Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

news.yahoo.com

If you want to boost your teenager's grade point average, take the kid to church. Or, a new study suggests, find some similar social activity to involve them in.

Researchers found that church attendance has as much effect on a teen's GPA as whether the parents earned a college degree. Students in grades 7 to 12 who went to church weekly also had lower dropout rates and felt more a part of their schools.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is actually a pretty fascinating connection they've made here. The "more likely to particpiate in extracirricular activities" is something I've observed first hand. My wife taught Catechism class one night a week to 6th graders a couple of years ago and was stunned at how many activities and interests the kids packed into their week vs our friends' children who did not attend church. It was amazing to her that 12 year olds basically had completely full plates of sports, study groups, church activities, and various associations and clubs which took up pretty much every waking hour.

It also bears noting that the social networking and psychological support gleaned from church seems to be a recurring theme in raising a well adjusted, happy, and successfull child.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This also shoots some holes in that huge "intelligent people less likely to believe in God" thread from some time ago... unless, of course, we're to believe that said "intelligent" people believed in God through their schooling, abandoning Him once they had recieved their formal education.

Umm I had to go to church my entire youth. I went to a christian school and I was a c average student hahaha. I finally dropped out in 11th grade. So obviously church didn't help me any.

Maybe you have to actually enjoy going?

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Perhaps these people see church as one more extracurricular? That instead of church making them pick up more activities, it is their desire to participate in different things that makes church attractive?

GPA is not an indicator of intelligence. It's an indicator of knowing how to suck up and take tests.

I would rather my kids [if I had any] be misfits than suck up dogma from some myth pimps.

Question Authority!! Authority figures can KMA; religious, political, social, geeks can KMA.

[edit on 19-8-2008 by whaaa]

Originally posted by whaaa
I would rather my kids [if I had any] be misfits than suck up dogma from some myth pimps.

I had the same attitude when I read just the headline and blurb, but the article basically says it's not the religion or even belief in a god that has been shown to increase GPA, but its potential socialization aspects.

I tend to agree with the article. Well-rounded individuals who grew up conversing and exploring different types of people are almost always superior in intellect to those who did not. Just my opinion

[edit on 8/19/2008 by iceofspades]

IMO some extracurricular activites are beneficial but too many are undesirable. I think a child needs some unstructured time to think and explore on his or her own and some unsupervised play time with other children.

The desire to pressure one's children into our adult concepts of "success" may not be the best thing for them. They might just become neurotic, over-achieving
obssesive-compulsives.

I would think the benefits one would get from church attendance would in large part depend on what one puts into it. If a child is attending just because his parents make him it might not be as effective.

Originally posted by Sestias
IMO some extracurricular activites are beneficial but too many are undesirable. I think a child needs some unstructured time to think and explore on his or her own and some unsupervised play time with other children.

I completely agree. There must be balance between socialization and isolation for children. It puts too much stress on the mind and body to be constantly surrounded by other people, in my opinion.