Website Type: Secular Parenting

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

Totanaca — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:32:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm
Title:: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Summery:: UNICEF’s mission is to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF is guided in doing this by the provisions and principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Built on varied legal systems and cultural traditions, the Convention is a universally agreed set of non-negotiable standards and obligations. These basic standards—also called human rights—set minimum entitlements and freedoms that should be respected by governments. They are founded on respect for the dignity and worth of each individual, regardless of race, colour, gender, language, religion, opinions, origins, wealth, birth status or ability and therefore apply to every human being everywhere. With these rights comes the obligation on both governments and individuals not to infringe on the parallel rights of others. These standards are both interdependent and indivisible; we cannot ensure some rights without—or at the expense of—other rights.
Tags:: child rights international convention United Nations

The War for Children's Minds (Op ed - Guardian)

Totanaca — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:45:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/03/family.family7
Title:: The War for Children's Minds (Op ed - Guardian)
Summery:: Philosopher Stephen Law is on the warpath. Fighting back at the current fashion for Supernanny-style parenting, he argues for a more liberal approach when it comes to raising children. Melissa Benn The Guardian, Saturday June 3 2006 Article history In recent years, society has ever more sharply divided over the big moral questions. On the one side stands a powerful group of religious leaders, politicians, irate newspaper columnists, ex-lefties and penitent liberals who openly deplore the legacy of the 60s and the associated decline in everything from community to education, private and public safety to family life. On the other side stands a somewhat sheepish liberalism, its members welcoming some aspects of modernity and morality, staying mystifyingly silent on others. In terms of pure column inches, the new traditionalists almost certainly win hands-down.
Tags:: totalitarianism child development family

The Free Child (Book)

Totanaca — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:33:00 GMT

The website's url: http://freechild.info/
Title:: The Free Child (Book)
Summery:: With a loving heart, generous openness, and the absolute conviction born of experience and observation, Rue is offering both practical suggestions and a paradigm stretching point of view to anyone seeking a greater understanding of a daily life of Unschooling with joy. I personally can’t think of a single question that is not covered somewhere. The format is easy to read, full of warm anecdotes, challenging ideas, and the core idea that the heart of Unschooling is parenting with absolute Trust. ~Robyn L. Coburn, unschooling mom of Jayn “It's simple, but not easy.” Without even leaving home, your life can change all kinds of ways. Relationships between parents and children can go from rough and antagonistic to peaceful, productive and sweet. It's not easy, changing one's life for the better, but this book shows that it's simple. ~Sandra Dodd, unschooling mom of Kirby, Marty and Holly I can imagine that some might think that such a life with children is just too good to be true. But I know from my own experience that it is possible! Take her advice to heart! ~Kelly Lovejoy, unschooling mom of Cameron and Duncan The most useful book published for new unschoolers since The Unschooling Handbook. Rue addresses clearly and persuasively the most common questions and objections in an easily accessible format. The personal experience and conviction brought to each answer shines through along with her deep love and respect for her children. I'd recommend this book to anyone embarking on an unschooling lifestyle or wondering how to counter objections from family or friends. ~Danielle Conger, unschooling mom of Emily, Julia, and Sam
Tags:: unschooling relationships parents children trust anecdotes

Teaching Children About Atheism

Totanaca — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:41:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www.helium.com/items/641196-teaching-children-about-atheism
Title:: Teaching Children About Atheism
Summery:: Atheist parents should approach the subject of teaching children about atheism in the same way they teach their children about other issues such as correct social behavior, sexual responsibility (at an age appropriate level), minding their personal habits of cleanliness, and dress. In all these aspects of a child's life, parents should stress the necessity of self awareness and how to think logically about making choices. Your goal should not be to impart your knowledge so much as to lead your child through the steps for making good decisions in life. Atheists place a high value on personal freedom meaning they do not have to answer to a church or other authority when it comes to making decisions about their lives. As long as they are responsible and live according to the law and respect other people, then they are free to enjoy the maximum number of choices in life. Http://endhereditaryreligion.blogspot.com
Tags:: secular parenting personal freedom reason hereditary religion

