Reddit reviews Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
We found 44 Reddit comments about Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
My $0.02.... don't try and ban religion/god from your kids. The only time you need to step in is if they are scaring your kids with hell/etc, which is totally inappropriate for children.
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
Compra este libro, YA! Es muy bueno para padres de familia ateos.
Lead by example and let it go from there. Let him ask questions when he's ready. If he asks why doesn't he go to church like his friends do, you can tell him that you don't really believe in God, that you think you and your family are still good people, but would he like some information? Encourage him to ask questions and develop his own opinion.
Here are some resources for you, too.
Website: Atheist Parents
Books: Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers
Good luck, and congrats on your new family! You'll be a great parent. :)
Books
Books
and books.
The main stressed point to raising secular children is teaching them HOW to think rather than WHAT to think.
Focus on giving them tools of skepticism, on questioning authority, on doubting claims without proof, etc.
but most important: just be there for them. Love them. Respect them. and they will follow suit
Get this book.
One of my favorite activities from it is to write these following types of choices up on our little board and discuss each of them.
Rehash of a previous post of mine:
For a secular view on child raising, check out the books "Parenting Beyond Belief" and "Raising Freethinkers" by Dale McGowan: http://www.parentingbeyondbelief.com/ (site seems to be down for the moment). I have heard that they are very good.
The site has also a Youtube channel, and judging by the videos the contents of the books seem excellent:
The, uh..."Genesis" of Parenting Beyond Belief
Why religious literacy is important (Parenting Beyond Belief #2)
Religious literacy done right...and wrong (Parenting Beyond Belief #3)
Influence without indoctrination (Parenting Beyond Belief #4)
"What if your child becomes religious?" (Parenting Beyond Belief #5)
I think that even only watching the videos gives you a good introduction in how to approach religious issues with your kids.
You begin by discussing death. Read newspaper obituaries at breakfast. Discuss what people valued in their lives, and how they live on in the people who remember them, and the good deeds they performed while alive.
Next, explain why religions exist. They attempt to answer:
At age 5, you could truncate it to only a discussion about where we're going. Most importantly, religion exists because of peoples' fear of death. They want to live forever, so they invented gods. They also didn't understand anything about the world around them, why storms came and ruined their crops, what the lights were in the sky, etc. So they attributed these things to gods.
As we've begun to understand the universe through scientific discovery, religious people have redefined their gods continuously throughout human history (the 'god of the gaps'). We understand weather, so we don't blame drought on gods being angry or good weather on gods being pleased with us.
If the 8-year-old knows the truth about Santa Claus, it's a learning moment. Gods are Santa Claus for adults. They believe because it comforts them, so long as they don't think too deeply about the absurdity of their beliefs.
For the 8-year-old, discuss the various major religions, and at the same time, ancient religions (both given equal legitimacy, which is to say, no legitimacy).
Explain that almost all of their friends believe in gods. Most importantly, explain that people don't want to be told their gods aren't real. Explain that people feel so passionately about gods, like little kids feel passionately about Santa Claus, that they will treat you badly if you reveal you don't believe in gods. Religious friends might choose to not be your friend anymore if they know. Teach them to smile and change the subject, not to engage religious people in a religious discussion. Their lives will be hell if they don't because kids can be very cruel.
Check out these books:
Ask questions and answer hers honestly. If you don't know, say so, and then help her look it up. Teach her about science -- real science, especially if she's learning about creationism in "science" class -- and especially the scientific method.
If you haven't already, there are a number of books on raising freethinking and atheistic children (or raising children to be freethinkers and/or atheists, though I'm not sure about the distinction). Dale McGowan wrote a couple of good books: Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion and Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief. If you look at the Amazon page for the second one, the suggested list has a bunch of books aimed at kids that you could read to her or simply have in your home depending on how much she's been affected by that church.
You might also look into a Unitarian Universalist church, see if there's one near where you're going to be moving to. They don't have a doctrine (there are seven principles that are generally kind of hard to argue with, but you don't have to believe in them to be a member), they welcome everyone, and their Religious Education program is excellent. They teach about all different (major) religions, which turns out to be a nice vaccine for the kind of hardcore stuff she's probably been exposed to by her mother.
