Reply to Religious families-Do your children easily love God?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]I am not making anyone believe anything, I am living out my beliefs and my kid(s) see that because they live with me. I am not constantly drilling into my kid 'you have to believe in God' and then send them to 50 different faith based activities to try to convince them to belive. That is not authentic and will not work. I believe in God as real presence, existence, not as an abstract concept. I believe in building a relationship with my Creator. That is what my kids will have to do as well. And they will see how their parents do it, that is the example we are setting. I think you do not have an understanding of faith, God and what that means. You are making a lot of assumptions that are just not true, at least for a lot of people. You do not believe in God, which is fine, but that does not mean that because I do I am "indoctrinating" my kid, it does not necessarily work that way.[/quote]

Sigh. We've gotten deep enough into the thread that I think people are skipping the early pages.

I've been responding consistently to several early posters who described ways they were handling the spiritual education of their kids. One discussed a practice in her church of making sure there are at least 5 other adults focused on the child's faith education to make sure their faith doesn't slip, a few others discussed how important it is to make God the 24/7 center of your home life so that your children are constantly focused on faith, and another discussed how her kids hate going to church but she forces them anyway because they go to "worship God" and it's just too bad that they don't get a warm fuzzy out of it.

Those things I call bad spiritual education, and those are the kinds of practices that lead to kids feeling like they can't question, that they are at risk of losing family/friends unless they conform, and the kids end of hating religion.

So, I keep coming back to the question of what parents are trying to achieve. If you are trying to force your children to believe exactly what you believe and practice the religion exactly the way you practice it, and if you do it in a way that tries to force your children to conform, then, well, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

If, on the other hand, you are trying to give your child an educational basis for evaluating what he/she believes, and are setting an example through your own behavior of how your child can have a relationship with God, but allowing him/her to come to it on their own terms and in their own way, and if you're ok with whatever they chose for that relationship, then that's great.

A lot depends on the message your children are hearing from you - and, as they say, sometimes the things you do speak so loudly that I can't hear a word you say.[/quote]

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