Talk Origins

Totanaca — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:22:00 GMT

The website's url: http://talkorigins.org/
Title:: Talk Origins
Summery:: Talk.origins is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to the discussion and debate of biological and physical origins. Most discussions in the newsgroup center on the creation/evolution controversy, but other topics of discussion include the origin of life, geology, biology, catastrophism, cosmology and theology. The TalkOrigins Archive is a collection of articles and essays, most of which have appeared in talk.origins at one time or another. The primary reason for this archive's existence is to provide mainstream scientific responses to the many frequently asked questions (FAQs) that appear in the talk.origins newsgroup and the frequently rebutted assertions of those advocating intelligent design or other creationist pseudosciences.
Tags:: evolution origins creation ID life geology biology catastrophism cosmology theology

Stephen Law, The War For Children's minds

Totanaca — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:49:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6268&page=1
Title:: Stephen Law, The War For Children's minds
Summery:: In both Australia and my native UK faith schools are booming as a direct result of government policy. These schools are popular. British parents have been known to fake religious commitment to get their child into the right school. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has just confirmed that Australian parents are also abandoning public education in favour of the new, government-subsidised faith schools. This rapid rise in religious schooling has, of course, been accompanied by concerns, not least of which is that faith schools can be deeply socially divisive. While I share that worry, my greatest concern is that that the smoke generated by the battle over whether religious schools are a good idea has obscured a more fundamental question: a question about the kind of religious education schools offer. To what extent should schools be allowed to encourage deference to authority when it comes to moral and religious matters? To what extent should they be able to suppress independent, critical thought? -- Stephen Law, Philosopher Quote from Amazon.com review of The War for Children's Minds: Liberal Values and Why We Should Defend Them Stephen Law has written a very informative book on the importance of liberal education for children. He argues persuasively that liberalism does NOT entail absolute moral relativism or the education of children without behavioral standards.
Tags:: faith schools secular parenting liberal values

Salto Sobrius (Christian child abuse manuals)

Totanaca — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:25:00 GMT

The website's url: http://saltosobrius.blogspot.com/2006/10/jim-benton-on-bible-based-baby-beating.html
Title:: Salto Sobrius (Christian child abuse manuals)
Summery:: Jim Benton on Christian Child Abuse Manuals Here's a chilling piece by Jim Benton on Christian fundamentalist child-abuse manuals. Sweden outlawed all forms of physical discipline in child rearing in 1979. Bible Based Baby Beating By Jim Benton Warning: the following will be and should be disturbing to many of you, particularly parents. If you are squeamish, or think that children are individuals to be loved rather than creatures whose main job is to obey mindlessly, you might want to avoid this. But you may be the ones who most need reading it. And I can't avoid saying that any of you who are involved in an American political election where one candidate is supported by the Religious Right and Focus on the Family in particular, should challenge this candidate to say whether he accepts practices and attitudes like these.
Tags:: religious child abuse James Dobson Pearl corporal punishment

Parenting Beyond Belief Forum

SuperUser Account — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:50:00 GMT

The website's url: http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/forum/
Title:: Parenting Beyond Belief Forum
Summery:: On raising ethical caring kids without religion.
Tags:: parenting

Kids without religion

Totanaca — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:26:00 GMT

The website's url: http://kidswithoutreligion.wordpress.com/about/
Title:: Kids without religion
RSS::
Summery:: A resource for agnostic parents that are raising their children without religion. More power to them!
Tags:: secular parenting blog advice share news information

Institute for Humanist Studies

Totanaca — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:02:00 GMT

The website's url: http://humaniststudies.org/parenting/
Title:: Institute for Humanist Studies
Summery:: General advice and guidance for parents. Has links to other resources. Features include: Introductions Columns Reviews Analysis One Safe Generation Celebrations Resources This site is comprehensive in approach and looks to have many good links although some of the links on the Secular Web are out of date. There is a good selection of children's books.
Tags:: central source secular parenting books

