Why do people force their children to believe in what they do?

Question

the only reason i ask is because as a teen i asked myself why I believed in the things i did and found that i only believed in them because my parents did. I was forced to go to church and in turn it caused me to not want to believe.

when i say force...i mean force...by telling me if I stayed home i was grounded and lost my allowence and by telling me i would not get to celebrate my birthday or christmas. i am an adult now and have my own beliefs. they are similar to my parents beliefs but still not exactly the same.

Answer 1

I agree with Jersey Rick . Since children have not reached maturity , parents must set examples . We realize, as parents , that when children grow up they will lead their own lives . Finatic parents of certain religions then "force" some offspring to comply or face expulsion from the family and the church .

Answer 2

Children do not have enough knowledge, or enough stability in their neuroendocrine system to make well based decisions on most subjects. So out of care parents introduce their children to values they find important. Would you say your parents "forced" you to believe walking into traffic could be dangerous? Children have to be shown how to interact with the world. Unfortunately, some of what people are shown hinders further growth, and some people never reach adulthood, no matter how old they get. If you can search rationally for what is worth believing (not just what you believe now) and take responsibility for those beliefs, you are more adult than most. Your ability to seperate yourself from your parent's beliefs is an important step. How far will you go?

Answer 3

Because they believe! If your parents think you will go to hell for not following their religion, they wouldn't be good parents if they let this happen.

Don't rebel against what they tried to teach you, just keep an open mind and keep trying to understand the world around you.

Now that you mention actually using parental force, and not simply filling your Sunday mornings with chores so you can't just choose to sleep in or something, that does seem over the top. But again, they were probably doing it out of love, so forgive them.

You are right, force isn't the best way to win someone's heart and mind, and they have almost turned you against what they wanted so badly for you to embrace. Finding your independence doesn't mean you have to turn away from your parents and everything they taught you, it means you have to find your own way--which is much easier if you use the lessons they taught you.

Also, if you just don't like church, try a different one. I went to Baptist churches as a kid, and as I got older I really couldn't stand them--I found them filled with exactly the folks Jesus told us over and over not to be, but they wouldn't know that, because they rarely read the gospels in sunday school--they wanted to concentrate on the epistles because they had both the laws and regulations and the hellfire and brimstone that are so popular in those churches. If I hadn't known the Bible so well from my own reading, I probably would have turned atheist over some of the misinformed things people said with so much authority you'd think God came down and told them himself. (Best example, "How can scientists say that evolution is a fact, when they have never seen one thing evolve?") So try another church if the one you grew up in doesn't touch your spirit.

Answer 4

It's what loving parents do. Though I don't think they "force" it.

We tend to pass on to our kids the things that we ourselves believe in, even if we only believe in teaching our kids neutrality until they make up their own minds. When my kids came of age and asked about God I explained that some say there is one, and some say there isn't, some believe in God, and some don't and in the fullness of time they would reach their own verdicts about it all. I may be an atheist but I wasn't going to tell my kids there is no God, or "force" them not to blieve in God if they had that faith inside them. But by the same token, I refused point blank to have them Christened. Again, I reasoned that if they found their way to a god of some kind when they came of age they could get Christened for themselves.

But this much is for sure; if I was a religious fella I would have taken my kids to church with me without a moment's hesitation. If I believed in God, I would want to introduce my babies to him so they could get to know each other better. I love my kids, so I would would want to do the very best for them that I could. And if I believed that the very best for them would be church and getting to know God then church and getting to know God it would have been.

I reasoned from the start that if I got it wrong the kids could moan at me for being an idiot when they got older.

Strangely, perhaps, they never did :o)

So, let's not be too hard on our poor old parents eh? It's too easy to put them in no-win situations and to criticise them for getting it wrong even though they can't read our minds and don't get a crystal ball with which to gaze in to the future when their children come alone.

Answer 5

In many cases, I don't know that it's "FORCE" as much as it's a belief in what's right versus what's wrong and the acceptance of the responsibility to teach kids...especially your own kids...the difference.

(for all of you over-zealous religious folks out there, I'm not making any value judgements below...just stating my opinion...)

When people's thoughts about right and wrong are defined solely by their religious belief systems, then you get a situation where they only educate their kids within the confines of that belief system...as opposed to the way that behavior relates to the world at large.

For example, a devout Christian might tell his or her kid that stealing is wrong, "because it's in the 10 commandments"...or, "because Jesus says it's wrong".

While admittedly true, those statements say nothing about the REAL reason that stealing something is wrong....that, of course, being the fact that, when you steal, you obtain property that in reality belongs to another through improper (and illegal) channels.

Now, that's not to say that teaching kids that, "stealing is wrong because Jesus says so" is improper...especially for young kids who don't yet have a grasp of their place in a larger society. But, where I believe that teachings like this become a problem is when the lesson isn't fleshed out to include the role of indviduals in society.

Eventually, kids need to learn that stealing isn't wrong because Jesus says so....they need to learn that Jesus said that stealing is wrong because it is, in fact, WRONG. End of file. No arguments.

Answer 6

Ahh, parents only force their children to believe what they do, as much as the public school system forces you to believe what it teaches. It's simply a matter of who is doing the teaching, but someone's views are going to come across as "right" or "wrong", regardless.
What's the difference between teaching your children that God exists, verses teaching them that he doesn't? Either way, you're asserting one view over the other. Life kinda operates on what is true and what is not, and quite honestly, if parents think they know truth, they'd be fools not to teach their children that.

Answer 7

I don't force my children into believing in what we do. We are Christians so believing in God and a Christian way of life is the norm, just like some parents believe in only feeding organic foods to their children.

Answer 8

Some people do force their children to believe in what they do. I know that personally to be true. I TOTALLY disagree with it. Here's my thought-----introduce your children to whatever you believe (don't cram it down their throats) but ALSO let them learn about all other faiths, beliefs as well as atheism. It will make them better able to communicate and understand where other people are coming from. And when they reach an age where they can make decisions like this for themselves, let them decide.

Answer 9

Because they think it's important. Why do parents try and give their children good economic lives or any of the other things people do when raising children? I'm agnostic, so I personally don't care, but it's also not fair to criticize people for raising their kids with a given religion.

Answer 10

Parents love their children and they dont force them to believe in what they do.You are judjing them from a wrong angle.Parents are trying to teach us from their own experiences,They dont want us to get hurt by learning ourselves.Learn we will but we might learn the hard way and its their lovefor us which make them protective.Believe me trust them and love themand do as they say,you will never be a loser.I am a living proof of that.