When do you teach your child about other religions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably around 2 when she noticed Christmas lights. "Other people believe _____. We believe _______."

I am not crazy about telling my child what she believes. Is there another way to phrase this as a Jewish parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually have been thinking about this topic. I went to Catholic school all my life and truly believed in 1st grade that non Catholics didn’t love their children. No clue where I got that since my mother was Protestant and my parents were very progressive.

I also believe that if you understand religion, you can better understand the problems of the world.

We are a nonreligious family but I do want to introduce my kids to the concept.

Same here. My kid has no concept of God or any religion at all. Not sure where to begin.

[Anonymous]

God has revealed himself to each person in a way he thinks they can understand him the best. Different religions are like different languages, just different stories and rituals.... same God.

He revealed himself to us through Judaism.
He revealed himself to <nanny> through the Islam.
He revealed himself to <BF> through Christianity.

He is smart like that.

I don't really understand every other religion but if you have specific questions I can try to find out the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This may be OT, but how do you teach your child WHAT a religion is in the first place? It seems awfully abstract for children who take everything literally. Like if they learn a creation story, isn't that going to conflict with scientific explanation later? What do you tell them, there are just two stories and some people believe one . . . ?

I think you have to get your head around your own idea of religion first. We teach (and were taught by our own parents) that there are many stories of different faiths (and even within a single faith, variations on a story) to explain the world, and different people believe different things to different degrees. You can believe in a story down to the specific details, or believe in a story conceptually but not literally. (This actually prompted a great conversation with my then-5yo about the difference between a story that you know is not true and a lie.)

Obviously, though, this doesn't work with a more rigid faith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually have been thinking about this topic. I went to Catholic school all my life and truly believed in 1st grade that non Catholics didn’t love their children. No clue where I got that since my mother was Protestant and my parents were very progressive.

I also believe that if you understand religion, you can better understand the problems of the world.

We are a nonreligious family but I do want to introduce my kids to the concept.

Are you non-religious or atheist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably around 2 when she noticed Christmas lights. "Other people believe _____. We believe _______."

I am not crazy about telling my child what she believes. Is there another way to phrase this as a Jewish parent?

We just say "I believe..." (which helps because DH and I believe different things--he is agnostic/atheist, so that's a good entry to explaining that not everyone believes in God). I don't have an expectation that my kids will know what they believe at four and six, or for years to come. But I do want them to understand their family religious background, and as they get older, to understand the historical things connected to that, both for their own religion and for those of others.

[Anonymous]

There's not likely to be a real in depth understanding, but 3 is certainly a reasonable age to intro the ideas.

My DH is jewish, I was raised Catholic and am agnostic (pretty close to atheist). She knows about Jewish concepts, I've told her that lots of people believe in god generally and there are lots of different stories people have around it. It came up also b/c my in-law's dog died and she had questions about that. Of course, Christmas has come up. In her preschool they talk about all sorts of holidays, too. Since I'm not looking for her to believe in any, it's pretty easy to introduce her to whatever comes up. She can understand the traditions, but I don't think she really grasps the core of the beliefs behind them.

I have told her that I think god (as the concept put forward by religions) is pretend, but others don't, and that she does need to be sensitive to and respect the fact that some people think he's real. Realistically, I don't see her talking to her friends about god, but I can see her interrupting my dad saying grace to tell him that I think god is pretend. Mostly, I don't think she cares all that much at this point.

[Anonymous]

OP for the bigger Christian festivals, public libraries will pull picture books out and display them prominently in the weeks leading up. Ask your local librarian for books you can share with your child, including for lesser written-about religions, for which there might still be books out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably around 2 when she noticed Christmas lights. "Other people believe _____. We believe _______."

I am not crazy about telling my child what she believes. Is there another way to phrase this as a Jewish parent?

Atheist, but same. I will say “Your dad and I believe...”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may be OT, but how do you teach your child WHAT a religion is in the first place? It seems awfully abstract for children who take everything literally. Like if they learn a creation story, isn't that going to conflict with scientific explanation later? What do you tell them, there are just two stories and some people believe one . . . ?

I think you have to get your head around your own idea of religion first. We teach (and were taught by our own parents) that there are many stories of different faiths (and even within a single faith, variations on a story) to explain the world, and different people believe different things to different degrees. You can believe in a story down to the specific details, or believe in a story conceptually but not literally. (This actually prompted a great conversation with my then-5yo about the difference between a story that you know is not true and a lie.)

