Many people consider it a dirty word. Bring it up in conversation and people roll their eyes and tune you out. Talking about it can divide close friends and separate families.
Religion.
While religion, at its heart, is supposed to bring people together, in today’s society, it is often divisive. It has become such an emotionally laden issue that talking about it can make people feel like they’re walking on egg shells.
It’s one thing to give our adult friends leeway in how they decide to handle issues of religion. It’s a totally different story when we abdicate our responsibilities as parents to cultivate our children’s spiritual development.
You may have heard folks say, “I’m not going to force my beliefs on my kids. I’m going to let them make up their own minds about what religion.” While that may sound honorable to some people, there is a problem.
Our children’s minds are fully developed until they reach their middle twenties. There it is. That’s the major flaw in that line of thinking. Our children are not equipped to make such major decisions (and, yes, that is a major decision) without the guidance of their parents. The way we help to shape our children’s ideas about God and his mandates will shape the way our children think about the poor, needy, hurting, and underprivileged people in our world.
Recent research has shown the section of our brains responsible for reason, decision-making, and planning is continually making neural connections well into our twenties, with some studies saying this development does not end until our early thirties. That part of our brain develops by having experiences in our lives connect our behaviors and feelings to our experiences. For example, when our children engage in negative behavior (hitting a sibling), we must step in and correct that behavior (a time-out or taking away a privilege) and explaining to that child that hitting is hurtful and that we are to treat others in loving ways. These neural connections do not solidify after only one experience. However, with repeated exposure to this type of “dot-connecting” (If you do _________, ___________ will happen to you in return), those neural connections are formed and become a “rut” in the brain that is well-formed and well-worn.
With something as important as spiritual development, we cannot leave our children in the dark to figure this matter out on their own. We must provide guidance and conversation about why having a belief system is so important and how that belief system not only impacts our individual lives, but the lives of those around us. Not many adults have all the moral and spiritual questions of the world figured out. And, even if they did at one time, society, science, and thought are constantly changing and we’d have new questions and problems to solve. It is our job as parents to provide leadership and guidance.
Many people in our culture are opposed to an organized religion. However, this type of community and structure can actually be very healthy for our children. To have a sense of consistency and continuity is important in a child’s spiritual development. To see what is talked about on Sunday mornings lived out in the lives of those members of the faith community is vital to that child’s faith development.
This is a big job, so where should we start?
- Talk about it. In the Christian religion, Deuteronomy 11 says: “18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” Talking about our faith should be something that is done often and easily, part of our daily routine. In order for this to become part of our normal, day-to-day life, we have to be intentional.
- Take them to church. Our children benefit from being part of a community that calls their parents to high standards of living. That same community hopefully expresses love to our children and provides them with good role models whom our children can admire and strive to imitate. The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child” is true and hopefully our faith communities are safe “villages” who will take an interest in our children’s well-being.
- Live it out. The best way to cultivate your child’s faith is to live it out in front of them. There is no more damning indictment than for a child to walk away from a faith community because their parents or other trusted adults lived in hypocrisy. If we say we believe in being honest, don’t call in sick to work when you aren’t. If we say we believe we are called to help the poor, teach your child practical ways to do this and do it together (volunteer at a local food pantry or shelter; go on a mission trip to impoverished areas and build homes or dig wells; set aside money at Christmas that would normally be spent on presents and think of ways to donate it to the less fortunate).
There is probably no more important area in our children’s lives in which they need us to speak. Don’t relinquish this responsibility to your child before he/she is ready and don’t hand away this duty to someone outside your home. Your kids need you to set the trajectory.
The counselors at Lotus Group can help prepare and guide you effort as well as other Christian counseling topics for you and your family. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.