Do Children Need Religion?
- Category: Faith
- Date 15-04-2007
- 415 views
Time and again, we have held that children are human beings in their own right, requiring an amount of freedom to make choices about their own preferences in life, including how they wish to relate with the creator: God. Yet again, we emphasise that it is important to instil values in our children, especially religious ideals that we profess and hold dear to ourselves, whereas some parents believe that it is not necessary to teach religion to their children: they can only grow, become curious and choose whether to follow religion or not.
This article has been inspired by media reports of the Easter Monday “Tea Party” for children, assembling to stage drama and music performances at Magomeni Catholic Church in Dar es Salaam, have an extensive meal and attend Mass. It was said the event aimed to unite children, facilitate them to celebrate Easter, give them a chance to share recreational moments with their parents, and sensitise parents on the need to be closer to their children.
This event must have been important. Studies show that children who are actively involved with genuine places of worship are far less likely to be involved with negative activities like drugs, sex and gangs. Moreover, we do not need to carry out an academic study to know that a child who has fun with his friends at church will enjoy it more.
In this era of liberalism, it is important to impart spiritual and dutiful orientation in our children in ways that would not scare them or turn them off altogether. To impart such virtues, a parent should start early and share some basic principles of faith with children by using child-friendly examples.
Many religious concepts and stories can be overly complicated for children, thus they should be brought down to a very basic level. Most religious principles like love, sharing, helping, and forgiveness are all ideas that even very young children can grasp when transmitted properly and skilfully in ways that are memorable and pleasant.
Religion should be fun, involving such schemes as arts and crafts, signing, plays, stories, singing and sports. It is advisable that worship attendance for children resembles any other social activity, with sacred overtones nonetheless.
The most important way to implant devout values for children is to set an example. Children watch parents, religious leaders and other adults as role models and hence such persons’ language, behaviour and way of life carry greater weight than the lessons they teach. Children have a right to expect adults to be totally honest and abide by the teachings they convey to children; to do the contrary is an abuse of their trust.
Many of us who consider ourselves religious are sometimes annoyingly proud, in our belief that to be religious is to be better, more honest, more caring, and more moral than those we consider irreligious. Religion is the belief in the existence of a vertical critic: believing in something greater than oneself, and this is what we call God.
We believe that God does not want us to do wrong, though certainly everyone is capable of doing good without necessarily acknowledging the existence of God. Religion teaches that there is punishment for wrongdoing, thus many believers do good hoping to avoid “God’s fury”. Yet it may be one way to teach children the value of discipline.
If children do not learn that humans must sometimes do things they dislike for the greater good, they cannot learn self-discipline. To instil empathy early is to teach the joy of giving, and if we neglect children’s religious welfare, they may never truly trust God. To neglect a child's spiritual development is to obliterate the virtues of self-discipline; humility, community, and Godliness, essential for human wellbeing.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citize