Christianity and children

[purpleangel17]

Interested to hear the approach other Christians take to sharing their faith with their children.

I tell the children what I believe but I don't present it as absolute truth, I tell them different people believe different things and they can make their own mind up when they are older.

Do you do the same or do you present it as truth and say others are 'misguided?

My elder questions a lot but is respectful. My younger has recently taken to asking lots of other people what their religion is! I think they both believe but they have questions which is normal.

Dinex - guitars and shouty preaching don't always go together, though that is sometimes the case! I'd hate shouty preaching too. Our church has a worship band - guitars, drums etc but the preaching is gentle and thoughtful and warm, and the kids clubs are great fun. I understand though that it scary to branch out when your experience has been difficult.

Is there anyone that has responded on this thread that isn't CE or atheist?
I am guessing the answers from RC and evangelical Christians would be very different.

I'm c of e Phil, but on the open evangelical end... (not conservative, hasten to add)

Interesting question PhilO - Mumsnet exists in a unique paradigm, how is faith represented? Apologies to OP for diverting conversation.

Someone with a RC partner replied above.

I'm an atheist but my children attended a RC primary. DH is from a catholic family though not a practising catholic. DD participated enthusiastically in all things religion at school - did lunchtime communion class with the resident nun for 5 years, seriously considered getting baptised so she could take her first communion with her friends, etc. We didn't actively facilitate this but we certainly didn't discourage it either. The school wasn't in-your-face catholic - it was a school that practised Christian principles and let kids explore faith without shoving it down their throats.

None of this relatively gentle "indoctrination" stuck, and six years on from primary DD is now one of the most virulently atheist people that I know. I'm not sure what this tells you!

Dlnex if you hope on over to the Christian chat thread you'll see we come in all flavours and enjoy riling each other

Hop, even.

Yes, mistigri, but that respondent said they were presenting it all as true, like santa. So v different from others here that have said they present it as "this is what we believe, but others believe other things". I am interested because there are so many 'flavours' of Christianity. I am wondering whether people find their denomination because of their personality, or whether their personality (or outward bearing) is formed by their denomination.

But I realise this is wandering off topic, so sorry, purpleangel. But perhaps it does have bearing on what people tell their children?

We are in a village and I really like our village church, which is Anglican but provides a range of different types of service for different preferences. With my kids it is more a reluctance to even try going so I am not sure trying different churches would help. They do ask me lots of questions about faith, ask to pray, pray themselves and consider themselves Christian - they just are stubborn that church is boring and not necessary. I have thought about making them go every week but I don't think it should be forced so I choose the middle ground of going once a month.

I think denomination is 50% what you know and think church 'is' and 50% what you choose to suit your personality.

Rc here. (DH is C of E)

Bringing my kids up to believe the truth, which is found in Catholicism.
Why would I bring them up to think a load of lies?

The truth is the truth whether you believe it or not.

However, God has given us free will to ignore him and not believe in him if we choose. So, as my kids get older they will need to examine their doubts, question, explore. They need to take the faith we, as their parents, have offered to them and either reject it, or accept it for themselves.
You do not become a Christian because your parents are. You need to encounter God for yourself and choose him for themselves.

So just as I expect them to clean their teeth and flush the toilet and attend school, I expect them go to church.

And hopefully I make belief enjoyable, they meet their mates at church and play after the service.
They do interesting things with toddler group/children's group/youth group.
They meet lots of older folk who praise them and give them free stuff at the church fair.
We take them on holiday to a church camp where they meet kids their own age from across the country and they have freedom to run a bit wild for a week. (We have a 'normal' holiday as well!)

Christians and aethiests do the same - they both teach their children what they believe themselves. How could they not? The only difference is in what they believe. (Except atheists seem over keen on the word indoctrination by Christians as they think it sounds more sinister but they still do the same to their children!)

Strawberrybubblebath

No. Babies are born atheists. No belief in god. Many atheists simply seek to preserve that state.

"Christians and aethiests do the same - they both teach their children what they believe themselves"

Atheism is not a faith. there is nothing to teach. I don't know why you are twitchy about the word indoctrination- it's clearly what happens to children when they are brought up in a faith- they are taught doctrine, - indoctrination is a word to describe that.

Atheists have no doctrine, children brought up without religion be indoctrinated.

speakeasy, you have repeated your assertion that 'lack of belief in God' does not equal 'a belief there is no God' a few times now and some of us have said we disagree. I am not sure what you have to gain by repeating it? You interpret it one way, others another which is fair enough. You aren't going to change our minds or we yours so I don't understand the repetition.

