion in the home.
The kids whose parents regularly attended religious services — especially when both parents did so frequently — and talked with their kids about religion were rated by both parents and teachers as having better self-control, social skills and approaches to learning than kids with non-religious parents.
But when parents argued frequently about religion, the children were more likely to have problems. “Religion can hurt if faith is a source of conflict or tension in the family,” Bartkowski noted.
Why so good?
Bartkowski thinks religion can be good for kids for three reasons. First, religious networks provide social support to parents, he said, and this can improve their parenting skills. Children who are brought into such networks and hear parental messages reinforced by other adults may also “take more to heart the messages that they get in the home,” he said.
Secondly, the types of values and norms that circulate in religious congregations tend to be self-sacrificing and pro-family, Bartkowski told LiveScience. These “could be very, very important in shaping how parents relate to their kids, and then how children develop in response,” he said.
Finally, religious organizations imbue parenting with sacred meaning and significance, he said.
University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, who was not involved in the study, agrees. At least for the most religious parents, “getting their kids into heaven is more important than getting their kids into Harvard,” Wilcox said.
But as for why religious organizations might provide more of a boost to family life than secular organizations designed to do the same thing, that’s still somewhat of a mystery, said Annette Mahoney, a psychologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, also not involved in the research. Mahoney wondered: “Is there anything about religion and spirituality that sets it apart?”
Unanswered questions
Bartkowski points out that one limitation of his study, to be published in the journal Social Science Research , is that it did not compare how denominations differed with regards to their effects on kids.
“We really don’t know if conservative Protestant kids are behaving better than Catholic kids or behaving better than mainline Protestant kids or Jewish kids,” he said.
It’s also possible that the correlation between religion and child development is the other way around, he said. In other words, instead of religion having a positive effect on youth, maybe the parents of only the best behaved children feel comfortable in a religious congregation.
“There are certain expectations about children’s behavior within a religious context, particularly within religious worship services,” he said. These expectations might frustrate parents, he said, and make congregational worship “a less viable option if they feel their kids are really poorly behaved.”
Copyright © 2007 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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White Dove
I've taken my kids to all sorts of places of worship and now one chooses paganism and do I (attended Wiccan rituals a few times and read up on it) and the other chooses nothing at all. At least they know what's out there and are free to make choices that can be changed at any time they wish without losing family or most of their friends. Their friends are of many different faiths and don't care what faith my kids have or don't have. -
mentalclearness
This is in response to reneeismom's article....
I agree that many times people with certain traits are drawn towrads religion. People whose core values include putting family first. You can avoid the whole religious part though if you find other people like yourself who also put importance on family life. IMO opinion you could get the same results from being around other families who share similar ideas about raising children. No matter what their religious beliefs.
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palexisls
i have to say i agree with you mentalclearness. how did you arrive to that conclusion?
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FlyingHighNow
God is love. Period. If anyone tells you anything different, nod and smile.
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shopaholic
If I ever have children, first and foremost I will teach them kindness, the preciousness of a moment and the wonders of exploring. They'll learn of religion as to know of its existence but not as something to which one must belong.
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mentalclearness
i recommend reading the seven spiritual laws for parents by deepak chopra. I find the things in that book are much less dogmatic and much more human than any JW book I read for kids. It teaches love, kindness, generosity, gratefullness, among other things, Don't teach religion. teach your kids to be decent humans....
