As long as they weren't joining some fanatical bizarro sect like the Branch Davidians, I would be just fine with it. I'm an atheist, my wife is a Buddhist, my kids can be what they want. Christianity isn't all bad. I can understand the attraction.
My goal as a parent is to produce an independant, reasonable, and responsible person. The first means that he will not always agree with me. I accept that. So if my child told me that he believed something strange, I would probably ask him why he did, to ascertain that we have the second and third parts going on too. If he has good reasons then I can only be pleased in myself and proud of him. I will have succeeded.
Im an atheist, and with almost 7,000,000,000 humans on the planet, I'll never have kids; I dont believe in having kids.
But to take your question hypothetically, my answer is that I'd try to reason with them. But I would probably think they were just saying that to annoy me or test me.
Anyways, all of the ancient prophets and maybe even Jesus himself were only famous and so amazing because they were likely to be tripping on psychedelic substances. God is a fairy tale who loves the poor just so the poor are happy to stay poor and not revolt against the kings, who are the fairy tale tellers. Our society is explaining away the miracles of God one at a time and soon we'll all figure out that all religions are wrong, maybe except Buddhism. Religions cause us to persecute the different and be intolerant of outsiders and are outdated ways of thinking. If the Human race will survive, we need to develop a new way of thinking about life without a crutch such as God.
I would invite the Holy spirit to address this with me and show the child the gospel and trust the child is in God's haNDS AS HE PROMISES-OOPS CAPS let the holy spirit and God deal with him it is Gods business and make the consequence clear and love them anyway and live a holy life as God calls in his word and trust God for them it is their choice and their consequence
I would be fine with my child being a Christian, so long as he/she doesn't take it so seriously, either way if they do take it so seriously or not, I would just them them grow the maturity to determine the issues in what ever ideas they would have.
That would be really hard. I don't have any kids but I pray that if I do they are all Spirit filled Christians living their lives in love. If they were not I would continue to pray for them and still include them in our family Bible studies knowing that one day they will see the Truth. I have a family member or two and some friends that aren't Christian and I pray for them. The Bible says that God is love so if they love I don't fear for their souls, but I do feel that being a Christian is a guarantee into heaven but the Bible also says that if you love God=love and your fellow man then you can also get into heaven. But I know that I want the very best for my children and that is Christianity for me.
Luke 10:25-37 (New Living Translation)
The Most Important Commandment
25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
27 The man answered, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[a](duet.6:5, lev. 19:18)
28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
1 John 4
Loving One Another
7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us
16 ... God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.
If my kid said "Dad I am a Christian"...I would say, ok, now get out of my house I won't have anyone worshipping a baby killer (egypt's first born) under my roof.
Hehe...actually I would say "Yeah ok, love you son." And that would be the end of it because by that time my boy would know that trying to convert dad would be a waste of his time.
I'd carry on loving my child as before, and would pray in my heart for the light of God to reach her.
My daughter didn't believe but now she believes again. So I speak of experience!
It would never happen because i would teach my child of rational thought process', but assuming it did, I would question his beliefs, to make sure he's actually thought about the logical implications of what he's proposing. If he continues to believe, so be it i suppose. I'd be disappointed in them though