Study: Religion is Good for Kids

Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development.

The conflict that arises when parents regularly argue over their faith at home, however, has the opposite effect.

John Bartkowski, a Mississippi State University sociologist and his colleagues asked the parents and teachers of more than 16,000 kids, most of them first-graders, to rate how much self control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.

The researchers compared these scores to how frequently the children’s parents said they attended worship services, talked about religion with their child and argued abut religion in the home.

Read the entire story here.

Parents Need to Get A Life, I Mean A Spiritual Life

The Washington Post has begun a web based feature called, "On Faith."

The most recent question is this: "Millions of people are in mixed faith marriages or are unsure about their conception of God. How would you advise them to describe God to their children over the holiday season?"

I like the response by the panelist the Reverend William Tully, rector of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City. His response can be found here.