There are many cultures around the world and everyone has their own religious beliefs. Consequently, every parent has the right to choose the right religion for their children.

The study finds that children who are raised without religion are more and more empathetic

At the same time, some parents do NOT even decide to raise their children with any form of established religious dogma or beliefs.

One study shows that people who have grown up without a sense of religion and show more empathy than, for example, religious people.

The study was led by Jean Decety and with his research, he wanted to solve the question of whether religion is really crucial to moral development, as it once thought it was. However, it turns out that the study suggested the opposite; a growth of non-religious belief will lead to a more emphatic and moral attitude.

To get these results, researchers conducted several exercises with the children. For example, one of them asked the kids to choose stickers. But they were offered the stickers only after being told that getting around was not enough. In this case, researchers observed that non-religious children were more eager to share their stickers with others.

Finally, as you can see, the study established a clear link between altruism and lack of religion. This is just the beginning of reversing the established idea that religious ethics are superior to the secular view of life. Sources: the guardian

So your child becomes empathetic – the researcher’s best tips

What makes children empathetic and can you influence them to become it yourself? OH YES!

All parents probably want empathic children, but can we as parents do something to influence how empathetic our children become? mama has talked to empathy researcher Jakob Eklund about how empathy is created.

– Simple forms of empathy can begin to appear during the first or second year of life, and parents can already influence the way empathic children become from the second year of life, says Jakob Eklund.

To what extent does empathy give birth to empathy? – We have done a study that showed that we humans have a very hard time feeling empathy for someone we perceive as unpatriotic. So in this way, the connection is clear; empathy gives birth to empathy and lack of empathy gives birth to lack of empathy. But now it was the case that this study was done with only adults.

However, Jacob thinks that theory is not true when it comes to the relationship with our children.

– Most parents have enough empathy for their child, even if the child itself is not empathetic.

It is indeed lucky. You have seen through research that boys are generally more difficult to be empathic than girls, is it because you treat children differently? – I do not know how much are innate differences and how much the is an environment, but it is clear that the environment’s different attitudes to, and expectations of, boys and girls are of great importance.

Children do as parents do, not as parents say.

Jakob Eklund’s research team uses different methods, including experiments, interviews, and surveys.

– The study that showed that empathy gives birth to empathy, for example, was an experiment in which one group of people was told how much empathy they felt for an unpatriotic person and another group of people how much empathy they felt for an empathic person. The subjects in the experiment were also asked if they wanted to help the unpleasant and the empathetic and there was a big difference.

So you “teach” your child to be empathetic
Show empathy for others

Children become familiar as adults do and not as we say. If you show concern for others, for example, by asking if you can help someone who is sad, the child is more likely to do so.

– We have done a study that just shows that people judge whether someone is empathetic based on the actions and not from what they say. “Actions speak louder than words”. Therefore, the children will not focus on what the parents say to empathetic phrases, but on what the parent does for empathic actions.