Spiritual Parenting: How Religious Beliefs Affect The Way Parents Raise Their Children

Parenting can magnify every emotion felt by human beings, making the task draining both intellectually and even spiritually. For a person of faith, worrying about one's spiritually is a concern and having to worry about how it could affect a child's upbringing can make it more stressful.

Just like any human being, parents have spiritual issues, too. Providing some consistency in their belief is, however, necessary if they want to make sure that their children grow up with a sense of spiritual stability.

Parents should take the cue from the words of the Bible, according to Patheos. There are many storybook Bibles that simply narrate stories of faith without any secret agenda. These stories will lay the foundation for the kids as they start their journey of discovering faith.

The religious inclinations of a parent can greatly influence parenting style, as per JRF. In fact, different parenting aspects are influenced by religion and yet, there is not much information on how a parent's religious belief affects children, especially adolescents. A study conducted by the Bradford Local Safeguarding Children Board with the Sheffield and Warwick Universities show that both children and parents believe that religion can affect their life as a family.

Investigative journalist Janey Heimlich noted, on the other hand, the harmful effect of some religious beliefs on children, according to Salon. She took note of the existence of toxic religious practices that have sometimes resulted to the maltreatment of children.

These churches or sects practice authoritarianism, separatism and fear of sin. These practices often encourage hitting of children to instill unquestioned obedience.

Heimlich said indoctrination often targets children because of their vulnerability. At a very young age, children are susceptible to any idea fed into their minds by their parents or their churches. Children under 7-years-old still lack abstract reasoning, they are easily swayed to obey parental authority.