Children and Religion

(Originally posted April 9th, 2007)

Seeing as many people have just been celebrating Easter and Passover I thought I'd post a little something on children and religion.  This is for sure a hot topic with many polarized view points.  For some parents this is such a huge personal, family and cultural value and for others its a passing thought "pass the sugar honey - and do you think we should find a place for Junior to go Sunday school some day? What's that church up the street called?". 

How important is child's religious training? 

Well, I don't have the tidy little "sound bite" on this, but let me do my best to share some thoughts to add to your own whirling thoughts on the subject.

1. If we get too forceful with pushing our values (religious included) on our children, we see our children either accept or rebel in an extreme fashion.  So If you get too up in arms over religion in your family, you may find yourself raising a "saint" - but you are likely to also raise another sibling who decided to be a "sinner".  What better way to rebel and push your pious parents buttons?
2. Children who respect their parents because they are close and have a loving relationship tend to follow their modelling.  If you look after your own spiritual practices, believe me your children are aware of how you chose to live your life.  Give them time and they are apt to follow if you make it look appealing.  If they don't - there is not more you could have done, so let it go as being out of your influence.
3. Adler said that life is guided by  "useful fictions" - meaning, we all are already creating some narrative to follow in our life.  The idea being that whether your Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, the idea is that having some useful fiction to guide the child can be helpful ( so much of the main moral themes appear in all of them anyway).  They are stories of people who have conflict and must work towards regaining harmony.  We all have problems and we can overcome them.
4. Try to live by your religious values rather than preaching then and forcing your child to memorize and recite them.  Making a casserole with your child and then walking it over to a neighbors house when someone has just passed away is SHOWING your child a lesson of community that appears again in most religious doctrine.  That seems as powerful a way to teach your religious values don't you think?  Beside - children hate a hypocrite!
5. Please don't threaten "Wait till judgement day!  God will know you have sinned by lying to your parents".   A child who misbehaves already has responded to a difficult situation and they do not know why they misbehave. It is out of their awareness - preconscious.  They already feel badly they are not being good, they can't seem to find their way to good - they are blocked.  If a parent adds the fear of God on top of this - the child is further discouraged, may become very fearful, fear God and death, and so fear any risk.  It only serves to deepen the despair.