How do atheists teach their kids morals?
But with Christians, they tell their kids "don't steal, or you'll go to hell" or "Sex before marriage is wrong, because God said" and you know, things like that.
Little kids always want a reason for everything. It seems to me that if you don't give them a horrible enough consequence for their actions, then they will just do it anyway. I was told as a little kid, that if I don't do what my parents say, then God will punish me for not respecting my elders, and that was how I learned to listen to them.
When kids are very young, they don't understand that they should do things, or not do things, just because thats what's right.
So I'm not very religious, and worry about how i'm going to teach my kids stuff like this.
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it`s nice to be as honest as possible with children, so they don`t have to re-learn the proper way later on in life. yah, sure, it`s nice to scare kids with `the devil` and `hell`, but that doesn`t make them learn about the REAL consequeneces for their wrong doings. (ie. untrustworthy, charged, prison, etc.)
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"Don't have unprotected sex until you're married, because you could get an STD and not even know it."
"Don't call people bad names, because it's mean and hurts their feelings."
The ordinary, everyday consequences of wrongdoing are an equally valid way of illustrating why things are wrong.
"If I catch you stealing, you have to take the stuff back, apologize to the store clerk and go to bed without supper" (assuming they are small and was a tiny thing they took)
or
"If you lie, then you have to remember the lie and tell it exactly the same every time or you will be caught and if you are caught you will be (insert punishment) and people will start to not like you because you lie. Things like that.
Honestly, go check out the Unitarian Universalist church (assuming you have on in your area) they teach morals without using religion as a bludgeon to make children behave. Morals based on fear (of hell, etc) is Not a strongly-based morality.
The second way I teach him morals is to punish him accordingly and let him know what the consequences will be in the real world if he continues with bad behavior. When he was 3 he threw a fit over leaving the park, and he hit me. I drug him to the car and straight to the police station. I told him I wasn't going to tolerate a little boy that would hit his mother, and that hitting people is against the law. He cried and begged me not to give him to the police. I never had to even get out of the car, and he hasn't hit me since (respect thy mother & father).
The third way is to reward good behavior. I try to point out to him the good/right choices he makes. This one warmed my heart... We brought home Wendy's for dinner one night. We each got a sandwich and shared some fries. I got an extra sandwich, just in case we weren't full. After he finished his, I told him if he was still hungry, he could have the other sandwich. He ate a little less than half of it and told me I could have the rest. I took a bite and put it down. I told him if he wanted the rest, he could have it. He said "Oh good mom. I was still hungry, I just wanted to make sure that you got enough to eat." I gave him a big hug and explained to him that thinking of others, before yourself, makes him a good person, and it makes me proud to be his mother (do unto others).
My son doesn't fear Hell, he fears me. If he were to steal something, I'd empty his room of everything except the bed and clothes. If he hurts someone on purpose, he get's spanked. If he slams his door, I take it off the hinges. I do not tolerate attitude, arguing, bad grades, saying hurtful things, lying and consider myself very strict.
My son does great in school, he is very athletic, popular and loving. I speak to him like an adult and when I say a word he may not understand, I ask him to make sure. He knows that I don't believe in God, and that once he is 14, he can got to church if he wants to. I don't want him to be brainwashed, I want him to make a conscience decision about religion.
We don't need to fear God to be good, moral people. We are that way because it is the right way to be. As for the sex before marriage thing, good luck with that. I haven't made it that far yet, but my thoughts are to tell him it is safer to wait until you are married, but to protect himself if he can't wait.
I hope this helped :)
"It's not very nice to steal from people."
"How would you feel if someone stole from you?"
really- we don't need to point to an ancient book and an invisible man to teach our children.
You're talking as though the default human behaviour is evil and immoral, even in young children. That strikes me as a terribly pessimistic and indeed incorrect way to view the world. Threatening your kids with horrible punishments is not the way to raise them to be nice people - and it's certainly not the way to form a good relationship with them.
I would guess most atheists teach their kids the same way christians do, only they leave out the part about being burned alive forever by some angry deity.
Do you think it was moral for God to kill all the innocent Egyptian children, just to prove a point to Pharaoh?
