Agnostic Mom

One of my readers, Christy, left this question as a comment on a previous entry:

I wonder, at what age did you start talking with your kids about religion? When did they start asking? Without the basics, how do you start to explain to a child?

When your family participates in a religion, there is no initial introduction. It is just already there, as much a part of your child’s life as bathing. For those of who have opted out of religion, there needs to be a starting point; an introduction.

The timing of it depends on the family situation. Christy’s daughter is only two. From what I know of Christy, she is not around any close family or friends who are religious. Her daughter has probably had zero exposure to religion.

My children, on the other hand, are around religious extended family all the time. At every meal we have with relatives, they pray before eating. Three times a year when Israel and I travel, the kids stay with the grandparents and attend church with them. One of their cousins just got baptized and the children attended the ceremony with us.

If you are in no hurry to introduce the matter of religion, I think it can wait until the children become more socially aware of other families’ cultures and traditions. At some point, in the early elementary years, friends start talking about the Bible, and praying. I would suggest educating your children about religion by the kindergarten age if they have no exposure to religious practices by then. Otherwise, at or before the time of exposure.

Here are some possible different ways:
1. Religious books! Books are such a great educational tool. They don’t even have to be children’s books. Adult books have wonderful pictures. You can show the children the pictures, and educate yourself at the same time.

The key here is to give a brief explanation of the history and evolution of religion. There was a time when people didn’t have science and the understanding of the world that we have now. It was very scary for them to have thunderstorms. They didn’t know what they were or where they came from. They didn’t know why people got sick. So they invented answers and imagined all kinds of different gods that they thought might be causing it. (This is where a basic understanding of science is also vital).

Then show pictures of different gods from different religions. Tell a brief story. Show pictures of hindu gods. Show the Buddha.

This is actually the way Christy had her own epiphone about religion. She was in a world religion class learning about Buddha. She recognized similarities between his life and Jesus’s life. After Buddha died, his followers immortalized him as a god, even though he taught that he, himself, was only a man. (Not all buddhists believe he is a god, by the way).

It occurred to Christy that this is also what happened with Jesus. Millions of people on one side of the world worship a brilliant man who was a good teacher, named Buddha. On this side of the world, most people worship another great teacher, Jesus.

#2 Once you have established the existence of many relgions and many ideas about gods, I think it is important to teach the children Bible stories. If you can find children’s books from other major religions, I would do that, too. I have been meaning to do some research to see if I can find some, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet. Those stories have great value. Biblical stories, especially, are so integrated into our lives, our literature, our culture, our art, that our children would have huge gaps in their knowledge and understanding. They would miss out on so much richness.

I like to emphasize my use of the word, “story” when I share them. For example, I will say, “There is this great story in the Bible, about one of Jesus’ followers, named Peter. The story goes like this . . .”

I don’t spend time trying to tell them that it’s not true. If they ask me, I say that I don’t believe the magical parts of it are true. Probably most of the people existed, and many of the things they did and said were real. But Jesus and Peter probably never walked on water. It’s just a great story about staying focused on your goal and not letting your fears distract you from them.

3. Use the religious holidays as an opportunity to teach them. If you have not learned the history of Christmas, you are missing out. It is fascinating.

4. Balance the folklore with science. Teach your children about evolution as soon as they are asking questions about life and animals. They should know the earth is billions of years old. If they do, then the Bible’s literal version of a seven day creation and a six or seven thousand year age will be fairy tale-ish.

Ok, I hope to come back to this subject later, either to edit and improve this particular post, or to make an entirely new one later. I wanted to do a lot more research and add links to other sites and books, but it is way past my bedtime. I had to come through on my promise, though!