My tip: don’t care about what other people think and be completely honest with your kids. You will have lots of discussions with them over the years about why you don’t believe in God, and about holidays, and so on. Prepare your answers for them now, and stick with it. Warn them in advance that they might run into trouble, and help them prepare honest, polite one-liners to get them out of situations. What they will want the most is to belong, and if they don’t have a good answer when some other kids starts harassing them, they will feel terrible.

Luckily, our family isn’t religious, so we don’t have to deal with the baptism questions. Also, I think if anyone ever had a problem with it, they were too polite to say anything. But, we do put our kids into a private school, for their education’s sake, that does have some religious undertones. They even go to religion class. We’ve countered this at home by telling them what WE believe, and why, and tell them to just use religion class to understand where others are coming from – not as gospel for them. During their morning routine, the Lords Prayer is said, and my kids proudly hold their heads up and think kind thoughts to themselves while waiting.

Personally, I was terrified of this, but now I’m quite proud of it. It’s teaching them at a young age how to stand up for themselves and their ideals, and will make it easier for them to handle these situations in the future. And they are better at it than I ever was as a kid, they are accepted by their friends and teachers just fine and the whole thing is basically a non-issue for them now.

Dave,

help them prepare honest, polite one-liners to get them out of situations.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing them, I’m sure other parents raising children would find these one-liners helpful. Especially ones that your kids have had to use. Posting them on a parenting site would probably be most helpful, but since this is a thread about parenting, they could be posted here, too.

During their morning routine, the Lords Prayer is said, and my kids proudly hold their heads up and think kind thoughts to themselves while waiting.

Accomplishing that must have required some amazing parent-kung-fu skills. Congratulations on raising such a self-assured child.

they are accepted by their friends and teachers just fine and the whole thing is basically a non-issue for them now.

That is a wonderful thing to hear – especially given the religious nature of the school. I hate to place any more of a burden on your kids, but they are, in a sense, serving as ambassadors. Every positive interaction that they have with other kids (and teachers!) serves to dispel the erroneous idea that the non-religous deserve pity/sympathy/ire from the religious.

I good all-purpose, one-liner when your kids are young (like K-2) is

well I don’t know what I think about that and I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

This works well for young ones because its not like their getting grilled by a first-grader on Trinitarianism or something. The comments they will go something like

Other Kid: Where do you go to church? or
Other Kid: What do you do at Sunday School)?

Both perfectly legitimate questions

Your Kid: We don’t go to church?

The Truth, which is always important

Other Kid: If you don’t go to church (or believe in Jeebus) you will go to hell.

Believe me, Hell is the first thing little kids pick up on NOT the love of Jesus.

Your Kid: well I don’t know about that and I don’t want to talk about this.

My guess is “i don’t know about that” is probably true and “I don’t want to talk about this” is probably equally true.

I like this answer better than “my family doesn’t believe…” because what “the family” believes is less important than what Your Kid believes, we want them to be freethinkers not mindlessly accepting the family position. Plus if you start with “my family believes” then it will inevitably go to “What does your family believe?”, imagine what will come out a 6 year-olds mouth then

If the Other Kid persists then its just a simple, “I told you I don’t want to talk about this and you are now being mean”.

I would suggest having the discussion about how others believe different things and have different beliefs in their families before you put them into school.

It doesn’t have to be a grand discussion but being aware of what church and Sunday school are all about ahead of time will go along way to your kid understanding what’s being said and/or asked of them.

During one of these discussions you can say, “You know if one of your school friends asks you about church or Jesus or doesn’t like that you don’t go their church then just tell them [ insert stuff from previous comment]“.

We made it to First grade before our youngest was told he would go to hell because he did accept Jesus into his heart. “And Hell is a place where you are burned in fire forever and shot in the stomach over and over again forever”.

Remember Other Kid is going to know about Hell way sooner than the Love of Jesus.

Sunday School = Scare then Teach.

Katie –

I’m glad you brought this topic up. I applaud you for opening up and sharing your experiences with raising your daughter in a heavily, Christian area. It is not easy. My wife and I struggle with the incessant attempt by some family members to “enchurch” our children.

At the moment, we have allowed our children (who are all under the age of 3) to attend church services with their grandparents when they spend the night. Although, I am a bit uncomfortable with this, there are trade-offs – especially at such a young age in life: the grandparents love to see their grandchildren, this allows my wife and I to have a Saturday night to ourselves, and church just happens to occur the morning after. I honestly do not believe attending an occasional church service at such a young age will have a profound impact on my child’s lives.

There will come a time, very soon, when the grandkids attending church will come to a crossroads. By no means do I want to alienate anyone, but the bottom line is WE are the parents and if we do not want our children to attend church service, it is our right to do so. Our children have also not been baptized, as this was an issue as well.

