Family: When parents and teens clash over religion

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When parents and teensclash over religion
Don't let arguments aboutfaith break the family bond
By Victoria Clayton
Contributor MSNBC
Updated: 5:32 p.m. ET April 4, 2005

Question:
We have a very large family (six children) and our oldest son, who is 16, recently said he doesn’t want to go to church anymore. He’s mentioned that he doesn’t agree with our church’s view that gay marriage should be prohibited. Our faith is very important to us. Should we insist he attend church with the rest of the family or allow him to stay home?

Answer:
It’s understandable that you want your children in church. There’s great data to suggest that when adolescents are involved in positive activities they’re more likely to associate with positive peers and less likely to get in trouble, says James F. Alexander, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah and co-creator of the Functional Family Therapy treatment program. But there’s a big catch.

“The research is also pretty clear that family bonding is even more important,” explains Alexander. What this means for you is that no matter how you handle this situation or any other you don’t want to jeopardize your relationship with your son or in any way splinter your family. If you do, you can expect more trouble (e.g. your son lying and avoiding you). Instead, you want to foster the feeling of a team trying to figure it out, not you against your son.

How do you do this? “For starters, rather than insist your son goes to church and [thus] creating a crisis. It’s better to approach it as a process,” says Alexander. “Have a discussion about why your son doesn’t want to go and then say, ‘Okay, you’re on record as not wanting to go any longer. But I want you to give me a month.’” Ask him to attend as usual for the month and during that time keep talking about the aspects of church that your son finds unpleasant.

You may discover the reasons he doesn’t like church are petty: he doesn’t want to get up early on weekends, he doesn’t want to dress up or he thinks some fellow church members are annoying. If this is the case, work out compromises. Perhaps he stays in youth group but doesn’t have to attend church services — or he attends a later service and wears whatever he wants. Then again, you may discover, as many parents have, that there are real and very serious reasons why your son finds himself incompatible with church life.

“Sometimes this is a bigger thing,” says Cheryl Giles, a professor of the practice in pastoral care and counseling at Harvard Divinity School and a psychologist who works with child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Medical Center. For example, he may be trying to come out as gay. “If that’s the case, it could be very difficult to do that in some religious environments,” says Giles. “If you can’t figure out how to talk this out, go to someone who can help. Your son needs a safe and impartial person to talk to about what’s possibly behind his decision to take a church hiatus.”

You may also find it helps to open up dialogue if you both read up on adolescent spiritual issues. Giles recommends "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers" by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist-Denton.

But, if your son ends up not attending church activities, he should know it isn’t good enough just to stay home in bed. “You should ask him how he’s planning to replace his church activities. Is he going to read a book for an hour or write in a journal? Ideally, you want to have an activity in place that contributes to his growth as a person,” says Giles.

Bottom line, though, is that your son must know that your relationship with him is more important than whether he goes to church. “I’d assume too that for most parents [who are Christian] a son or daughter’s relationship with God is also more important than face time in church,” says Alexander.

Lastly, be prepared to go through this with several of your children. The degree to which each of your kids remains religious is likely to change with adolescence and even differ among the children as they become adults.

In fact, researchers now believe that, like other personality traits, there’s a strong genetic component to “religiousness.” A study recently published in the Journal of Personality found that environmental factors such as parenting and family life influence a child's religiousness, but the effects decline with the transition into adulthood. The University of Minnesota study followed 169 pairs of adult male identical twins and 104 sets of fraternal twins. The identical twins remained similar in their religiousness but the fraternal twins (who share many but not all of the same genes) became more dissimilar as they grew into adulthood.

So, despite being raised in the same environment, there’s really no telling what will happen with each of your six children.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7349996/

Children Education: Talking With Your Child About Sexuality

By Paula J. Wart

From the moment your child was born, you began teaching him about life and love. When you cuddle your infant, you’re satisfying their need to be touched. As children mature, you teach them how to dress themselves and ride a bike. You’re also the ideal person to teach them about sexuality.

