Teaching your kids about Atheism

My 10 year old daughter has been questioning me rather intently about my beliefs lately. She's not accepting my "Wait until you are older" excuses. She lacks the knowledge to back up any of her beliefs and I am realizing just how easy it would be to steer her into the atheist's point of view. Which, in itself, would be fine to me, but it would come at a great cost. A couple of weeks ago my daughter told me that her teacher instructed her to pray to God during the "Moment of Silence" in class. I had to bite my tongue about that one. If I had explained to her how that was illegal, she would have challenged the teacher about it the next day, opening her up to be ostracized. I could teach her about my beliefs and hope for the best, or I could teach her and tell her to hide her beliefs, or I could leave well enough alone. I'm a gonna have to think about this one.

 

Do what I do, change the subject. My kids are 8 and 11...they have short attention spans. My daughter wants to know why we don't go to church...I reply, "aren't you supposed to be outside playing?" Then she says, "what are we..Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist...?" I say, "you know, that Steve Smith sure can catch!" Then my son will say, "Dad, what's up with the whole resurrection bit?" I'll respond, "Be a pal and go get your dad a cold beer, huh sport?"

 

You're the dad, G, so it's to be expected that she'd come to you for answers early. If you want her to make up her own mind, then you might want to consider telling her what you believe and why, but at the same time giving her the freedom to search out her own answers. Granted, at 10 years old, what she can comprehend might be on the limited side, but it still would boil down to her making her own decision.

The other option would be to teach her that what you believe is the truth, and what her teachers/friends are telling her about God isn't real. As her parent, you have that option. But I think your concern about her being ostracized is a valid one, going by her experience in that 'moment of silence'.

Maybe what this all boils down to is, how high do you prioritize this issue? If it's not that important, then maybe it's best to blow it off. If it's fundamentally important, then you treat it as such. I don't envy your position. Good luck.

 

I understand your motivation, but I think we can call that one over the line, Thelt.

 

Maybe so but I do not understand how atheism threads have a place in this forum either.

 

According to this poll, the board wants atheists included (currently by a 3-to-1 margin, I might add). If that changes, or if someone else starts moderating here, that might change.

 

1. Atheism is a method of approaching life's "larger questions," answering many of these in the negative. We may not agree and we may not like it, but it exists in the world and people are going to discuss its faults and merits.

2. An atheism thread in TBR will inevitably lead to discussions of what-is-God, is-God-real, which-God-are-we-talking-about, and so on. As such this is the place for it.

 

I was unaware of the poll. I believe what I said, atleast the gist of it, but it was a little harsh. I will attempt to be more tactful.

 

Thank you.

 

I'm very open with my children about what I believe and what I don't believe. My daughter is 11 and is coming to terms in a sometimes very harsh way with being "different" from most of her peers at school. I will discuss anything she wants and point her to different books, stories etc, that cover all ends of the religious spectrum. I want my children to be informed not indocrinated.

My daughter isn't an atheist. Like her mother, she believes in a higher power but she certainly will freely admit to most of her peer group that she isn't a Christian. I have more admiration for her than I ever thought possible because even at her young years, she will take a stand and not just go along to get along.

The pressure exerted and the religious overtones in her school system are unbeleivable to me. One of her assignments in her AG class, which was discussing Religion and the Reformation, was "What 10 Declarations would You Post on Your Church's Door."

We discussed the Reformation for a bit before she pulled out the above worksheet. I asked her what her instructor wanted her to do with it and what kind of things was she supposed to declare, her response was "He wants us to write things that we think will bring our Church closer to Christ."

Yep, it's fun to be different.

And thanks to whoever deleted Thelt's post.