- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
What have you done in teaching your kids? I haven’t talked to mentioned any of my issues with my kids to any degree because I am still muddling through what I am sure of. But I am worried because I don’t want them to be extreme on things like I was. I want them to understand that the prophets (past and present) are men and everything they say isn’t gospel. There are other things that I don’t want them taught.
How do you go about moderating the things they are listening to in classes (that I am not in). And how do I express my skeptic view when my DH is a TBM?
Great question! I believe the technical StayLDS term is what do you do to “inoculate” your kids. I will respond later when I have more time to process my thoughts. Butters wrote:What have you done in teaching your kids?
I haven’t talked to mentioned any of my issues with my kids to any degree because I am still muddling through what I am sure of. But I am worried because I don’t want them to be extreme on things like I was. I want them to understand that the prophets (past and present) are men and everything they say isn’t gospel. There are other things that I don’t want them taught.
How do you go about moderating the things they are listening to in classes (that I am not in). And how do I express my skeptic view when my DH is a TBM?
Recognize that we never have full-control over what our children assimilate into their character. You can neutralize some things, but ultimately, our kids are free agents just as we would like to be. For me, I will not inoculate them against things that I think they are accepting. If they want to hold TBM values, that’s fine — I’m not going to stand in the way of the train that is leading them to goodness.
But when they start having a faith crises over it — I’m there.
So, in family home evening, I teach them things that are not firm doctrine at Church — for example:
1. How to react to people who are visibly depressed in such a way that you life them.
2. The importance of being reliable and following through on commitments.
3. How to negotiate effectively.
4. How to protect oneself from predators.
5. How to plan something and execute the plan with flexibility.
6. How to keep your house and room orderly.
Teach those things that you think are important that people won’t object to. If you have a divorced husband (forgive me, I’m not good with the acronymns), then it’s touchy. You will have to tread divergent thinking about the church lightly in my view — potentially letting your kids belive the TBM stuff and focusing on changing it only when it appears to be upsetting them.
In my family, I steer clear of my contrarion attidues about the Church to my children. Life is confusing enough — and they need some kind of solid anchor to build a foudnation from which they will grown. The TBM gospel does that for them, in my view, so I’m not about to neutralize it uniless it starts hurting them in some way, as it has hurt me.
I teach my kids what I believe – and that it’s only what I believe – and that others believe some of those things differently than I do – and that it’s ok. I teach them that they can believe what makes sense to them. My kids know when I don’t agree with something that was said at church – because I mention it and we talk about why I don’t agree. I don’t go into great detail about all of my heterodox views, but when things are said that I see differently . . .they know about it.
However, they also know how much I like and sustain whoever said it. I never rant about the person (ok, almost never
😳 ) but try to focus on the belief. That’s important, imo.I’m not sure that we will be bringing our kids to church at all. Our daughter is two and she has only been a handful of times, she has always sat with us anyway. We have our second baby on the way .. due in March. I think I want them to be baptised. I asked DH about it and I’m not sure that he even wants to do that. Once I turned to the dark side of believing very little in regards to the church … he kind of has an all or nothing attitude about it. Right now it is nothing. Although I shouldn’t complain b/c I honestly couldn’t handle the all part. I don’t think I could even handle the lessons my daughter would start learning. We have a “My first Bible” .. I won’t read her the story of Daniel and the giant – She doesn’t need to think it is ok to hit a bully in the head with a rock. Most of the other ones are harmless, kind of.
I want my kids to know that they have a choice. They can choose what they wish to take literal and what they believe to be good or bad. If they are being fed all “Good” church history … and are taught that the stories of The Bible are literal, well there isn’t much room for them to interpet it personally – And then comes Cog Dis … at the age of 7 b/c things don’t click and they are confused or start to question.I want to avoid it all.
Quote:My kids know when I don’t agree with something that was said at church – because I mention it and we talk about why I don’t agree.
Same here.
My main thing is to just ask them what they think. Kids have two reactions to what parents, teachers, and other authority figures say: 1) unthinking acceptance and 2) unthinking rejection. Nuance comes in time and by helping them learn to think things through for themselves. Kids start out as very black & white thinkers. They all do. It takes time for them to change that. Push too hard and you run the risk of reaping rebellion.
I just finished listening to the excellent Mormon Stories podcast on how to raise children in a non-traditional home. John and the panelists all had some excellent suggestions. As for me, one of the reasons I was a lousy missionary is because I’ve always felt really uncomfortable pushing my religious beliefs on others. Right now, I have few problems going along to get along, but when something comes up where I disagree with the program, I offer my opinion as respectfully as possible (which admittedly isn’t very respectful at times). And I try to preface it with “here’s my opinion…” so I don’t come across as authoritative. The only time this became an issue with DW was, ironically, on a position where I was more conservative than she was. I was taught growing up that we needed to pay tithing on money we receive as gifts and she didn’t. We had a lukewarm discussion on this for about 5 minutes, then we both turned to the children and said, “Mom and Dad don’t always agree on everything.” The kids didn’t seem too damaged.
Thanks for the input. I believe that it will be easier as I learn. My husband and I do try to teach the kids to be more tolerant of people and situations than the norm so I will just have to keep that in mind. Here is what shocked me into asking the question. My family wanted a puppy and my 12 year old was really excited about the idea of one. But with me loosing my job at the end of Jan and some medical expenses that are going to need to be met before that job loss we determined that it isn’t the best time for our family to get one. My 12 year old was pretty upset and said something like “Let’s just do it and things will work out! You always say that we can pray about things and it will be OK.”
I shuddered at what damage I had already done. We did talk to them about the fact that money is tangible and you have to have it to pay bills and that “the Lord helps those that helps themselves”. But it just scared me that I have already planted the seeds of hurt for down the road.
Life plants those seeds, and we nourish them unintentionally. It’s cool; it’s life. Do the best you can to plant and weed according to your best understanding. It’s all we can do – and our theology says it’s enough.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.