ABSTRACT
Religion, faith, and spirituality’s societal centrality is well established in social scientific theory. Empiricists who understand society on the premise that knowledge stems from experience derived from the senses, would still argue that children cannot be known to experience God’s love but rather experience a state of well-being attributed to God’s love by people of faith. Though spirituality is not inherently religious, its connection to religion has proven difficult for scholars to sever, and indeed spirituality is consistently expressed and experienced with religious flavour. This introduction unpacks specific spiritual or religious practices which evidence suggests are particularly meaningful as children develop spiritual well-being. This informs qualities of child spirituality which may manifest as spiritual well-being indicators found and measured among children participating in a humanitarian or development programme. This chapter proposes spiritual well-being is most importantly and visibly manifest among children in times of crisis, fragility, or emergency, and principles in this chapter might best be explored in the context of humanitarian work over development work. Evidence is growing about spirituality’s importance for promoting mental health and psychosocial well-being among adults, yet limited evidence about spiritual and religious practices’ value as coping mechanisms in disruptive times for children merits further exploration.
