A new study says that kids with religious parents are better behaved and more adjusted than other children.
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A new study says that kids with religious parents are better behaved and more adjusted than other children.
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is it really because of religion, or perhaps fear that the big, bad, vengeful sky daddy is going to “get them” if they misbehave??
I think there are good parents and bad parents, and this is not determined by whether or not mom and dad espouse a particular religion. We’ve had this argument before: Can people be good without religion? Absolutely! And people can most certainly be evil, even with religion.
I posted this same article on my blog. I think the results are good news but the offered explanations for why religion was beneficial were incomplete. Here are my comments on the matter:
Dr. Jeff Bjorck, a Fuller Theological Seminary professor, argues that current research says that religious coping involves more than just social support. What this researcher didn’t understand is that people perceive God giving them support above and beyond the support of the congregation (what the article refers to as social support). The author humbly acknowledges that the researchers did not have a full explanation for the benefit of religion over that of secular interventions, but that is inexcusable due to the emerging literature that points out this finding.
I also have to take some offense at the lack of mention that religious parents might actually be better behaved, more loving, and provide better social environments than non-religious parents. To completely ignore the possibility that religious parents may actually be better people as a result of their religious attendance is insulting. While the attempts at explaining the positive effects of religion in this article were correct, they weren’t comprehensive of the reasons that are given in the research literature and that are self-evident from common sense.
As for the above commenter’s viewpoint, yes there are some people who use “negative” religious beliefs to deal with life so it is possible that some of these religious people can simply be fearful of God. However, the overwhelming majority of religious people see God as benevolent and forgiving, so I don’t think that explanation will stand up.
As for musicguys argument: “I think there are good parents and bad parents, and this is not determined by whether or not mom and dad espouse a particular religion.” I think that this position disregards the scientific findings of this article. Of course non-religious parents can be good parents, but this article suggests that religious parents tend to be better parents on average.
Every child needs to learn how to obey authority. The sooner a child learns to obey the better. Every one of us will have an authority figure in our lives at all times, whether it’s parents, teachers, bosses, spouses, law enforcement officers, IRS agents, etc., and the better we are at abiding by the rules the easier our life will be.
Christianity, if taught right, does exactly this. God is to be obeyed, not because He’ll smite us if we don’t, but because He’s the authority figure and we aren’t. We are to respect those in authority over us and if we learn how to respect and obey God, learning to respect and obey man comes a lot easier.
Not to mention that, in a world where there are no absolutes and we’re taught that anything goes, every religion I know of teaches the difference between right and wrong.
I also have to take some offense at the lack of mention that religious parents might actually be better behaved, more loving, and provide better social environments than non-religious parents.
Hey, if we’re taking offense at stuff, can I take offense at any articles that do claim that atheism makes one a worse parent? Seems that the authors are onto a loser whatever they suggest.
Incidentally, looking at the article, I’d question the use of the phrase “better adjusted” with respect to these kids’ behaviour. This study includes no objective measure of how well-adjusted someone is. The researchers just summed up a bunch of teachers’ gut reactions.
In particular, I’d expect roughly the same results from the survey if regular worship was correlated with conformity.