The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Some children join cults to experiment with their own philosophies, to rebel against conformity, or to take revenge on an over-controlling parent. Others seek strength in numbers. And the identity that they can't seem to find within themselves is readily offered to them on a silver platter by certain groups. Cults often use mind control and other methods of persuasion to lure new members. Once initiated, children are given protection, a sense of belonging, and something in which to believe.

Logical consequences

If your children become involved in a cult, yank them out of it, for goodness sakes! Freedom of expression has its limits when there are safety concerns. Anyway, cults usually impose the expression of beliefs on children by coercion.

Tighten up the supervision. Make their curfew much earlier, don't allow them to leave your sight without adult supervision, drive them to school and take them physically to class, veto any associations with their current friends, with whom they seem to be making bad choices, and so on. Tell them that the reins will be loosened when you feel more comfortable that they'll make healthier associations.

Solutions toward self-direction

Let your children know what you find so unique and special about them. Tell them that you're proud of them just the way they are and that you feel so fortunate to be their parent. It's important for them to incorporate these ideas to reinforce their sense of self and to lend strength to that inner voice that tells them they don't need to search beyond their own skin to find what they need.

Be sure you're not too controlling. Excessive controlling can make them externally directed, which, in turn, makes them look to conformity with other groups for a sense of belonging.

Use impartial descriptions and information: "In our family, we don't let groups make us trade our individuality for religious philosophies."

Use questioning: "What's the purpose behind this group?" "Tell me what you find appealing in its philosophies." "What motivated you to join?" "Were you ever made to feel uncomfortable?" Often, their alliance is so paper-thin that when you get them to think about the details, it all falls apart.

Work with your children to build healthy peer associations, like joining the neighborhood basketball team, taking up a new skill, or getting involved in church youth organizations. Again, this involvement gives them the self-confidence they need to rely on their own opinions of who they are rather than or the opinions of others.