That being said, there have already been heated debates with family members over my wife and I not being Christians. Concerned parents don’t want us to go to hell (even though we both believe hell does not exist), and they just can’t comprehend how we can live our lives without a belief in a god.

Regarding pre-school, have you checked out any of the Montessori schools in the area ? I believe they practice and provide a secular approach to educating children free of religious dogma.

“Parenting is hard.”
It’s the hardest most challenging thing I’ve ever done. The fact that you WANT to do a good job and that you’re thinking about HOW to do a good job will go a long way. If I may pull rank, after parenting for over thirty years, (our oldest is 32 and youngest 4 – we had foster kids befor that) the greatest gift you can give your kids is to make sure they know they’re loved through words AND actions. This may sound like a duh, but I’ve worked with a lot of people whose parents just thought that was understood – far from it. Good luck.

Dave: I think there is a slight error in one of your comments. You wrote, “It’s teaching them at a young age how to stand up for themselves and their ideals,”

That sounds good but that should read,

“It’s teaching them at a young age how to stand up for themselves and their PARENT’S ideals,”

This is regardless of which side of the fence we’re on.

I’ve never raised children, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
What are your plans for religious holidays that have basically become children’s celebrations, such as Christmas and Easter?
I remember comparing gifts from Santa and the Easter Bunny when I was a kid, even though my family wasn’t religious. It would have been weird and sad to be the only kid in the neighborhood not visited by St. Nick. Even my Jewish friends got xmas gifts.
And my folks often packed me off to church-sponsored summer day camps (probably to get me out of their hair), which often involve fun crafts and trips to the park.
What if, in a few years, your child expresses an interest in joining a church? Do you plan to debate theology with a kid?
Just wondering.:-)

Katie,
Congratulations on getting this far!!! Yes parenthood is hard. And those first years are very trying. From the sounds of it you have your heart in the right place.
I agree that your child belief’s really should be what she believes. Our jobs as the parents is to help give them the tools to figure out what they believe. I don’t agree with spoon feeding belief systems and I inclue atheism along with religions. I am trying to teach my kids that there are a lot of different religions in this world along with my own beleifs and that they have time to decide for themselves what they believe.

I agree with others in that it is more important to help your kids learn HOW to think critically, and for themselves, than it is to teach them WHAT to think. I also see little problem with introducing them to different religions and beliefs, especially given that they will most likely find out one way or another. I prefer my wife and I be the ones who do the introductions. I still believe one of the best innoculations against superstitions is an exposure to believers of those superstitions.

My wife has had more of a problem concerning religious beliefs and our kids than I have, but she was raised Catholic (in name only).

We got married in a Catholic church and baptized our son, but have neglected to do so with his younger sister. The family has for the most part gotten over it, but I’m sure if most of them had their way, she would be baptized immediately.

I felt worse about circumcising my son than anything else. I hadn’t learned enough about it to realize there really are no other reasons for circumcision than religious belief. Can’t take that one back.

I loathe most holidays, but my wife loves to use holidays as an excuse for family to get together, and I can’t really fault that, so I usually just go with it.

Good and useful takes on raising children in regards to religion. Parenting children in general can be a challenge, let alone adding religion into the mix. After re-reading my earlier post, I can see where it may come across as being too harsh.

I agree with the majority of people who posted comments. Educating and giving your children the tools to think for themselves is the best approach, and ultimately the goal. Personally, if our children at some point in time, decide on their own, to become religious or join a church, it will be their decision to make. But what do you do when certain family members are “hell-bent” on indoctrinating your children at such an early age with their own very strong, religious beliefs ?

I believe this to be the case with myself. The funny thing is I have an Episcopalian priest as a brother, and I feel totally comfortable with our children attending church service with him. I feel he respects our beliefs and would not try to coerce our children into believing something behind our back. Unfortunately, I do not believe that to be the case with other family members. This may sound a bit bizarre, but I do feel like there is a continual attempt to push a particular brand of Christianity down our children’s throats. Whether it be Christian-themed toys and books given to our children on their birthdays, or hearing a family member reciting the name “JESUS” to our children as an attempt to get our child to say it, the proselytization is well under way. Granted, our children are under the age of three, but pretty soon, the questions are gonna start coming.

The sad thing is my wife and I value and don’t want to damage the relationship we have with these family members. They are truly, compassionate people who would give you the shirts off of their backs. They do a lot for our kids and others, but the continual attempt to introduce Jesus into our children’s lives has been frustrating to say the least.

