Children, is church good, but not?

[Themgclgopher13]

So I have seen from my own experiences that going to church brings a family closer together if going every Sunday and partaking in the activities. I've found it can teach you many good morals and give you a good network. In America a lot of society are Christians. What do you do when you have rebellious kids. A couple whom I'm acquainted believe that having their children attend church every Sunday and also the activities would help straighten them out. I think their are better ways to bring the family closer and help with the discipline of the kids. I would like to discuss....

-From discussion of Paco, Dean, and Cluebot :!:

 

[MindHack]

If you mean by 'kids' adolescent kids then I think it's healthy behaviour for the adolescent to be rebellious.

It indicates it feels safe enough to rebel and 'fight' its way to become an independent adult. "straightening out" then seems to indicate an adult's need for continued control which at some point conflicts with the needs of the adolescent.

 

[evilotakuneko]

They could likely get a similar benefit from just doing something regularly together.

 

[bluejatheist]

I had to go to a church day care type thing. It wasn't bad. It depends on the nuttiness of the church. The more fundie, the worse for a kid it would be. Obviously indoctrination is part of this as well, regardless of fundie-ness. Theres also the Unitarian church which is pretty liberal. Either way my immediate subjective advice would be screw churches, keep the kids away for their own good, there's MUCH to do as an alternative to sunday church.

 

[Laurens]

They could likely get a similar benefit from just doing something regularly together.

I agree.

I don't think it is something specific to going to church. I'd expect you'd find that families who partake in regular activities together would have fewer of the problems described in the OP (although I cannot be sure of that).

 

[televator]

They could likely get a similar benefit from just doing something regularly together.

Yeah I can't see how that result would be exclusive to religion either. Sports, theme parks, camping, crafts, Story telling, etc... bringing people together since inception.

Sure, religion might facilitate this because many forms of it provide a ready; regular; and free event every week for a family to attend, but at the cost of ideas that -- at best -- introduce an a priori supernatural element that is unnecessary for seeing the world as it is, and -- at worst -- has the counter effect of implanting dogma that actually divides families amongst a plethora of other problems.

 

[CEbbesen]

They could likely get a similar benefit from just doing something regularly together.

No better way to put it really.