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[Adventurer]

Study: Religion is Good for Kids Melinda Wenner
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com
Tue Apr 24, 10:45 AM ET



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 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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070424/sc_livescience/studyreligionisgoodforkids

[Ya-ta Boy]

As an ex-public school teacher, I will agree religious kids tend to be better behaved in class than the great unwashed, it isn't necessarily true outside of class. The football team was always delighted when a new PK (daughter) became a sophomore. The chances of a train being pulled went up significantly, from what I heard.

[tomato]

I thought Clara Bow was the only woman to seduce an entire football team.
It earned her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

[Novernae]

It sounds like there is a lot of speculation and subjectivity in the reasoning and gathering of data there. It simply compares the religious with the non-religious, not believers versus non-believers. That doesn't mean religion is good, it might simply mean that following through with your beliefs and being consistent is good for children. There is a big difference between someone who just doesn't go to church (read non-religious) and someone who actively tries to replace backwards thinking with critical thinking. Going to regular worship services where the kids are taught self-control and good behaviour (read be quiet and listen) is sure to have some sort of effect on their behaviour. Religion also provides kids with a very black and white world (good vs. bad) to be able to know where the lines are. Taking that away and not replacing it (which is often what happens with lapsed religious folk) is sure to create some issues in a child's life.

Any benefit brought by religion doesn't warrant the harm that it does, especially when those same benefits have more to do with community and parenting than religion.

[Juregen]

What a pot of crock

[RACETRAITOR]

I know too many kids who started off without religion and became Christian, messing up their lives, and too many people who were religious when they were young and haven't fully recovered yet.

It's probably more healthy to believe in Santa Claus.

[uberscheisse]

"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."

i like this one. the parents who do frequent social things in their kids' lives are going to raise more well-adjusted kids. it isn't religion, it's a sane, consistent introduction to community.

hell, if you sat down with a kid regularly and talked to him about hockey and his/her hockey team, it'd have the same effect as church. kids get structure and a positive presence in their life and they end up well-adjusted.

the "study" looks like it was carried out by dr. hwang. it just kinda sucks that atheists don't have "networks that provide social support". but can you imagine organized atheism? that'd be more annoying than organized religion, i think.

[VanIslander]

kids behaving well... good for them or for the parents?

obedience was not the central value sought in my upbringing.

in fact, 'think for yourself' and 'don't let anyone get you down' was more like it

i pitied religious kids, but not in a christian sense, and only because I couldn't empathize and didn't want to write them off as whacko

[mithridates]

I also prefer science to religion. Except when scientific studies like this come out, then I prefer to stick with my religion, where the central tenet is that religion is the source of all evil. On that point I prefer to stick with my gut.

Uberscheisse, your point has already been addressed in the article:

[yingwenlaoshi]

[Troll_Bait]

There's a difference between outward behaviour and inner feelings.
Someone could be well-behaved, but deeply conflicted on the inside.
Aren't serial killers and mass murderers usually described as "quiet"?

Also, what happens to these kids when they grow older and begin to realise that the world isn't as simple as they've been led to believe?

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

[tomato]

No, and it wasn't good for the priests, either.

Gebhard & Gagnon (1964) found that sexual abusers tend to come from a strict religious upbringing.

Toobert, Bartelme, & Jones (1959) found that sexual abusers were disproportionately prone to agree with these statements:

"A minister can cure disease by praying and putting his hand on your head."

"I go to church almost every week."

"I am very religious."

"I read the Bible several times a week."



Gebhard, P. H. & Gagnon, J. H. 1964. Male sex offenders against very young children. American Journal of Psychiatry 121: 576-579.

Toobert, L. S.; Bartelme, K. F.; & Jones, E. S. 1959. Some factors related to pedophilia. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 4: 272-279.

[uberscheisse]

[RACETRAITOR]