@ Andy S:

It looks like you are in a tough situation. The only person I ever worried about chastizing my beliefs was my grandfather. I was just starting to become more courageous in discussing my beliefs with him before he died, but I never did tell him straight out that I was an atheist. I like to think it would have worked out fine if he lived long enough for me to tell him, but I have to wonder what kind of stress it would have put on our relationship.

That being said, I too have friends and family that would like to make every decision for me and would if I were to let them. But that’s just it. It’s my life and my family and I have to make the daily decisions with or without their consent. I try to keep relationships intact, but much of religion does tend to alienate freethought. If a family member’s religion is more important than my feelings and sensibilities concerning my own family, then I’m sorry, but that family member must be told there are boundaries and if those boundaries cannot be respected, then our relationship will become limited.

All that is usually unnecessary though, as I find the religious are usually quicker to cut you off than you are of them. Once again, if that is what it must come down to, then so be it. My family and my beliefs take precedence over religious beliefs of others concerning how to raise my kids and live my life.

Gosh so much is said. Wonderful to have this site.

Ya know, there are allways two sides to a fence. Generaly if anyone ever starts faceing off with me about how horrible it is religion isn’t a part of my life, Look OUT! I’m full of debate meterial to make them feel ten times worse about their choice to have religion in their life. The Bible is full of horrible things that I willinglingly bark out in retort to their attempts to make me backlash in my beliefs. I highly suggest the same. Nothing is more satisfying then walking away with them on the ropes doubting thier choice to have such a hate mongering war promoting muderish religion in their lives.

It’s abasalutely HORRIBLE! It preaches word of mouth love and careing and then muders the first non believer. Muders their children murders their unwitting new friend. I’ve read and saw with my own eyes whats in the Bible TRUELY in there! Oh Man! They are lead by the nose and saddled.

Ya know that’s the real Book that needs written. How to help thouse sucked into religion get out of it and away from it. Every *Sneese* Bless you! Is an opertunity to help them be free.

Where ever religion raises it’s ugly little head, I’m there to Fill it full of the real truth!

DON’T, I say Again, DON’T let your child go be brain washed! As far as the socialization of the child. Whoa not with them guys! Your kid comming home hurt or molested? Face it these people are living on a prayer and we all know what that’s worth. Reality and critical thinking and fairness are not their strong points. Your child will adopt the likeness of the most charming and carismatic and who ever is nicest to the on a more then likely basis. but some times it becomes something else.

You won’t let your kids around drug users will ya? Whats the diffrence?

As far as sociaization and having a connection with a society, isn’t that what ffw is about?

Ok, I’m done, this is scaring me. I have no children but have thought about it. Big diffrence! Good Luck!

Dave, I recognize the school you sent your children to. I’m just moving to Fort Wayne and will be enrolling my child there too. Like you, I am also very uneasy of the school’s “religious undertones”. Is there any way we can get in touch and discuss your children’s experiences?

I need to post a follow up. This week, my daughter told me that she prayed for someone else in religion class. Me, slightly aghast (especially after my initial post to this thread!) and asked her why and to whom. She is 9, and we REALLY got into it for the first time.

Basically, she says she “believes what she believes” and when I questioned the “why?” she got pretty upset. So, I apparently have some more work to do…

Her older brother said “I DON’T believe in God!” and when I asked him why he said: “Because you don’t.”

I told them BOTH that their answers weren’t good enough. I told them that I would support (pretty much) what they wanted to believe, but that they had to REALLY think critically about it. They shouldn’t need to believe in God because a book or their friends told them so. They also shouldn’t believe in something just because I said so. They need to learn about both sides, think critically about it, ask questions, and then think through their beliefs.

I guess after this week, I care a lot more that they are developing the critical thinking skills than what they say they believe in right now, and I’m not going to get excited if one of them decides to pray at school. I distinctly remember wanting to go to vacation bible school when I was her age and I somehow grew out of it.

Hi Katie! As a child my immediate family never went to church. I understood things like Easter and Christmas had to do with this Jesus character, but was never really given much info on the situation. My uncle started a church when I was five or six. I remember being thrilled to go to sunday school. Finally, Jesus was no longer a mystery. He was now a bonifide subject to be studied. Then I realized the people teaching him to me, the children sitting next to me, their parents, all believed in this stuff. I was mortified for them. You see, I had already spotted the zipper on the Easter Bunny’s back and figured out if Santa Clause was real then physics was not. How could everyone be so mislead when it was so apparent to me that Noah’s arc was not a literal story? Throughout my life, family members have cast a shadow of shame over my mom for not instilling the Lord in me. But she did one better than they. She taught me to be polite, to listen to people, to respect their differences, to accept cultural divides, and to keep an open heart. Priceless.