Innaiah Narisetti -- Religious Child Abuse

Totanaca — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:33:00 GMT

The website's url: http://innaiahn.tripod.com/childabuse.html
Title:: Innaiah Narisetti -- Religious Child Abuse
Summery:: CHILD ABUSE BY RELIGIONS Innaiah Narisetti Ph.D. Children too are human beings “The children are ours; we thrash them or kill them; who are you to poke your nose?”, flare up some parents in righteous indignation. some assert that they have to catch them (children) young and fashion them the way they want. “After all, you can train a plant but not a tree”. some others swear by the dictum, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. Most parents regard their children as their property. They believe that the more the number of children, the better off they are. A child has not only a mouth but also two earning hands. There are parents who honestly feel that children should follow them in thought, word and deed, subscribe to and live according to their religious beliefs and customs. For children, parents constitute their universe. Parent-speech is, therefore, sacrosanct and inviolable. against this backdrop, religions go out of their way to lure children. Over the ages, a religious dimension has been added to every aspect of life, beginning with the naming of the baby soon after birth. Parents feel it is their duty to abide by religious customs, traditions and rituals. This, in turn, assures livelihood to the priestly class. Priests encourage parents to bring along their children to places of worship. Parents fall in line as they think temple visits help children develop faith in God and follow ethical conduct. Children are thus controlled right from their birth in all countries and in all religions. Children are neither born into religion nor aware of what religion is. Yet, the religion of their parents is attributed to them. By the time they start talking and writing, they name their religion. Thus steeped in religion from childhood, most find it difficult to climb out of it later on in life. Parents indoctrinate their children not merely on the virtues of their own religion. They warn them against embracing other religions or following their customs and beliefs. The seeds of hatred against other religions are sown directly or indirectly in children’s impressionable minds. Children brought up in such an environment cannot shed the ingrained religious influence even when they blossom into scientists or technologists. Education helps them carve out their careers even as they practice religion. They do not apply the scientific temperament acquired in education to religion. Before you believe in anything, science demands that it be subjected to an inquiry, analysis and proof. If something cannot be proved, it should not be blindly believed. But the educated exclude religion from such scientific scrutiny. One thus gets mired in religious beliefs. When there is a conflict between religion and science, people follow religion, giving the go-by to science. Religion has thus become an eternal and insurmountable barrier to humankind’s progress and development. Parents have remained mute spectators to religions’ abuse of children. Although the civilized world occasionally is amazed, it has by and large kept quiet, afraid of taking religion head on. There are individuals here and there who have criticized children’s abuse. But society in general has turned a deaf ear or ostracized some as atheists. The silver lining in the dark horizon is that at long last, the United Nations has taken cognizance of religious perversities. It convened a global conference and facilitated the adoption of a Children’s Charter. Continues.... Dr Narisetti has written a book on the subject of the religous abuse of children, "Forced Into Faith"' .
Tags:: religious abuse children India

Humanist Parenting

SuperUser Account — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:47:00 GMT

The website's url: http://humaniststudies.org/parenting/
Title:: Humanist Parenting
Summery:: Welcome to the Parenting section of the Institute for Humanist Studies website. These pages explore the unique challenges faced by secular families, as well as some specifically humanist responses to issues all families may experience.
Tags:: parenting

Humanist Mama

Totanaca — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:26:00 GMT

The website's url: http://humanistmama.blogspot.com/
Title:: Humanist Mama
Summery:: My perspective of current events, parenting issues, and other stuff that I find interesting. E-mail me at: humanistmama@gmail.com
Tags:: secular parenting advice discussion

End Hereditary Religion (new website and forum)

Totanaca — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:24:00 GMT

The website's url: http:www.endhereditaryreligion.com
Title:: End Hereditary Religion (new website and forum)
Summery:: The new End of Hereditary Religion blog and forum provides news, research resources, and discussions about how to end hereditary religions. The scope is international and a main focus is working to eliminate the early and intensive indoctrination of minor children. Parents are the controlling vector for perpetuating hereditary religions. The time has come to evaluate what role religion should play in the lives of young vulnerable children. Evidence is mounting that organized religions more appropriate for ancient tribes than for modern people, can potentially harm children at worst and that at best they stifle intellectual development. Educating parents and motivating them to change is the goal. Some information has been carried over to the new WordPress environment, which has many features that invite reader participation and comment.
Tags:: hereditaty religion child rights

