5 Ways to Help Your Children Love Their Faith

Most parents hope that their children will follow the same faith as the rest of the family. Muslim parents pray that their children will continue to fast during Ramadan for the rest of their lives. Pagan parents envision their children continuing to practice the Imbolc rituals they grew up with and teach them to their own children. Hindu parents want their children to continue to honor the gods and build their own home shrines when they are married with a family of their own. Christian parents hope that their children will continue attending church and send the grandchildren to Sunday school one day.

As much as parents assume that their children will follow in their faith footsteps, most parents are acutely aware that children are not guaranteed to keep to the faith they grew up practicing. Some children leave the religion of their youth and family behind in favor of another religion. There are some parents who do not mind the idea of their children changing faiths, but most parents would prefer for their children to follow in their religious footsteps. So, how can a parent convince their children to continue practicing their childhood faith?

The key is to make a child love their faith. If their religion is associated with unpleasant things, they are less likely to hold onto it. Here are five ways to help your children love their faith so that they will continue practicing it throughout their lives.

Lead by Example

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Children learn from their parents, and faith is no different in this regard. If you value your faith, your children are more likely to value theirs. If you want your children to love their faith, you need to show them that you love yours. Go to worship. Pray at home. Make it clear that faith is a large part of your life.

Despite how many parents raise children with a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality, children are far more likely to live life in a “monkey see, monkey do” fashion. If your faith is hypocritical, and children tend to be better at spotting hypocrisy than many adults, your children will grow up believing that faith is empty words or that what matters in religion is what you say, not what you do. Either version of so-called faith will fall apart as children age. If you want your children to love their faith, you need to demonstrate why it matters. Live your own life according to the tenets of your faith and do so with a smile. If you act like religion is a necessary evil, your children will start looking for ways to avoid it. To picture how far they will go to avoid faith in that case, think of how much work they put toward avoiding other necessary evils like tidying their room or doing their math homework.

Don’t Force It

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Children generally do not like to be told what to do. This starts at a young age. Everyone has seen the three year old screaming “I don’t want to!” at a parent or babysitter, and the “you can’t make me” attitude usually only gets more profound as children age. There is a reason that teens and preteens are said to be so difficult to handle.

Although parents have to take charge of their children and occasionally make them do things they do not wish to, that is part of being a parent, turning religion into a fight is a bad idea. If you force your children to attend worship every week and they loathe going, they are going to associate faith with anger, negativity and fights with their loved ones. This is not conducive to a child loving their faith in later life. If you force them to participate in different religious activities now, their faith will pay for it later. You might be able to make them attend religious classes while they are living under your roof, but as soon as they are out from under your control they will buck it off entirely.

Instead of making religion a constant fight, find what your child does enjoy about religion. Do they enjoy the stories? Have them focus on reading religious writings. Do they enjoy prayer? Worry less about having them attend religious classes and help them develop an active prayer life. It will not be perfect in your eyes, but a slightly unorthodox faith as a child is far preferable to a child who abandons their faith as soon as their parents are not dragging them by the ear to worship.

Help Make It Their Own

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Faith is something that is deeply personal. Every person has a slightly different style of worship, and there is nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, some parents try to force their children to practice their faith in the exact same way they practice theirs. Parents who do this usually have their hearts in the right places. They want to make sure their children have a solid faith foundation and an established religious practice before their children are thrown out into the real world. These good intentions, however, can end up causing serious problems. Your child is not going to worship exactly the same way you do, and the sooner you can accept that, the sooner you will save both you and your child a lot of pain and strife. Let your child make their faith their own. This will help them feel in control of their own spiritual life and help them develop faith practices that they will continue for the rest of their lives. Just because something works for you does not mean it will work for them. Help them find out what methods of worship fit their personality and lifestyle, then encourage them to grow.

Avoid Platitudes

Yes, everything happens for a reason. Yes, God has a plan. No, these platitudes will not help your child deal with the fact that their best friend just humiliated them in front of their entire class or help them handle the knowledge that they have to move cross country and leave their friends behind gracefully. There are many platitudes that are true and that may help adults handle difficulties in their lives, but they will not be well received by children or teens. Adults can understand that terrible things happen for a good reason, but children are not going to focus on the “good reason” part. They will remember the “terrible things” part.

Platitudes are an especially bad idea with older children, preteens and teens. At those ages, your children are likely beginning to distrust authority or push back against it. “Because I say so” is no longer an acceptable reason for anything. Instead, it means “I don’t have a good reason.” This in turn means that a good reason does not exist, so there is no reason for a teen not to do what you told them not to do. It is tempting to offer platitudes when teens or older children are distressed, but they will be far more likely to actually hold on to their faith later in life if you do not use faith-based platitudes as a way to dismiss problems.

Demonstrate Practical Applications

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Children like to know why they are doing things, especially as they get older. Every teacher has had a child ask them in complete seriousness why they have to learn something whether it is long division or the symbolism of the boat in “The Giver.” Parents have undoubtedly faced the question as well.

“Why” is an important question for children to learn to ask, otherwise they will never learn critical thinking or be able to figure out if someone truly has their best interests at heart. The question can be maddening for parents and teachers, but children should never be taught to stop asking “why.” If there is not a good answer to why you want them to do or not do something, it might be time to really think about why you are insisting on it.

Faith is no different. Children are likely to ask why faith matters, why bad things happen and why their religion teaches this instead of that. Be prepared to answer questions to the best of your ability, and tell them “I don’t know” if you truly do not have an answer.

Make it a point to show your children why faith matters. Help them find practical applications for their faith and places where their faith and actions truly make a difference. Having something to ground their faith in their own life makes it clear that faith matters and is not confined to worship services or to how a person thinks. Faith needs to be shown in action, so help your child find ways to show off their faith.