If you have custody of your child most of the time and share in the responsibility of making decisions about their care, one of the things you may need to discuss with your ex-spouse is the religion that you’d like to expose your child to.
Some families do not share the same religions, but you may have a preference for how you’d like to raise your child within one. For example, if you are Christian, you may have Unitarian views that you’d like to expose your child to. If your ex-spouse was Sikh, they may have their own approach to religion. Then, some people will have spouses who aren’t religious at all and who may oppose exposing your child to religion at all.
Discussing religion is important as a part of your parenting plan
Both you and your ex-spouse can save yourselves a lot of trouble by working out which religion or religions your child can or cannot be a part of. Some parents opt to avoid religious ceremonies until their children are old enough to decide if they want to go through with them. For example, you might wait until your child is a teenage before asking if they’d like to be baptized. Other parents expose their children to all elements of both their religions. Then, some others keep religion out of the picture completely.
What you’ll do in your situation will depend on a couple factors, such as your child’s current age, how serious you are about your faith and what you and the other parent think may be the best path forward for your child.
Once you make a decision, add it to your parenting plan
When you decide how to approach religion and your child’s religious upbringing, make sure you include the details in your parenting plan. That way, if you run into issues later, you’ll be able to go back to the parenting plan to help stop conflicts and come to a resolution.
Everyone handles these situations differently. Addressing religion now may help you avoid conflicts in the future.
