Proud new parents gently hold their infant as their priest pours water over the child’s head. A congregation of friends and neighbors witnesses the baptism and welcomes the infant into the Christian community. A Buddhist mother brings her child to a monk for consecration. On the eighth day after birth, a Jewish couple presents their son for his circumcision rite.
The acts described in the preceding paragraph represent specific rites of passage unique to a particular religious or faith community. While they often signify the beginning of a spiritual journey for the new family member, they do not guarantee that a child will follow that faith.
Just as the physical and emotional aspects of an individual need to be nurtured, the spiritual dimension of a person also needs “care and feeding.” This care and nurturance often begins during infancy or early childhood (Betz, 1981). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1997) writes:
All human beings are different, even before they were here. And then they are here to share this world with us, and all human beings have different lives, different experiences. . . . Has anybody ever thought about the trillions of possibilities that life offers each one of us? (pp. xii–xiii)
We are biologically wired for spiritual connection. Miller (2015) states it is a biological and psychological imperative for our species from birth. Through the support of family, friends, and a community of faith supporters, children are taught and guided as they travel on their own personal spiritual journey. “Teaching children to work with the spiritual laws . . . will bring them the gifts of peace, confidence, and joy, which will enable them to weather the storms of life” (Jenkins, 2008, p. xiii).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION IN CHILDREN
The development of personal spirituality is a dynamic, evolving process that occurs over a period of time. During this process, individuals become increasingly aware of the meaning, purpose, and values in their life. Faith, too, develops over time. It is an outgrowth of and a prerequisite for spiritual growth (Fulton & Moore, 1995). Spiritual growth has traditionally been linked with religion and religiosity but they are not the same. Religiosity is a spirituality that is clearly referenced to religion and is often associated with religious behavior such as attending church/synagogue, frequency of prayer, involvement with the faith community, etc. Spirituality is more difficult to define but is associated with a link to nature, the Divine or Ultimate, and the relationship between one’s self, others, nature, and the concept of transcendence (Grajczonek, 2010). Another notion is that concept of child spiritual health, defined by Michaelson and Hannah (2016) as the capacity for awareness of the sacred qualities of life. Child spiritual health is experienced via four domains—relationship to self, to others, to nature, and to the transcendent.