From a humanist perspective, children are not the possession of their parents but only of themselves. This implies that parents and educators have to guide children in such a way that they are increasingly capable of creating their own life styles. This human right to self-determination is so fundamental that children should understand it at an early age. Humanists support this process by offering optional humanist education classes as an alternative for similarly optional religious education classes in a pluralist school system. A pluralist school system incorporates the separation of church and state, but does offer parents and their children the choice of optional humanist or religion education hours in the public school buildings.
Humanist educators give humanist education under the jurisdiction of the humanist movement.
Optional religious education is taught under the jurisdiction of churches. The education in factual knowledge on all important lifestances should be the responsibility of the public schools. By this division of jurisdictions, a state can guarantee the separation of church and state and at the same time offer an opportunity to give lifestance based education to those who want it. In other countries a pluralist interpretation has been given to the separation of state and church. This means that the state has to play an active role in creating the conditions under which religions and other lifestances can function without interfering in the ideological content of their activities.