At 11, also, I think she can understand that there are some things she might not want to discuss with her mother, but be very careful how you approach suggesting that. Obviously if you go about it the wrong way -- and there are probably a ton of wrong ways and very few right ones -- you'll get her clinging to what she knows and running from you.
Hi there. Little kiddos are tricky and too smart for their own good. Mine started after the lock down drills at school, wondering if dying from a gunshot hurt, how long it took, what happened when you died. The death question is a natural part of growing up. When a question is asked, short, truthful answers given at the child's level of understanding. avoiding the questions is hardly ever appropriate.
I've used some of these resources in the past (on mobile, apologies)
http://griefbeyondbelief.org/talking-to-kids/
http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/parents/?p=168
https://www.atheistparents.org/parenting-without-belief/
and a book
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief https://www.amazon.com/dp/0814410960/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ZTLTDbD7VCBE3
the first site is really helpful. they have a library of resources on their site. Hope the burden lessens in time.
Indoctrination of children is one of the things that annoys me the most. Not only because it happened to me, but because it's part of evangelists' strategy to stop the decline of Christianity: the 4/14 window.
If it's not your own kids, there's not much you can do, unfortunately. But here are some thoughts:
Good luck! :)
I read the book Raising Freethinkers and it helped me feel more comfortable about how to raise kids in a secular manner. My experience was fundamentalist indoctrination. It talks about how to talk to kids about religion without telling them what to think.
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
I recommend this book: Raising Freethinkers.
It's less of a practical guide and mostly a series of essays by atheists parents sharing their experiences, but I got some incredibly useful things out of it.
The most useful of which was this. You don't say, Santa isn't real. You say, right from the outset, let's pretend that there's a fat man who flies around the world on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and he brings presents to children.
In so doing, you invite your child into the game from the get go. They understand, as does everyone else, that this isn't real but that we all pretend it is. Santa thus becomes a far more useful real-world analogy than painfully coming to terms with the fact that you've been lied to. Because really, a large number of people who profess publicly to be Christian (or any other faith, really) don't literally believe, but they go along with it because it's just how the game is played.
If you're subversive, like I am, you start celebrating the holidays of other faiths too, and you give similar preambles. For example, "let's pretend that a man in the sky created the world, and on this day, thousands of years ago, he gave us humans a special book, like a handbook. That's why your Jewish friends at school are having a party." And then you do all the cool holiday stuff associated with it.
Or, "let's pretend that lighting a giant bonfire in the back yard and running around it helps the crops to grow." Beltane is a hilariously fun time.
And so on. Your child is going to encounter religion no matter what, but if they can appreciate all of the different kinds that there are, they'll be in a much better position to see that no single one is more likely to be literally true than any other, and they all involve a large amount of make believe.
Congratulations!
Since I just recently was looking into what's out there to help parents raise kids to think critically, I'll pass on some of the books I found that you might find helpful:
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Reality-Know-Whats-Really/dp/1451675046/
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/
http://www.grandmotherfish.com
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
As a child who was raised with an unbelieving father I have a bit to add. Seems you are doing a bang up job so far! I would like to strongly emphasize him doing a lot of extracurricular activities via school. Sports, chess club, whatever it is! Its extremely important for him to have a rich social life outside of the borg. If he has plenty of worldly friends who he gets to visit regularly then I think, combined with your influence, there is no way he will take it seriously as he gets older.
My personal experience is that I always had some worldly associates but the association was strictly monitored and limited by my mom. But, none of my family except my mother are witnesses so I had quite a lot of "worldly" influence. The only thing I didn't do was the extracurricular stuff, which I sort of regret.
The best piece of advice I have seen regarding raising kids is "teach them HOW to think, not WHAT to think." And you seem to already be trying to do that. If you can expose him to many different types of people, beliefs, and experiences, he is going to understand that all these religions are different versions of the same thing, and that just because someone is different than you doesn't mean they are bad people.
