The Children's God - Softcover

Heller, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226326365 ISBN 13: 9780226326368

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1988

Synopsis

How do children imagine God? Surprisingly, few researchers have asked this question. In crayon drawings, doll-play, letters, and carefully designed interviews, the forty children in David Heller's study reveal a rich array of spiritual imagery. Though Heller does find some differing views attributable to age, gender, and religious background (the children were Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Hindu), he discovers to a surprising degree a common vision of God that cuts across ethnic and religious differences. He also considers related issues of school prayer and the psychology of religion.

About this title

About the Author:

David Heller is the author of Dear God: Children's Letters to God, The Pleasures of Psychology, andPower in Psychotherapeutic Practice. His work on children's views of God has been featured on20/20 and the PTL Club Network and in USA Today, Psychology Today, Catholic Digest, Working Mother,and Good Housekeeping. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.

From Library Journal:

Twenty girls and twenty boys, ten each from Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, and Hindu families, all between the ages of four and twelve, provided the material upon which psychologist Heller draws in order to tell us what children think about God. Some of the children's ideas are stereotypical: the boys think of God as pragmatically ra tional and distant; the girls think of God as aesthetically oriented and close. But readers may also be sur prised at the depth and freshness of the ideas expressed by these children. Since our ideas of God are rooted in our childhoods, this book helps us un derstand our own thinking. We learn, too, how responsible we and our adult world are for children's thinking about God. Certainly recommended for reli gion and psychology collections, but also for general collections. John Moryl, Yeshiva Univ. Lib., New York
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0226326365
• ISBN 13: 9780226326368
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176