Study: Religion Is Good for Kids

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Here is my shocked face- :rolleyes: Look at the part highlighted in blue. Another reason why inter fatih marraiges don’t always work out…
have a good evening,
Beckers

Study: Religion Is Good for Kids
foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268081,00.html

Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development.


The conflict that arises when parents regularly argue over their faith at home, however, has the opposite effect.

John Bartkowski, a [Mississippi State University](javascript:siteSearch(‘Mississippi State University’)😉 sociologist and his colleagues asked the parents and teachers of more than 16,000 kids, most of them first-graders, to rate how much self control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.

The researchers compared these scores to how frequently the children’s parents said they attended worship services, talked about religion with their child and argued abut religion in the home.

The kids whose parents regularly attended religious services — especially when both parents did so frequently — and talked with their kids about religion were rated by both parents and teachers as having better self-control, social skills and approaches to learning than kids with non-religious parents.
 
Part of me wants to say, “duh!” but the other part of me is glad that someone is noticing that maybe, just maybe, religion DOES have a beneficial place in modern society. I did like the part of the article that read:
Secondly, the types of values and norms that circulate in religious congregations tend to be self-sacrificing and pro-family, Bartkowski told LiveScience.
It’s nice to see the words “self-sacrificing” and “pro-family” in secular media for a change, instead of the more common “intolerant”.

Interesting bit of personal observation, but the few “unequally yoked” families I know well enough to observe it, I do see a marked indifference or flat out hostility to religion and God in their children.
 
I didn’t really like this part. I’ve seen tons of kids act up at church…

It’s also possible that the correlation between religion and child development is the other way around, he said. In other words, instead of religion having a positive effect on youth, maybe the parents of only the best behaved children feel comfortable in a religious congregation.

“There are certain expectations about children’s behavior within a religious context, particularly within religious worship services,” he said. These expectations might frustrate parents, he said, and make congregational worship “a less viable option if they feel their kids are really poorly behaved.”
 
I didn’t really like this part. I’ve seen tons of kids act up at church…

It’s also possible that the correlation between religion and child development is the other way around, he said. In other words, instead of religion having a positive effect on youth, maybe the parents of only the best behaved children feel comfortable in a religious congregation.

“There are certain expectations about children’s behavior within a religious context, particularly within religious worship services,” he said. These expectations might frustrate parents, he said, and make congregational worship “a less viable option if they feel their kids are really poorly behaved.”
I’ve yet to be in a Catholic church where there hasn’t been a large minority of kids who weren’t the “best behaved”. I have, however, been in some Protestant churches where the “leave them at home or in the nursery” ethos is present (though I’ve also been to some where children are welcomed warmly in the service). I wonder how that feeling, the “my kids are too bad to take to church” feeling, varies from Catholic parents to Protestant parents. Or even church to church.
 
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