Saturday, March 05, 2005
Barna survey - Qualities and Goals
The Barna Group, the religion research organization headed by pollster/author George Barna, asked parents to name the qualities that contribute most significantly to "effectively raising children.":
1. Patience was the No. 1 answer, listed by 36 percent of parents. Other qualities included
2. demonstrating love (cited by 32 percent),
3. enforcing discipline and being understanding (22 percent),
4. faith commitment and identifiable religious beliefs (20 percent),
5. good communication skills (17 percent),
6. compassion (14 percent),
7. listening (12 percent) and
8. intelligence (11 percent).
While only 6 percent said setting goals was significant, parents readily ranked their goals for raising their children:
1. The far-and-away leader was helping their kids get a good education, cited by 39 percent of parents.
2. Second was helping their children feel loved (24 percent), followed by
3. enabling their children to have a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ (22 percent),
4. security (16 percent),
5. helping children feel affirmed and encouraged (14 percent),
6. providing a firm spiritual foundation (13 percent),
7. delivering basic necessities such as shelter (12 percent) and
8. food (10 percent), and
9. helping their children feel happy (10 percent).
U.S. parents split evenly over whether they teach moral absolutes to their children, with 43 percent affirming moral absolutes and 45 percent denying them.
The survey shows the faith commitment of parents does not significantly impact how children are raised. "We found that the qualities born-again parents say an effective parent must possess, the outcomes they hope to facilitate in the lives of their children ... (are) indistinguishable from the approach taken by parents who are not born again," Barna reported.
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