A book I bought when my son was born, which I recommend to any exjw parent: Raising Freethinkers: Practical Parenting Beyond Belief
Ah! I can relate to this thread. I have bought a lot of parenting books and mean to get through them when I can. My favorites so far have been
https://www.amazon.com/Peaceful-Parent-Happy-Kids-Connecting/dp/0399160280
https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Discipline-Emotional-Connection-Not-Punishment/dp/0143131893
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0814437419/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile
https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Cain-Protecting-Emotional-Life/dp/0345434854
I own the Whole Brain Child and just can’t finish it. The technical parts about the brain have stumped me and i kept having to reread paragraphs over and over so I moved on to something else.
Read this book, together with your significant other. Discuss it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0814410960
Get this book:
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
(I have two boys 2 & 5)
"I would highly prefer her to be atheist as well"
I think this is mistake number one. I think you should want her to be rational and skeptical, atheism is typically just a byproduct of these vastly important characteristics. In the end, atheism is right and if you raise a kid to question and be skeptical, religion won't win I promise you. It can't, it ONLY works when people are convinced as children and raised to believe doubt is wrong. Teach Doubt and you will be fine. Right now my five year old tells me he believes in god, last week he didn't. I don't really care because he is 5 and that is what kids do. Don't worry too much about that part is my advice. Don't worry about other people so much trust that you can raise a daughter who is intelligent enough to come to the rational decision on her own. I don't know about you but that decision is still probably the most monumental decision I've made in my personal life and I cherish going through it and getting to this point.
On death, I say just be honest. Tell them about how are bodies break down and go back into the circle of life. All of that stuff that actually happens and is really quite beautiful. Kids can handle reality better than fantasy I think, because kids will naturally have questions and being able to have REAL answers is key.
Here are some good resources that helped my wife and I quite a bit.
Raising FreeThinkers: http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334847247&sr=1-1
&
Parenting Beyond Belief: http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Beyond-Belief-Raising-Religion/dp/0814474268/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2
I recommend 2 books.
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0671708635
The first deals specifically with raising them without religion. The second one, he uses many examples of his family and it's quite a good book as far as parenting goes although you wouldn't know it from just the title.
I loved Brain Rules and Brain Rules for Baby
One book that had just tons of awesome resources (and a great bibliography) that we both loved was
Raising Freethinkers
This book has links, places, printouts, all kinds of resources that you can use.
We read that at the same time as Brain Rules for Baby and they complemented each other nicely.
I read Nurture Shock before we started the dive into preparing to be parents and really enjoyed it. As a research scientist (anthropology and medical education, pimpofpixels nailed it!) I was very familiar with the majority of studies they mentioned and was able to access the ones they mentioned but did not really go into deeply enough. It was not conjecture, the research is valid. However, I felt like you could get an a lot more out of it if you are wiling to do some more legwork. For me that was okay, research is what I do, but for the parent or soon-to-be parent who does not have access, time, or wants a comprehensive how-to, to do additional research might get frustrating.
I liked the book as a brilliant starting point, a good way to start multiple dialoges.
For me us it was one of the better pre-parenting books we read (my favorite was Equally Shared Parenting) because it made us dig deeper and start to really reflect on how ready we were to start a family.
The chapter on race was one that I most helpful to us, not in the advice it gave, but by making us both stop and ask some questions that we had not considered.
After reading it I asked my hubs, who is white, (I am Latina) "You didn't talk about race/ethnicity as a kid?" I was a bit shocked that he said no. He did not ever remember talking about race, except on MLK day but that was in school. Even when he transferred to a private catholic school that was 90% Latino and suddenly felt very alone and isolated because he was not part of either Catholic or Latino culture, his parents never acknowledged that this school was any different then his previous one.
He said that he never told his parents about his culture shock because the conversation about race was either avoided or never acknowledged. He felt it was off limits. So instead of talking about it with his family he felt the need to assert his cultural identity. He wanted something to be proud of. Due his family's history of being Irish and Welsh on his father's side and French and German on his mother's side being (his words) whitewashed, he latched on to the only thing he was familiar with, his Southernness. Because his parents never talked about race (they wanted their children to be "colorblind") he assumed that his ethnic identity should be represented by the American Confederacy. It was not until HS that he made the association of the Confederate flag that hung in his bedroom to the fear it evokes in minority groups. He was again confused and upset this time because he felt like he had hurt his friends. He never agreed with confederate ideals, he was just a little kid trying to create his own identity. He struggled with this by himself because his family was "colorblind" and he just didn't know how to talk about it with them.