And how do we know what babies are born believing? We can hardly ask them. Young children have a natural belief in magic that we don't teach them, it comes from somewhere....

I refute that children have a 'natural belief in magic'. My children have never believed in anything magical because we've never taught them it's true. They have always understood these things are stories.

Human babies are born as almost completely blank slates. Lots have to be helped to breathe even. We can manage to suckle, to look around, to cry, to micturate... nothing else, everything must be learned. That is why our species is so successful- we are adaptable entirely to the conditions we are born in.
Children believe what they are taught, and what they observe. It's one of the reasons they need so much interaction with others when small (and children that do not get that interaction have delayed development for many many years; some never catch up to their peers, even when removed from neglectful homes).

You do not become a Christian because your parents are. You need to encounter God for yourself and choose him for themselves. Isittheholidays makes a sound point here. Lots call themselves 'Christians', because they were raised by their parents as Christians. But they aren't really, are they? True faith can only really be found in oneself, not taught. (Witness the many secular Jews in USA that don't even believe in God any longer, and the Muslims that drink, smoke, and eat bacon butties, the Catholics that never confess etc etc).

We have brought up dd in the baptist tradition i.e. baptism is for believers rather than young babies. When she is old enough she will make up her own mind about her faith...
I wish she had been baptized as I think she would consider confirmation, in the C of E tradition it's possible for those who haven't been baptised as children to be confirmed and baptised at the same time. Some evangelical C of E churches do offer an adult baptism though.
My understanding from some training I did with Scripture union is that there are 3 possible views on children in the church (and even Christians don't agree about these).

1. All children are accepted by God until they choose to opt out (the biblical verse quoted being "Let the little children come to me..." Mathew 19 v4.
2. That children of Christian parents are accepted as Christian until they decide to opt out.
3. That children aren't accepted as Christian until they decide to opt in.

You do not become a Christian because your parents are
isittheholidaysyet

That is such bullshit.

So why do we have societies on Muslims, or Hindus or christians?

What an amazing coincidence that children raised of christian parents become christian.

of

Indoctrination is, according to a definition I just found online, the teaching of a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

As my children were taught to question everything from a very early age I can't have indoctrinated them. They all know about epistemology and how to evaluate source material. My congregation are getting the same. If they want d someone to tell them what to believe and to do they have been very disappointed. Indoctrination is for fundamentalists. In the UK it is only a minority of Christians that are fundamentalists.

I was brought up RC and although I rarely go to church now I'm still most comfortable in an RC one. DH was brought up C of E and prefers their church. Ds is going to a C of E school which takes faith quite seriously and has its own chapel. he's also in a christian club at school. We dont talk about religion much at home except to encourage tolerance of all beliefs, and we agree with whatever our ds says about his beliefs. Its all very much led by ds. I've been thinking for a while I would like to get back to my faith and start going to church again, not sure if ds would like RC church though!

greenheart- As my children were taught to question everything from a very early age I can't have indoctrinated them.

I am guessing your children are Christian.

Such a coincidence that they are not Sufi or Shinto , Mami Wata or Cao Dai.

Speakout

I don't quite get your point. So if I have misunderstood, please try again.

You do not become a Christian because your parents are

Every Christian has to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour. That is how you 'become' a Christian.
Some Christians think you cannot do this until you are an adult.
I think you can do it as a child or tween or teen, but that that acceptance will be in a way consistent with your developmental age and level of educational understanding. As an adult, you would still have to accept it as an adult.

My point was, that my children as they grow, have to have the freedom to discuss, debate, and doubt, so that they can choose to believe as an adult or choose to reject as an adult.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think your point is that they believe because they have been brought up in a Christian society/community? Rather than a Muslim one or Hindu one?

Yes. It's far easier to know about something if you are not surrounded by people shouting it down, and telling you something else.

(But as a Christian I believe God still does communicate himself to people brought up in societies where they are not told about him, or told minimal things. There are loads of stories like that on the internet, and I know of others in my real life.)

Speakout. One of my children is a practising Christian. The others are agnostic. Maybe they will explore another faith, that is their choice.

I guess I present our faith as the truth whilst not explicitly saying others are misguided, just that they believe differently. I know in essence that's the same thing but it seems to be a less inglamtory way to say it. We have Muslim and Jewish friends so they are aware that not everyone believes the same.