Relax It's Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You're Not Religious

by Wendy Thomas Russell

Overview

Gold-medal winner of a Next Generation Book Award, silver-medal winner of the Independent Publishers Book Award. As featured on the PBS NewsHour

“A gem of a book.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED REVIEW)

A step-by-step guide to raising confident, open-minded kids in an age of religious intolerance. Relax, It's Just God offers parents fresh, practical and honest ways to address issues of God and faith with children while promoting curiosity and kindness.

A rapidly growing demographic cohort in America, secular parents are at the forefront of a major and unprecedented cultural shift. Unable to fall back on what they were taught as children, many of these parents are struggling, or simply failing, to address issues of God, religion and faith with their children in ways that promote honesty, curiosity, kindness and independence.

The author sifts through hard data, including the results of a survey of 1,000 nonreligious parents, and delivers gentle but straightforward advice to both non-believers and open-minded believers. With a thoughtful voice infused with humor, Russell seamlessly merges scientific thought, scholarly research and everyday experience with respect for a full range of ways to view the world. 

Relax, It's Just God goes beyond the numbers to assist parents (and grandparents) who may be struggling to find the right time place, tone and language with which to talk about God, spirituality and organized religion. It encourages parents to promote religious literacy and understanding and to support kids as they explore religion on their own — ensuring that each child makes up his or her own mind about what to believe (or not believe) and extends love and respect to those who may not agree with them.

Subjects covered include:

• Talking openly about our beliefs without indoctrinating kids

• Making religious literacy fun and engaging

• Talking about death without the comforts of heaven

• Navigating religious differences with extended family members

• What to do when kids get threatened with hell

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941932001
Publisher:	Brown Paper Press
Publication date:	03/31/2015
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	1,055,372
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Wendy Thomas Russell is a journalist, author and editor. A former newspaper reporter, Russell writes an online parenting column for the PBS NewsHour and is the co-founder of Brown Paper Press, an independent book publishing company. Relax, It's Just God is her first book.

Read an Excerpt

Talking openly with children about sensitive subjects is hard. It always has been. In my parents' generation, the three-letter taboo was S-E-X. My sister was thirteen when my dad gave her "The Talk." It was the eighties, and my dad dodged it the way any educated man of his time might have. He tossed her a sex-education book and said, "Read this, but don't do it."

Luckily, things have changed. Discussing sex isn't scary now–or quite so scary anyway. Americans are more open with their children than ever before. Modern fathers don't flinch when their daughters ask about that thing dangling between daddy's legs after a shower. Many parents have no more trouble talking with their kids about sex than teaching them how to spell it.

But progressive thinking has a way of replacing certain taboos with others. And today, for a great many parents, there is a new three-letter word: G-O-D.

My daughter, Maxine, was barely five years old when she piped up from the backseat on the way home from preschool one day.

"Mommy," she said, "you know what? God made us!"

I felt like a cartoon character being hit in the back of the head with a

frying pan. My heart raced. I'm quite sure I began to sputter. Visions of Darwin and the evolving ape-man raced through my mind, followed closely by my childhood image of the big guy upstairs in his flowing white robes. I couldn't speak. And, in the awkward silence that followed, I was forced to confront the truth: The idea of talking to my kid about God–and, more specifically, about religion–scared the bejesus out of me.

I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak. "Well," I said, "Who is God?"

Now, I don't remember if Maxine actually said "duh," or whether she simply bounced a "duh" look off the rearview mirror. But I can tell you that the "duh" message came across loud and clear.

"He's the one who made us," she said, her eyebrows knitted. "Okay... well, what is God doing now?" I tried for casual.

Again with the nonverbal "duh."

"God is busy making people and babies," she answered.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: O We of Little Faith
Chapter One: Who We Are
* The Rise of the Nones What's In a Name?
* First, I Lost Hell
Chapter Two: What We're Doing Wrong
* Walking A Tightrope
* Our Most Common Follies
* A Word About 'Religious Hijacking'