It even became an issue while we were dating. Various members of his family would make both overt and subversively racist comments. When I finally got tired of it and started pointing it out I was called an "angry minority." I would beg him to speak up, but he was so uncomfortable talking about race with his own family that what he would say was either so neutral that it fell flat or I was left to carry the burden.
He was fine talking about race and ethnicity with friends, my family and with me because it was a topic that was not taboo. It took him years to be able to firmly and confidently articulate how he felt when his family made those sorts of comments. Now he has developed his ethnic identity by studying the German and Welsh languages and bringing in the cultural practices of his ancestors to our family. Slowly, but surely the comments have stopped and a dialogue has started. It is not perfect, but it is better then the inner turmoil that comes with not being open about race/ethnicity.
Because of the dialogue that started from "Why white parents don't talk about race" he went out and searched for resources. Since he was not taught how to talk about race/ethnicity and because our children will be the only bi-racial children on his side and on my side be a part of a multi-racial cohort of cousins, he didn't want me to be the only one with input on this topic.
Sites with practical advice and resources on teaching children about race/ethnicity and religious diversity:
Understanding Race from the American Anthropological Association
Teaching Tolerance a project of the Souther Poverty Law center
Talking to our children about Racism and Diversity from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
I am totally going to add pimpofpixels suggestions to our reading list.
TL;DR: As a research professional the research in Nurture Shock is valid. However, I personally feel it is a better starting point then a how-to manual. If you want more research based parenting there are other great books that complement Nurture Shock.
There are a few resources for you:
Philosophy for Kids
Junior Skeptic Magazine
I have an 11-year old who is very interested in discussing philosophy, and sometimes talking and learning together is the best approach. There's not as much of a 'right answer' as it is a process of inquiry. Also, if it fits with your worldview, McGowan's book on Parenting Beyond Belief is also really helpful. Good luck and enjoy the ride!
Great book: Raising Free Thinkers
My boys are only 18 months and 11 weeks, so I've only skimmed it, but my wife's read quite a bit of it and it seems great.
Came across this great book:
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
See my flair.
Maybe some of these or books like these will help you explain things to your kids.
http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Beyond-Belief-Raising-Religion/dp/0814474268/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326736652&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Just-Pretend-Freethought-Book-Children/dp/1877733059/ref=pd_sim_b_7?ie=UTF8&refRID=1TST6CPCNP7RGVV1RVT7
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1TST6CPCNP7RGVV1RVT7
http://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Yes-No-Dan-Barker/dp/0879756071/ref=pd_sim_b_5/175-5906093-8191060?ie=UTF8&refRID=161YVFZQ1AYMJBH8S80V
http://www.amazon.com/What-Do-You-Believe-Publishing/dp/0756672287/ref=pd_sim_b_2/175-5906093-8191060?ie=UTF8&refRID=161YVFZQ1AYMJBH8S80V
http://www.amazon.com/Older-than-The-Stars-Karen/dp/1570917884/ref=pd_sim_b_3/175-5906093-8191060?ie=UTF8&refRID=161YVFZQ1AYMJBH8S80V
Check Parenting beyond belief by Dale McGowan.
Raising Freethinkers and other books like it are a good start.
Kids need to be taught how to think not what to think.
We had a very similar experience! 4 years of treatments, when another IUI failed we called it all off for a break. At that point we were truly at the "not ever going back to church" decision. One month later, preggo! Our son is now almost 17 months, not blessed, will never be involved in the church himself, and I have formally resigned. Its AWESOME! May I recommend two great parenting books I've loved reading and that have helped me a lot on my way out of Mormonism and in learning how to raise my boy without the church?
http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Beyond-Belief-Raising-Religion/dp/0814474268/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376170920&sr=1-1&keywords=parenting+beyond+belief
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376170920&sr=1-2&keywords=parenting+beyond+belief
Best wishes and of course CONGRATS!!!!
