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As our boys head into their teenage years, my wife and I are thinking more and more about how to help them avoid (what we see as) unhealthy lifestyle choices. We worry about things like binge drinking, excessive drug use, and porn (lots of research suggests it can disrupt normal sexual development in young adult men).
Of course we can talk to them about these things, but they need healthy peer/social influences, too. I know that religious communities sometimes do a good job creating social spaces in which there will be less peer pressure to make unhealthy choices. If you are a secular person (like us), what options do you have for putting your kids in a social environment that will keep them from indulging in these things, or at least from indulging in them to a problematic extent?
Teach them how to spot bad influences before they are influenced. If you just pre-screen all their social interactions for them, one day when they move out they will go crazy and all the benefit will be lost.
And make it clear that going out with the wrong group is unwise but is not a "punishable" offense (otherwise they will hide it from you and the communication will be ruined.)
As our boys head into their teenage years, my wife and I are thinking more and more about how to help them avoid (what we see as) unhealthy lifestyle choices. We worry about things like binge drinking, excessive drug use, and porn (lots of research suggests it can disrupt normal sexual development in young adult men).
Of course we can talk to them about these things, but they need healthy peer/social influences, too. I know that religious communities sometimes do a good job creating social spaces in which there will be less peer pressure to make unhealthy choices. If you are a secular person (like us), what options do you have for putting your kids in a social environment that will keep them from indulging in these things, or at least from indulging in them to a problematic extent?
My experience is that is not the case, religious communities never do a good job of creating social spaces in which there will be less peer pressure. All the churches I went to growing up, the most promiscuous kids were the ministers children, rebellion, and they were usually popular and set examples that others followed. The more strict the religion the worse this behavior is. Just trust your children, give them what ever it takes to make sure they know they can talk to you. Religion is not healthy in a lot of ways and thinking that it can do something for your children that you can't is based on your lack of knowledge of religions.
If you set good examples your children will follow. If you dictate or let them catch you being dishonest, they will rebel. And there will always be peer pressure no matter where they go. Give them good habit and self esteem and they will make mistakes anyway, but they will probably be one or two mistakes instead of destructive lifestyle choices.
OP here - if you don't mind my asking, which religious group was this? I'm not a member of any church and would like to know more about their youth subcultures.
And thanks to all who have replied so far! Lots of good ideas and things to think about.
Christian Protestants. It was a medium-sized church in a medium-sized midwestern city. The church was low-drama as far as I could tell. The youth group was maybe 10 kids. None of them seemed particularly religious, just sort of going through the motions, but who can tell? There wasn't any drinking or drugs during youth group outings, but I suspect there was some sex. I wouldn't say they were worse than average, but not really better than any of the secular youth organizations I've experienced.
I was also roped into being a volunteer counselor for a Christian "wilderness" camp. I don't think anything really bad happened during that camp, but it was not a safe environment for kids or counselors. Then again, that might have been par for the time/place.
I don't think it was available at the time, but now I think parents would be better served putting their kids in camps/groups organized by local universities, colleges, or the city. I think these organizations are a bit more careful because there is no "Be a good church memeber and don't make waves" mentality and they are less insulated from lawsuits.
I think one of the keys is keeping the kids busy in healthy group activities like sports or band. It's also good for you to get to know the other parents and be involved. Also, make it clear to your kids that you don't want them to drink or take drugs or hang around with troublemaking kids that fight or skip school.
We had good experiences with our church youth groups. My husband and I met in ours in 5th grade and that group of 30-40 kids went on to be teachers, engineers, small business owners, etc. All very good family oriented people. Yes we may have had some slightly wild times during college but we all stayed grounded and connected to this day. My own kids went to events hosted by the local church - they had a huge fun youth program that many non-members attended. My son ended up joining the church and met his wife there.
Nothing is foolproof. I really believe it comes down to peer group pressure. Hang out with good friends that don't want to get into trouble. And I used to tell my kids that life is easier if you don't make bad choices and follow the correct order of life - school, job, marriage, babies.
how do you handle raising kids if mom and dad are from seperate religious communities? Neither of us are particularly religious
and we do participate in each other festivals as well
I think that kids in religious youth groups can be just as prone to bad behavior as in any other youth settings.
What helped with my kids was that they were in the group of high-achieving kids at the public school, who had ambitions to get into good colleges. They also were very busy with a prestigious music extracurricular that had a lot of overlap with high academic achievement. Plus I had made my home very welcoming to the kids' friends, so that my basement and backyard became the hangout spot, and I knew the parents of the other hang out houses, knew that they were keeping an eye on things too.
I really don't think that membership in a religious youth group that threatened the wrath of a deity would have helped one bit, plus since we don't believe in that, it would have been pretty weird to steer the kids towards that.
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