Part Two: A New Direction
Chapter Three: Broaching the Subject
* When is the Right Time?
* Simple Words, Neutral Tone
* Answering the Big Questions
* From the Blog: 'God Wears a Green Shirt'
Chapter Four: Giving Kids a Choice-and Meaning It
* Letting Kids Choose Their Clothes (And Their Faith)
* We Can't 'Choose' Facts... Or Can We?
* Measuring the Space Between Indoctrination and Brainwashing
* From The Blog: Coolest Mom Ever
Chapter Five: Teaching Tolerance (Or: How Not to Be a Dick)
* What We Mean When we Say 'Tolerance'
* Raising Kind, Compassionate Kids
* Stereotyping is a Two-Way Street
* From the Blog: Where's an Omniscient Police Officer When You Need One?
Chapter Six: Critical Thinking: Our Ace in the Hole
* Putting the 'Critical' in Critical Thinking
* Letting Our Kids Challenge Us-And Win
* From the Blog: Can the Bible Help Kids Think Critically?
Chapter Seven: Kickstarting Religious Literacy
* Scoot Over, Dora: Making Room for Jesus, Muhammad, and Vishnu Categories of Literacy
* Six Steps to a Literacy Plan
* Choosing Religious Books Appropriate for Secular Families
* From the Blog: Honk if You Love Jesus
Chapter Eight: Got Religious Baggage?
* When Religion's Dark Side Looms Large
* The Inheritance of Anxiety
* 'How Could Anyone Believe that Crazy Stuff?'
* The Good Kind of Baggage
* From the Blog: Glenn Beck Conservatives Expose 'Notorious Atheist'
Chapter Nine: Celebrating Secularism, Science and Sleeping in on Sundays
* Feeding Our Secular Souls
* What Do You Mean Atheists Can't Pray?
* From the Blog: One Set of 'Footprints In the Sand' Enough for This Kid

Part Three: Dealing With Sticky Issues
Chapter Ten: Grandma's Heart is Broken
* Relatives Say the Darndest Things
* 'My Kid is Being Indoctrinated by My Parents'
* Six Tips for Surviving Family Dinners
* From the Blog: It's Not a Competition: When One Parent Believes, and the Other Doesn't
Chapter Eleven: 'Little Timmy's Going to Hell'
* Sticks and Stones and Threats of Damnation
* The Shame Game
* Dealing with Religious Harassment
* When the Best School is a Religious School
* From the Blog: 'Why Would God Care
* Whether I Believe in Him?'
Chapter Twelve: The Dog Died, Now What?
* Heaven Doesn't Help US
* Comforting Kids Without Religion
* Three Tips for Talking to Kids About Death
* From the Blog: Matt Logelin-Widower, Dad, Non-Believer

Conclusion
Appendix: Cheat Sheet to World Religions (and Holiday Guide)

Editorial Reviews

"In this gem of a book, journalist Russell explores religion from a nonreligious perspective, helping parents guide their children in a healthy, exploration-oriented direction without guilt, dogma, or indifference.... This singular book with a clean style and respectful approach is recommended for all libraries." — Library Journal (starred review)

"Written for secular parents from a nonreligious perspective, this guide explores methods of teaching youngsters about God, religion and spirituality... Contains a wealth of information for secular or mixed-religion families

preparing for the God talk with kids." — Kirkus Reviews

"Relax, It's Just God is a thought-provoking entry in the expanding category

of secular parenting advice." — The Humanist Magazine



"Wendy is a strong, funny, articulate new voice in secular parenting."

— Dale McGowan, author and editor, Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion

"If only we all could have a mother with the approach to religious literacy described in Relax Its Just God. Wendy Thomas Russell conducted a fascinating survey of parents for this important book, and the results deserve wide discussion... 'Relax It's Just God' is a friendly and wise and highly readable guide to teaching children about religion so they can respond with openness and intelligence." — Robert Tulip, Booktalk.org

"One of the best things I've read in years." — Karen Loethen, co-host of The Secular Parents Broadcast



"'Relax: It's Just God' is valuable for so many reasons. The book offers helpful timelines for how to talk to kids about religion at every age and includes a handy appendix with the Cliffs Notes version of each major religion of the world, along with ways to observe their holidays in a secular way. The book's full of useful tools that you and your kids can use when confronted by religious peers and well-meaning family members. Best of all, it handles a potentially heavy topic with a lighthearted sense of humor, giving the reader the sense that we really can relax about it." — True Parent Magazine

"Hers is a vital voice in the world today."

— Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist: How and Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious

From the Publisher

★ 05/15/2015
In this gem of a book, journalist Russell explores religion from a nonreligious perspective, helping parents guide their children in a healthy, exploration-oriented direction without guilt, dogma, or indifference. Citing statistics that show that 20 percent of Americans are unaffiliated with any religion, the author nonetheless wisely recognizes that children will have many questions about God, Sunday school, the afterlife, and other cultures despite their unaffiliation. Russell doesn't wimp out but tackles head-on questions children ask, such as: "What does God look like? Do I have to believe in God to be good? Where did we come from?" She also provides advice for dealing with disappointed families ("Grandma's Heart Is Broken"), offering up principles, such as "Practice empathy and compassion; aim for frank, open discussions; and think long term." VERDICT This singular book with a clean style and respectful approach is recommended for all libraries.

Library Journal

Read More