Should you take your children to church, temple, synagogue or mosque on a regular basis?

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For an individual, the decision to attend religious services regularly, and if so where, is often complicated. But when children are in the picture it can be vexing.

As parents, we’re responsible for creating and nurturing our kids’ value systems, their sense of community, their habits, their manners. For many families of faith, that responsibility naturally extends to their kids’ spiritual life and practices, no question about it. For others, however, it is not so cut and dried.

Does parental responsibility extend to spiritual life?

We asked an array of parents if they thought they should take their children to church or other religious services on a regular basis. We heard some very impassioned answers.

Here are two views of the issue, along with expert insight.

YES!
You learn what family is by being part of a family. You grow into an understanding of what that is based upon the interactions and shared collective memory of that family group. What is a church but a larger family? You can’t learn about it if you don’t go.

“What is a church but a larger family? You can’t learn about it if you don’t go.”

My kids were actually in church with me for most of the service from the time they were born. Occasionally they went to the nursery when they were very small (under a year old) and were cranky, but after that they stayed with us throughout the service. I find it interesting that now we need to provide child care for our kids so they will not be disruptive during religious services? But how else do they learn our faith than from the service itself? — Carolyn from Alexandria, VA

NO!
We don’t. I’d like to say it was a conscious choice on our part, because we opted to teach our children about religion at home and open their minds to different beliefs, based on the conclusions we reached after years of going to church regularly as kids. We feel there is no one right religion and that being a good and spiritual person does not require being attached to a particular church or religion.

“Being a good and spiritual person does not require being attached to a particular church or religion.”

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But mostly it’s that the only church we could agree on was Unitarian, and there is not one near us. My husband was raised in the Catholic church and I was raised Protestant until I was 14, and we both had experiences that led us to conclude our parents held themselves to a higher moral standard than many of the church leaders who judged them.  Jennifer, Brooklyn, NY

A Family Therapist Weighs In:
My mind immediately jumps to the bigger picture of family dynamics. As a parent, you start off as something of a gentle dictator. It is up to Mom and Dad to make almost all of the choices for the family and your young children. If attending church is a cherished tradition, then off to church you go.

As the kids grow up, parents often take on more of a democratic perspective as they allow their maturing young people to start making some of their own decisions, often while staying within the overall values of the family. This could give some kids the freedom to attend less often, while some might become even more involved.

If attending church is a cherished tradition, then off to church you go.

Spiritual support can be quite reassuring for young people who are struggling to make sense of a complicated world.

If parents don’t want to attend religious activities but feel they should for the kids, shelve the guilt! In the task of raising well-rounded little humans, providing some sense of spirituality is generally considered healthy. Jill Kaufmann, Bend, Oregon