End Hereditary Religion

Totanaca — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:11:00 GMT

The website's url: http://endhereditaryreligion.blogspot.com
Title:: End Hereditary Religion
Summery:: For centuries organized religions built their followers by imposing their dogma and superstition on non-consenting children too helplessly naive and powerless to reject what they are commanded to believe. Much of what is so maladaptive and destructive about organized religion will be discarded if religious institutions have to create their theology to pass the scrutiny and questioning of mature minds that value free inquiry and demand sensible answers to their questions. If several generations can be raised free of hereditary religion, totally new and reformed religions will have an opportunity to form. As things stand now, humanity is stuck in the iron age. President Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, said, "This doctrine ['that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers'] is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State, the tenants of which finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations and monopolies of honors, wealth and power, and fear every change as endangering the comforts they now hold." --Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818. The End of Hereditary Religion provides news, research resources, and discussions about how to end hereditary religions. The scope is international and a main focus is working to eliminate the early and intensive indoctrination of minor children. Parents are the controlling vector for perpetuating hereditary religions. The debilitating effects of present day organized religions more appropriate for ancient tribes than for modern people, can be and must be ended. Educating parents and motivating them to change is the goal.
Tags:: indoctrination mind control religion parents hereditary

Catholic Bishop Jive Talks Young Parents

Totanaca — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:25:00 GMT

The website's url: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ddsz4ptf_44gm36mhgs&hl=en
Title:: Catholic Bishop Jive Talks Young Parents
Summery:: In his booklet, Bishop Alexander gives us the Catholic rationale for brainwashing helpless children. The booklet reveals the mind of a man who is totally ignorant of the proclivities of small children. He can only view them through the narrow peep hole of his twisted dogma. According to the Bishop, parents make a mistake when they consider small children are totally free of evil. Really? Even babes in the cradle? His totally warped perspective strives to convince parents to consign their children to his ghastly mind control program. Apparently, not one to study the current pediatric literature, which strongly warns parents against the damage corporal punishment can inflict, he of course includes advice to use corporal punishment.
Tags:: poisonous pedagogy Catholic childhood religious indoctrination

Alfie Kohn web site for unconditional parentinig

Totanaca — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:21:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www.alfiekohn.org/up/index.html
Title:: Alfie Kohn web site for unconditional parentinig
Summery:: Most parenting guides begin with the question "How can we get kids to do what they're told?" -- and then proceed to offer various techniques for controlling them. In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking "What do kids need - and how can we meet those needs?" What follows from that question are ideas for working with children rather than doing things to them. One basic need all children have, Kohn argues, is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they screw up or fall short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as punishments (including "time-outs"), rewards (including positive reinforcement), and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they please us or impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful, and largely unknown, research detailing the damage caused by leading children to believe they must earn our approval. That's precisely the message children derive from common discipline techniques, even though it's not the message most parents intend to send. More than just another book about discipline, though, Unconditional Parenting addresses the ways parents think about, feel about, and act with their children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about raising kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from "doing to" to "working with" parenting - including how to replace praise with the unconditional support that children need to grow into healthy, caring, responsible people. This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will reconnect readers to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better parents.
Tags:: parenting love radical parenting style

Agnostic Mom -- Popular blog sponsored by Institute for Humanist Studies

Totanaca — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:51:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www.agnosticmom.com/
Title:: Agnostic Mom -- Popular blog sponsored by Institute for Humanist Studies
Summery:: The blogger, Noell Hyman is taking a sabbatical right now (July 2008), but there is a wealth of information stored on her blog. She is an associate of Dale McGowan.
Tags:: blog

A solitary project: Some parents build a family religious foundation

SuperUser Account — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:43:00 GMT

The website's url: http://www.lornacollier.com/Atheistparenting.html
Title:: A solitary project: Some parents build a family religious foundation
Summery:: When Dianna Narciso's children ask her what happens to people when they die, she doesn't mention heaven or Jesus or angels. As an atheist parent, Narciso doesn't have religious beliefs to pass along to her three sons, ages 10, 8 and 3, even though it might make answering their questions easier.
Tags:: parenting