Moms Talk Q&A: What to Do About God?
No matter what you believe as a parent, eventually the topic will come up with your child. But when it does, how should you approach it?
Yet again we put another serious discussion on the table for our Moms Council and readers. It is an issue that parents have faced for years and every situation looks a bit different. How do you approach, or even respond to, a conversation with your child regarding religion?
Do parents influence their children based on their own beliefs, or non beliefs? Should they allow their children to discover these life mysteries on their own?
A March 22 column in the Philadelphia Inquirer addressed this exact topic:
On the Web, some people say it's negligent not to teach your children faith.
Others counter that it's akin to "child abuse" to do so.
At 7, my little girl is still too gullible to decide weighty issues such as God's existence. I know this because I told her about Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, and she swallowed it like Hawaiian Punch.
While this is a tough topic to tackle, we want to hear from our Moms Council what their thoughts are on this subject and how they have/would approach it with their children, of any age.
We can't do it without you. We need your questions and topics to make the Moms Talk feature the best it can be. The best way to leave us questions is to send us an email at mitch.cooper@patch.com.
Beth Hatch
12:22 pm on Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Great question! My husband and I are Christians and plan on raising our children in the Christian faith, bringing them up in the church, teaching them about God from birth or how we view God through the Bible. When they get older, however, we will encourage them to ask questions about God, their faith, other religions, and form their own conclusions. We don't believe in teaching them that other cultures or religions are wrong or that we are better because we believe a different way. Their decision to continue in the Christian faith should be based on their own conclusions instead of blindly following because we told them to.