The Science of Children's Religious and Spiritual Development

The Science of Children's Religious and Spiritual Development PDF Author: Annette Mahoney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108812771
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 75

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Book Description
This Element provides a comprehensive yet concise account of scientific research on children's religious and spiritual (RS) development. After providing a historical sketch of definitional issues in the science of RS, the first section reviews basic descriptive information on children's RS development as well as wholistic theoretical models and measures of children's RS development. The second section covers evidence about links of child and parental RS to children's psychosocial adjustment, and highlights the need for more research that discriminates specific positive and negative manifestations of RS for children's development. The third section summarizes evidence about the robust influence of parents on their children's RS development and parents' perceptions of their role in this process. The fourth section focuses on cognitive-developmental research on children's cognitions about God/deities and prayer. The Element concludes with a synopsis of key themes and challenges that researchers face to advance the science of children's RS development.

The Science of Children's Religious and Spiritual Development

The Science of Children's Religious and Spiritual Development PDF Author: Annette Mahoney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108812771
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 75

Get Book Here

Book Description
This Element provides a comprehensive yet concise account of scientific research on children's religious and spiritual (RS) development. After providing a historical sketch of definitional issues in the science of RS, the first section reviews basic descriptive information on children's RS development as well as wholistic theoretical models and measures of children's RS development. The second section covers evidence about links of child and parental RS to children's psychosocial adjustment, and highlights the need for more research that discriminates specific positive and negative manifestations of RS for children's development. The third section summarizes evidence about the robust influence of parents on their children's RS development and parents' perceptions of their role in this process. The fourth section focuses on cognitive-developmental research on children's cognitions about God/deities and prayer. The Element concludes with a synopsis of key themes and challenges that researchers face to advance the science of children's RS development.

The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence

The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence PDF Author: Eugene C. Roehlkepartain
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761930785
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
This Handbook draws together leading social scientists in the world from multiple disciplines to articulate what is known and needs to be known about spiritual development in childhood and adolescence.

Born Believers

Born Believers PDF Author: Justin L. Barrett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439196575
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Infants have a lot to make sense of in the world: Why does the sun shine and night fall; why do some objects move in response to words, while others won’t budge; who is it that looks over them and cares for them? How the developing brain grapples with these and other questions leads children, across cultures, to naturally develop a belief in a divine power of remarkably consistent traits––a god that is a powerful creator, knowing, immortal, and good—explains noted developmental psychologist and anthropologist Justin L. Barrett in this enlightening and provocative book. In short, we are all born believers. Belief begins in the brain. Under the sway of powerful internal and external influences, children understand their environments by imagining at least one creative and intelligent agent, a grand creator and controller that brings order and purpose to the world. Further, these beliefs in unseen super beings help organize children’s intuitions about morality and surprising life events, making life meaningful. Summarizing scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe, Professor Barrett illustrates the ways human beings have come to develop complex belief systems about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. He shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals, across humanity, a “natural religion,” the organization of those beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the world’s major religions, uniting them under one common source. For believers and nonbelievers alike, Barrett offers a compelling argument for the human instinct for religion, as he guides all parents in how to effectively encourage children in developing a healthy constellation of beliefs about the world around them.

The Religious Potential of the Child 6 to 12 Years Old

The Religious Potential of the Child 6 to 12 Years Old PDF Author: Sofia Cavalletti
Publisher: Liturgy Training Publications
ISBN: 1618333801
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Here at last is the long-awaited continuation of The Religious Potential of the Child (from 3 to 6 years old). The author, Sofia Cavaletti, founder of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, describes an approach to the religious education of children according to the methods of Maria Montessori, which has gained worldwide attention. In this book she draws on her long experience with children from diverse cultures and environments to describe the vital religious needs of the older child (6 to 12 years old). The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd for the older child builds on the foundation in scripture and liturgy offered to the younger child (3 to 6 years old). The theme of the covenant between God and humankind, first revealed to the people of Israel, is expanded to include the dimension of time: all of history, from creation to the parousia. For the older child, awareness of participation in this covenant relationship leads spontaneously to a sense of moral responsibility, and of engagement with the cosmos in all its manifestations. This book will be a great help to educators and catechists who seek to understand the characteristics of the older child, particularly the child’s relationship with the mystery of God.

Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality

Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality PDF Author: Karen-Marie Yust
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742544635
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions provides a forum for prominent religious scholars to examine the state of religious knowledge and theological reflection on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. Featuring essays from thinkers representing the world's major religious traditions, the book introduces new voices, challenges assumptions, raises new questions, and broadens the base of knowledge and investment in this important domain of life. Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality will set the stage for new waves of scholarship and dialogue within and across traditions, disciplines, and cultures that will enrich understanding and strengthen how the world's religious traditions, and others, understand and cultivate the spiritual lives of children and adolescents around the globe.

Life in The Family

Life in The Family PDF Author: James D. Chancellor
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815606451
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
From a unique insider's perspective—including interviews with more than seven-hundred family members—James Chancellor charts The Family's course since its emergence as the most controversial group to grow out of the Jesus People Movement in the 1960s. Chancellor, who had extraordinary access to rare Family records, includes the experiences of members who have remained loyal to the community and to the founding vision of their prophet, David Brandt Berg. In the first book of its kind—comprising often painful personal histories and firsthand accounts—Chancellor focuses on the motivation and process of becoming a Child of God, the core beliefs of the community, the mission of the disciples, their shifting sexual mores, and the cost of membership in terms of internal discipline and external persecution. Intense confrontation with the legal, religious, political, and educational establishment marked the movement's activities from the beginning. The young disciples heeded the call of their prophet to flee a soon-to-be-destroyed North America. Dispersed throughout Europe, Latin America, Africa, and East Asia, they virtually disappeared from the American landscape. In the late 1980s, The Family had gone through extreme theological and lifestyle changes, including a radical reordering of their sexual ethos. The Children of God started to come home. Now a worldwide counterculture of some twelve thousand members, the movement's colorful history reveals a profoundly religious group that has tested the limits of human experience.

Losing Our Religion

Losing Our Religion PDF Author: Christel Manning
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479883204
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
"The fastest growing religion in America is--none! Among adults under 30, those poised to be the parents of the next generation, fully one third are religiously unaffiliated. Yet these "Nones," especially parents, still face prejudice in a culture where religion is widely seen as good for your kids. What do Nones believe, and how do they negotiate tensions with those convinced that they ought to provide their children with a religious upbringing?"--Publisher description.

Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development

Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development PDF Author: Elizabeth M. Dowling
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0761928839
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
Focuses on the developmental process of religion and spirituality across the human life span.This encyclopedia joins a recent trend in research and scholarship aimed at better understanding the similarities and differences between world religions and spiritualities, between expressions of the divine and between experiences of the transcendent.

The Religious Potential of the Child

The Religious Potential of the Child PDF Author: Sofia Cavalletti
Publisher: Liturgy Training Publications
ISBN: 161833378X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
This book describes the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori-based style of catechesis that focuses on the child’s independent journey to God by working with materials in a specially prepared place called an atrium. Written by Sofia Cavaletti, the Italian scripture scholar who developed the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, this classic work demonstrates the profound spiritual capabilities of children as brought forth through their engagement in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This book is important for anyone desiring to learn about the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd or the spiritual life of children ages 3-6. Sofia Cavaletti is an internationally known biblical scholar and was a member of the committee that prepared the Directory for Masses with Children. Together with her collaborator, Gianna Gobbi, a Montessori educator, she has traveled throughout the world forming catechists in this essentially oral method and helping to establish catechetical centers modeled on their Centro di Catechesi in Rome.

Religious Diversity and Children's Literature

Religious Diversity and Children's Literature PDF Author: Connie R. Green
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1617353981
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book is an invaluable resource for enabling teachers, religious educators, and families to learn about religious diversity themselves and to teach children about both their own religion as well as the beliefs of others. The traditions featured include indigenous beliefs throughout the world, Native American spirituality, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity (Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism), Islam, Sikhism, and other beliefs such as Bahá'í, Unitarian Universalism, Humanism, and Atheism. Each chapter highlights a specific religion or spiritual tradition with a brief discussion about major beliefs, misconceptions, sacred texts, and holy days or celebrations. This summary of each tradition is followed by extensive annotated recommendations for children’s and adolescent literature as well as suggested teaching strategies. The recommended literature includes informational books, traditional religious stories, and fiction with religious themes. Teachers, religious educators, and family members will find the literature from these genres to be invaluable tools for bridging the religious experience of the child with that of the global society in which they live.