Obviously, though, this doesn't work with a more rigid faith.

1) I'm not sure what that has to do with it. You can be really clear in your head about a lot of things and not really think it's developmentally appropriate to introduce to a child that young.
2) RE: conceptually and not literally, how exactly to you explain this idea to a preschooler? Not being skeptical, just want to know how you break it down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may be OT, but how do you teach your child WHAT a religion is in the first place? It seems awfully abstract for children who take everything literally. Like if they learn a creation story, isn't that going to conflict with scientific explanation later? What do you tell them, there are just two stories and some people believe one . . . ?

I think you have to get your head around your own idea of religion first. We teach (and were taught by our own parents) that there are many stories of different faiths (and even within a single faith, variations on a story) to explain the world, and different people believe different things to different degrees. You can believe in a story down to the specific details, or believe in a story conceptually but not literally. (This actually prompted a great conversation with my then-5yo about the difference between a story that you know is not true and a lie.)

Obviously, though, this doesn't work with a more rigid faith.

1) I'm not sure what that has to do with it. You can be really clear in your head about a lot of things and not really think it's developmentally appropriate to introduce to a child that young.
2) RE: conceptually and not literally, how exactly to you explain this idea to a preschooler? Not being skeptical, just want to know how you break it down.

PP you were responding to. I just meant that you need to know what it is you believe and want to teach before you can teach it to your child (and specifically, you and your partner need to be on the same page). If you don't know that, you won't know if it's appropriate to introduce it. Some people are very clear on their beliefs, but especially wrt religion, many people aren't, because they're still processing it for themselves.

I was surprised that my kids got literal vs. conceptual as easily as they did, though I'm sure it varies by kid. Literal is pretty easy because kids this age are very literal themselves--telling things as they actually are in the world. For conceptual we just talk about things that are representative of what happened, but not what actually happened. Where the Wild Things Are is one of my favorites for that--kids relate to the book really well, and it's a perfect jumping off point for what's real and what may not have actually happened, but is still true as far as how we think or feel about things. You can find a ton of picture books that use somewhat fantastical stories to explain feelings or real-world events or other ideas. For preschool age, you can always start by just asking "do you think that's how it really happened?" (and if not) "why do you think the book tells it that way?" The creation story is a good entry to this if you want to start talking about religion, assuming you are a household that believes in science and has talked about that too. My older kid was interested in origin stories generally (started with superheroes initially) so it was interesting to him to read different creation stories and talk about whether he thought they were real (and if not, why you might tell a story that way). He also really liked space and dinosaurs at that age so had learned things about those too that provided good reference points.

But, again, you first need to know what it is you want your child to take away from a conversation like that. Particularly if you do believe in religious texts as literal truths, that's a really different dialogue.

[Anonymous]

We are not religious in my house, but we definitely talked about this at a young age. We live across the street from a Jewish temple and we celebrate Christmas.

I typically couched it in terms of "traditions". We have a Christmas tree, that's our family's tradition. Our neighbors have a menorah. It's beautiful, and that's part of their Jewish tradition but we don't have that tradition.

As he got to school age, the kids would share with each other, and they would talk about different holidays etc in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a great question. Especially for church going families who are not narrow minded, I wonder about how to teach our faith but not at the exclusion of others.

Being exposed to friends and families with different beliefs is probably the best way to achieve this. There are also some books or media that might help - particularly if it's a story centered around a holiday or celebration.

Will be following for others suggestions.

We’re practicing Catholics. DD’s biodad is Jewish. DD actually learned more about Judaism in her Catholic religious Ed classes and later, Catholic ES than from biodad and his family.

Many children’s books exist for Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism that explain basic beliefs and practices in a kid-friendly way with pictures and engaging characters. My DD liked the “My First...” books for Passover, Purim, Sukkot (SP?) and Rosh Hashanah as a toddler. She also had a gorgeously illustrated alphabet book on Islam that a coworker gave us mistakenly thinking we were Muslim (long story). That book covered some basic topics like hygiene before prayers and charity.

[Anonymous]

DD is 3.5 and I am just now exposing her to our own religion. I just vaguely mention concepts at this point.

[Anonymous]

Public school’s insistence of ensuring that kids are educated on different religions = me not having to do anything.

Kids learn about whatever in school but know that we are Protestants and go to a Methodist church and accept Jesus as lord. That is our life and our family. I don’t go out of my way to ensure any other religion gets “equal exposure.” Do we wuestion Muslims about how much their kids know about Christianity or Judiasm or atheism?