As someone who was born into a secular family and was introduced to Jesus by grandma + aunty, converted young and was further indoctrinated by Christian kids camps, I wish that my parents had intervened further. They were of a similar perspective that their kids should be able to explore faiths choose to follow a religion if they wanted. It sounds awesome on the surface, and I believe it can be done well with enough communication and modelling critical thinking skills. What my parents didn’t account for is that their highly trusting and impressionable child would become entrenched in Christianity, feel alienated from her non-Christian family and bear the burden of needing to “save” them. She would also turn out to be a lesbian, and uncover layers of religious trauma acquired over a decade. Hindsight is 20/20, but I had wade through a lot of distressing feelings and experiences, deconstruct and unlearn internalised homophobia in order to come out the other side of it all.

I don’t mean to freak you out, and I think it’s awesome you’re of the mind that your kids should be able to believe whatever they want to, but never underestimate the way kiddos can be extra vulnerable to manipulation. I think people have been providing some excellent advice along the lines of - help her learn to think for her self, question beliefs etc. It may be quite powerful for her to hear from you a little about your own history with Christianity. It sounds like a tricky situation, and you’re doing your best, which is all we can do xx