Why Teach About Sexuality?

Your child is a sexual being. Nothing you do or don’t do will change that fact. Ignoring it won’t make it go away. It just creates a vacuum that will be filled with messages from radio, television, movies, billboards, magazines, friends, teachers, and preachers.Those messages may be misleading, inaccurate or just plain wrong.

Your home is the best place for your child to learn about their sexuality and how they will relate to others’ sexuality. When your child understands that he or she is a sexual being, they are better able to take charge of their life, cope with peer pressure, and avoid abuse.

How to Talk About Sexuality
The earlier you start talking with your child about sexuality, the better. As you bathe your child, you can teach them the accurate names for body parts. You can say to your son, “First wash behind your ears. Next, scrub your stinky armpits, and don’t forget to wash your penis.” Using accurate terminology takes away some of the mystique of “off limits” or “naughty” talk. If you don’t know the technical names for certain anatomical parts, check out a human sexuality book from the library.

When you talk about your child’s body and how it works, you can also teach values in a positive way. For example, you can tell your child that it’s normal for them to be curious about their body and other people’s bodies. Wondering is healthy. Children are inquisitive by nature, which might explain why so many of them play “doctor” and other exploratory games. If your child becomes involved in that behavior, explain that some things are supposed to be private, and one of those things is their body. Never make them feel guilty or “bad” for their curiosity. Just take the opportunity to educate them on appropriate conduct.

Then, you can tell them that they need to respect their bodies and other people’s bodies. That means not pinching someone’s buttocks or touching “private areas” — those areas generally covered by a swimming suit — and saying “No” when other people want to touch theirs.

At a certain age, exploration and sexual fantasies are also normal. Thinking or dreaming about something doesn’t make it happen — any more than wishing you had a kangaroo for a pet will make one appear in your backyard. Respect for others means your child will never use another person to satisfy their sexual desires. You can help your child develop a commitment to protect others, not exploit them.

Keep your discussions simple, honest, and age appropriate. A three-year-old wants to know that a baby grows inside the mother and comes out through an opening between her legs. Kids don’t want to know how the baby got there. That comes when they are older.

Once your child reaches puberty, they’ll be less receptive to anything you have to say. Peers become more influential. Use the pre-puberty years to teach them self-esteem, self-discipline, and respect. They need to know about their bodies — what’s going on now and what they can expect in the future. They also need to know how to think independently, make informed choices, establish boundaries, and accept responsibility for their choices.

Healthy and Normal
As children mature, they will become more aware of sexuality. They might walk into your bedroom at an inopportune time (where is that door lock?). They’ll experience hormonal emotions and sexual desires. They’ll notice pregnancies of wed and unwed mothers. They’ll hear about child abuse, rape, and AIDS. They’ll wonder about the size of their breasts or genitals. They’ll hear about condoms and birth control pills, whether you tell them or not.

By talking with your child about sexuality in the same way you talk about injured emotions, baseball practice, and the importance of eating vegetables, you’re teaching your child that human sexuality is healthy and normal. You’ve opened the door of communication. If you’ve established yourself as a reliable source of information and an accepting confidant, your child will come to you with questions.

Some parents may think they don’t have enough information to adequately talk about human sexuality. Many excellent resources are available to help you with any issue that might arise. A good resource is the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, which has compiled a descriptive list of books to help parents talk to their children about sexuality.

The web address is: http://www.siecus.org/pubs/biblio/bibs0011.html.

Sources:
1. Sexuality Education for Children and Adolescents, American Academy of Pediatrics, Policy Statement, Vol. 108, No. 2, August 2001. Available online at: http://www.aap.org/ policy.html. Accessed February 19, 2005.
2. Sexuality Education in the Home, . Available online at: http://www.siecus.org/ pubs.html. Accessed February 12, 2005.

© 2002 - 2005, Wellsource, Inc.
Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice or diagnosis of specific medical conditions. You should seek prompt professional medical attention if you have a particular concern about your health or specific symptoms.

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