It is disconcerting for parents of a strong religious affiliation to watch their children discover a different religious methodology than they’ve been brought up believing. Catholics have firm ideas about Christmas and the meaning of the celebration at hand, as do Jews about Hannukah and the multi-day celebration that entails. While each of these religious celebrations seem to revolve around family and good cheer, each has a deeply seated religious basis.

The surprise and shock to parents of their offspring no longer conforming to their standard beliefs and the rituals they entail can be somewhat overwhelming; usually more so for the parents than the children who consider themselves to be newly enlightened. One way to ease the transition is to be completely frank if questioned, but to otherwise maintain one’s newly affected disbelieving silence and to try to accept that others still have a deep faith.

Wires are crossed when people in either camp strongly voice their opinions and expect others to conform to those attitudes. This might work with young children with no experience and have been taught not to question anything, but it doesn’t work on highly educated adults who have put serious thought into leaving the faith of their childhood behind.

The only real solution to being an accepting, loving faith practitioner is to put aside one’s own beliefs and take the time to understand where those who no longer share those beliefs are coming from. It’s not an easy proposition, but it is one that seems to follow the core mantras of many faiths, such as, Treat your neighbor as you yourself would like to be treated.’ Express interest in the opinion and the reasons behind the choices of the person or people undergoing a faith transition. Perhaps in learning about their thinking processes, you can learn an idea or two which had never before crossed your own mind. This sort of mind expansion should never be a bad thing.