I just got this book, Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief. I have just skimmed it so far (too many freaking books) but it gives some good ideas on how to teach critical thinking, science, and how to introduce religions to your kids. (introducing them to the different religions of the world, and what they think / practice)
Both of these books have been recommended to me, but I haven't read either yet. They might have some ideas:
Not a parent myself, but a while ago I read this book because I had some of the same questions. I recommend it.
Yes, Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
Sure, it's something my husband and I have talked a lot about. We don't want to isolate our kids from religion but we also don't want an overpowering, manipulative religious force from our families. Our families aren't into infant baptism, so we didn't have to deal with that one in particular.
We have not addressed religious type gifts specifically yet since our one kid is still young. So far we've just gotten rid of books that are religious and they've caught on that those kind of gifts aren't really welcome. We'll probably communicate some guidelines for that in the future.
A book that was helpful to me is Raising Freethinkers. It's a more practical followup to the book Parenting Beyond Belief. I found it helpful because my only experience is growing up in a very religious environment, and it has lots of ideas on how to approach religion and religious topics with your kids. I like that its goal is to encourage your kids to come to their own conclusions, not just telling them what to think.
Also, our local Unitarian society has an amazing kids religious education program. We're thinking of taking advantage of it for our kids. It helps kids learn about and explore all sorts of ideas about different faiths and beliefs without being dogmatic or indoctrinating.
Hope that informative, and good luck navigating religious ideas with your kids and family!
Parenting Beyond Belief —cannot recommend it enough.
I am also eager to check out the companion book: Raising Free Thinkers
> the modern church offers a lot of value for raising children
When I first left the church I felt the same way.
But then I ordered some non-believer parenting guidebooks on raising your children with ethics and it blew me away.
One easy reading 250 page book had more valuable and useful information on teaching children to be kind and loving than I could find in all the 1000s of pages of mumbo-jumbo, confusing, contradictory scriptures and church publications put together.
Raising Freethinkers - Practical Parenting Beyong Belief
And then there were brilliant books I found for the kids, I stupidly didn't realize stuff like this existed outside the church.
Maybe Right, Maybe Wrong
What Should Danny Do?
Also you might want to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960
I plan to buy this book: https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960, and also now I am away from my country and any muslim communities, which should help a lot in shielding my kid from religious teaching.
if she still wants to stay within christianity, I suggest UU or TEC (the episcopal church) both are fairly progressive non-indoctrinational churches. We go to TEC, and my girls love it the two oldest got to go to their first sleep away camp and they loved it, they are even open to the fact that even tho I am still Christian, my spirituality is more closely align with agnostic theist and my hubby is Secular humanist/agnostic atheist. but as with everything it would also depend on your parish, not all churches are made equal even within a particular denomination. also I suggest helping her develop her own critical thinking. have her read [the magic of reality] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Reality-Whats-Really/dp/1451675046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406185178&sr=8-1&keywords=magic+of+reality), and [Philosophy for kids] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1882664701/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) also read [Raising Freethinkers] (http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406185579&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=raisin+free+thinkers).. Edited: for grammar and to add one more book suggestion..
Yes, I do. But understand "kind of immune" and "absolutely immune" are not the same thing.
The best books on the topic are Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers by Dale McGowan.
You might want to pop over into their forums also.
http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/forum/
They are mostly abandoned at this point but still filled with good previous discussion.
I've done many things with my young son like teaching comparative religion, making a game out of lying to him to see if he catches on to tune his bullshit detector, etc. Still, there's no guarente what he'll choose when he's older, and that's fine with me. I've done all I can to help him think well about the world, understand and look for good evidence, etc, and that's the best I can do.
Book
Raising Freethinkers is a great book. It gives many tips about not influencing your children, making them think and arrive to their on conclusions.
OP, I am about a third through a book called Raising Freethinkers and I highly recommend it.
Don't forget, you are the parent now, so if you want to raise her without religion and on public school, that is your choice now. Although, it might be wise to not make these changes immediately.
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/ref=lh_ni_t
http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Beyond-Belief-Raising-Religion/dp/0814474268/ref=lh_ni_t
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Emotionally-Intelligent-Child-ebook/dp/B005HF2VI2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344057659&sr=8-2&keywords=raising+emotionally+intelligent+children