Please, religion is the LAST place we get our morals...even religious people dont get them from religion anymore... If you did you would think it was ok to kill people with stones for working on Sundays.
I used to scare my sister with santa not bringing her presents if she acted up while I was baby sitting.... same concept you are using, basically.
Why dont you ask, "Where did Chinese people get their morals" ? They didnt have bibles, and they had a society and a very advanced and "moral" civilization long before Europe.
Most of these religions are BASED on the ALREADY established norms of the people who wrote them up.... This morality argument is beyond silly.
Organized religion is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for teaching morality.
You will teach your children goodness and kindness and decency by being good and kind and decent yourself, not by scaring them.
Sadly many children in America are brainwashed into the false notion of so called "Christian" morality. How moral is a god that will burn you forever if you don't do exactly what he says? What you need to realize is that morals do not come from god, they come from education and experience.
I teach my children not to discriminate, and hate other people just because they want to believe in a different god, their is no such thing as a true religion, let alone one true god, like you Christians like to claim. I teach my kids this by educating them on the main causes of conflict, such as religion, and politics, and why none of these really matter in the end. Morality to me is being able to understand and accept differing views points. Unlike the Christians "morals" which is to hate everyone and everything that is not of their God, because, of course, anything that is not Christian, is "evil".
The only way you will every be truly free, and intelligent is by questioning faith.
'monkey see, monkey do' is the quote he just gave me.
You don't need to use fear of eternal damnation to get your 5 year old to stop doing bad things. You just need to explain to them why what they are doing is bad and ask them how they would feed if someone did that to them.
They taught me the actual reason you don't steal - because it isn't yours to take, it belongs to someone else.
They never told me sex was only for marriage but that it was something mature people do and if you are too embarrassed to tell your boyfriend to put on a condom or discuss the ins and outs of it with who you're doing it with that's the clue you aren't mature enough for it.
They told me you get in less trouble for telling the truth than telling a lie and that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.... and so on. They modeled good behavior too - they worked hard and didn't cheat or steal or treat others badly. I was raised to see that acting responsibly is the right thing to do because people who act irresponsibly get themselves into trouble, have miserable lives, and are basically scumbags. I guess I really didn't need any threat of afterlife punishment. A rational explanation made plenty of sense to me.
My husband and I raise my daughter the same way. I'm Wiccan and he is an atheist. We see no reason to make empty threats when the truth is so accessible.
"You're bad! go to your room and think about what you did for a while"
I am a follower of Christ
I have taught my son, "Don't hit, because you are hurting the other person and they're feelings" not "do unto your neighbor"
I tell him "Don't steal something, because you have to work for what you want" instead of "don't covet they neighbor".
You don't have to threaten your children with eternal damnination to make them understand. Right and Wrong isn't just from the bible.
haha atheist kids bring knives to school? hahaha oh man! as far as CNN tells us, its the religious wack jobs who grow up to realize their parents nonsense is a bunch of crap. then they grab a gun and kill schoolhouses of kids. then themselves.
to be 100% honest, religious kids compared to the rest, are some of the most manipulative aggressive kids ive ever met. and thats no lie.
Do what I tell you or I'll throw you into a fire!
age 16, I go to church with my mom and have experienced girls that have gave me their phone # and asked me to call them to have sex with them. And some kids that attend my church and school, i can see them totally denying biblical teaching.
I attend school in the suburbs even though i live in the city, and I see that most of the kids (predominantly white), who dont live by Christian teaching, have way better morals than my fellow african americans here in then city. I also see that the whites in my school who are outspoken christians have the same exact morals and live ideal lives. Also, the kids who have recieved admission into Ivy league schools were not Christians, and there were some Christians who recieved admission also.
my point is that morality and success is dependent on the individual.
I teach her to be compassionate, honest, charitable etc because it is the correct thing to do. We all have natural empathy for one another and it is completely illogical to want the world to operate one way (with justice, kindness, loyalty etc.) then to behave in another way altogether. Our actions create our civilization. That is far more demonstrable and understandable than some ancient fairytale about hell.
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