Whether you yourself have an interest in religion or not, there may come a time when you consider it your duty to offer your child the chance to discover religion for itself. You might be an atheist or you may have a particular creed or religion that you favour, but is that a reason to make your child emulate you?
Most children do not connect church with fun (and you might well argue that fun has nothing to with it), so how to you stimulate an interest in religion? There seem to be just two ways: you can either make it more fun or you can force them. We all know that compulsion tends to have the opposite effect from the one required, so how do you make going to church fun or at least interesting?
The beginning of going to church alone for most children is Sunday School, so you could start there. This is not about you or your religious education, so whatever you believe, you could go along to the Sunday Schools of a few local churches and find out what activities they hold.
If the Sunday school is dull and boring, your child will not stay there and may become put off for decades or even life. Going to church or to Sunday schools ought to be about religious education and moral guidance not about coercion and indoctrination.
You do not have to have faith in everything your religious instructor tells you to become a decent, moral, religious person no matter which denomination you belong to. There are not many religious teachers in any church who would say that they 'know it all'. If they did they would not have to to pray for guidance themselves!
Activities that young children may find interesting are roughly the same as those they would do in a regular school, but with a slightly more religious bent. These include: painting, drawing, singing, reading, story-telling, playing and sports. The extra reading practice at Sunday school can truly give your child the upper hand when it comes to the state school curriculum too.
Older children will like sport, dancing (barn dances, line-dancing, ballroom dancing), singing, putting on plays and discussion groups. Children outside this environment will probably never be in a play or never learn to Foxtrot in their lives, yet it is a godsend in life to have done it at least one time.
Debating is another skill that most people do not have either. Learning fund raising and public speaking are excellent skills that are not taught often in state schools any more either.
If your children do not like the Sunday school that you would like them to attend, let them go to a different one. Any extra education is better than none or wandering the streets. In my case, my parents were Spiritualists, but my mother's family were Catholics.
My school was Church of Wales (similar to the Church of England), the Boy Scouts I was in were Methodists, but they went to a Baptist Church because it was nearer. I enjoyed the singing in all the churches and I still know the songs 45 years later!
Most children do not connect church with fun (and you might well argue that fun has nothing to with it), so how to you stimulate an interest in religion? There seem to be just two ways: you can either make it more fun or you can force them. We all know that compulsion tends to have the opposite effect from the one required, so how do you make going to church fun or at least interesting?
The beginning of going to church alone for most children is Sunday School, so you could start there. This is not about you or your religious education, so whatever you believe, you could go along to the Sunday Schools of a few local churches and find out what activities they hold.
If the Sunday school is dull and boring, your child will not stay there and may become put off for decades or even life. Going to church or to Sunday schools ought to be about religious education and moral guidance not about coercion and indoctrination.
You do not have to have faith in everything your religious instructor tells you to become a decent, moral, religious person no matter which denomination you belong to. There are not many religious teachers in any church who would say that they 'know it all'. If they did they would not have to to pray for guidance themselves!
Activities that young children may find interesting are roughly the same as those they would do in a regular school, but with a slightly more religious bent. These include: painting, drawing, singing, reading, story-telling, playing and sports. The extra reading practice at Sunday school can truly give your child the upper hand when it comes to the state school curriculum too.
Older children will like sport, dancing (barn dances, line-dancing, ballroom dancing), singing, putting on plays and discussion groups. Children outside this environment will probably never be in a play or never learn to Foxtrot in their lives, yet it is a godsend in life to have done it at least one time.
Debating is another skill that most people do not have either. Learning fund raising and public speaking are excellent skills that are not taught often in state schools any more either.
If your children do not like the Sunday school that you would like them to attend, let them go to a different one. Any extra education is better than none or wandering the streets. In my case, my parents were Spiritualists, but my mother's family were Catholics.
My school was Church of Wales (similar to the Church of England), the Boy Scouts I was in were Methodists, but they went to a Baptist Church because it was nearer. I enjoyed the singing in all the churches and I still know the songs 45 years later!
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with Korean religious belief. If you want to know more go to What is Religious Belief?