Raising Free Thinkers - A Review

Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
Authors: Dale McGowan, Molleen Matsumura, Amanda Metskas, Jan Devor
Pub Date: 2009
ISBN: 9780814410967

Summary:

RAISING FREETHINKERS is the practical companion to Parenting Beyond Belief: OnRaising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, a ground breaking collection of essays offering secular parents advice about raising caring and freethinking children, edited by Dale McGowan.

Now McGowan, a writer and parenting educator, and his co-authors (a humanist activist, the Executive Director of Camp Quest, and a Religious Director of a Unitarian Society) offer practical advice about secular parenting for the nonreligious.

You can find more information at
http://www.amanet.org/books/book.cfm?isbn=9780814410967

About the Authors:

Dale McGowan is a writer, editor, and critical thinking educator. He writes the
secular parenting blog The Meming of Life as well as parenting columns for
Humanist Network News, and edits the Humanist Parenting website
(humaniststudies.org/parenting/) for the Institute for Humanist Studies. He
manages the Parenting Beyond Belief forum .

Amanda Metskas is the Executive Director of Camp Quest, Inc.,
a secular summer camp for children.

Molleen Matsumura is a humanist activist and writer.
Her humanist advice column, Sweet Reason, can be found at www.sweetreason.orgor at the website of
the Institute for Humanist Studies

Jan Devor is Director of Religious Education at the
First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis.


My thoughts:
First off you must be "open minded" to read this book.

Being a freethinking parent is raising your children without religious guidance, this may not be for everyone but I think even those of us who do use religion in our parenting style can learn something from this book.

This book covers some very major subjects that can be hard to explain to your children such as death, sexuality, morality, ethics, and life in general.

In times like these children are becoming more and more aware at a younger and younger age. Curiousities are perked and the questions don't stop, you need to be prepared to answer them for we are our children's mentors. With Raising Free Thinkers you can answer these questions without fear and any sugar coating.

You can encourage curiousity, with over 100 activities featured in the book not only for the children but for us as parents as well.

There are many Q & A's featured in the book, to give you a general idea here is a one of the questions, followed with the answer:

Does the book intend to convert parents away from religious parenting?

Not at all. It is a resource to help parents who have already decided to raise their children without religion to do it well. Many religious readers have praised the tone of the book, which encourages co-existence, not conflict. Anything that helps parents to be better parents, regardless of their beliefs, is a good thing.

another I like is:

How can children be taught moral behavior without religion?

The chapter titled "Being and Doing Good" is devoted to this very topic. Behaving morally makes sense, and most people behave well for sensible reasons—even if they think they are relying on commandments. Psychologist Dr. Jean Mercer contributed an essay describing the six stages of moral development. Children are more likely to move to the higher levels of development and to retain a more nuanced and reliable moral sense if they learn the reasonable principles of ethical behavior than if they rely on parental or scriptural authority.

Thanks the The Family Review Network for this opportunity.

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Smiles,

~Kristinia/Loving Heart Mommy~