Seeing Is Believing?

I came across something yesterday about imparting religious or spiritual beliefs to our kids that really resonated with me.  As many of you know, I follow the blog "Single Dad Laughing" (SDL).  Well, yesterday, he posted an excerpt from his book, The Real Dad Rules, about how to share our beliefs with our kids. His thesis is that you shouldn't teach your kids what to believe - you should teach them how to believe.

I discussed this issue when we were examining Robert Epstein's article about what makes a good parent, and his top 10 areas of parental competency, which included religion. I discussed why I disagreed with that in the post, "Losing My Religion," but I also shared a viewpoint similar to SDL's. If you haven't had a chance to check out that post, please do.

Article: What Makes a Good Parent?

I ran across an article the other day in Scientific American Mind by Robert Epstein, a longtime researcher and professor of psychology, which summarized a research study on what parenting practices produce better results than others - that is, practices that produce better relationships between parent and child and happier, healthier, and better functioning children.

The studies also sought to answer "why, in fact, do most parents continue to parent pretty much the way their own parents did - or, if they disliked the way they were raised, the exact opposite way?"