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August 07, 2007

Do they teach evolution in Kindergarten?

GodMy husband called me up the other day to say "K can't play with J anymore."  I'm worried he was only half joking.  J is K's cousin and attends Sunday school, and it seems K was explaining to his dad how god made the world in 6 days and a few other little tidbits, like that "god knows everything".  DH figures this must have come from J, but I initially found that hard to believe. I knew J had told my son that his uncle was in heaven (and we'd told him our neighbor was in the ground, all of which he seemed to take in stride), but he didn't ask any questions.  The cousins got to spend a few weeks together in early July and frankly I'd thought they'd kept their conversations to the more important topics of Power Rangers, Pokemon and which costumes we can get grandma and grandpa to buy for us.  I mean how much can a kid retain two weeks later?  Seems quite a lot upon further probing.

I know I can't rely on the schools for everything, and I'm all prepared for the sex talk   But this, I'm just not sure how to handle.  I mean, I could explain evolution, but frankly I'm not a scientist so even with that I feel like I need a little help.  I'm pretty sure Ice Age 2 and the various dinosaur books we have won't cover it.  But the more difficult topic, which I can't imagine him grasping quite yet, will be about the different beliefs people have and why.

From what I've read about talking with young children, you answer questions honestly, but don't necessarily volunteer new information.  I've tried to gather some good advice on the web.  Talking about our family and our beliefs and explaining how other people have different ones is one of good ideas I've seen.  I also want to check out this book.  However I'd rather wait for questions, which haven't really come.  My son seems to be obsessed with the idea of the days ending with questions such as "who made the days?" and "when will the days end?"  This recently lead to a brief chat about treating the earth well so that it stays healthy, just like we treat our bodies well, something he may or may not have discussed in school, hard to tell with 4YOs.  I was so glad I was able to check off that "discussing the environment with your kid" box.  When he first brought that over a year ago, it seemed like it could lead to the topic of religion, but he was only 3 1/2.

But this chock-full-of-questions-kid, who when I recently suggested that I read to him in bed rather than having him fall asleep on the couch, responded with "why can you do that mommy?" has yet to ask a single question about this this subject, even though he's brought it up twice now.

I was raised in an atheist family with a Jewish mom and a formerly protestant dad who'd converted to Judaism in order to marry my mom.  My grandparents had pretty much given up religion by the time I got to know them well.  My family had pretty open discussions, friends from a variety of religions, and they were pretty firm in their beliefs, or lack thereof.  But frankly I cannot remember either talking about actual beliefs with friends or how early I was exposed to anything beyond the Jewish food traditions and Easter baskets and Christmas presents from my Christian friends.  From my experience it seems Californians keep religion to themselves much more than other parts of the US, so I'm sure that's part of it.

My husband's an ex-Catholic who's more against organized religion, but more of a believer than me.  I don't want my kid's to think religion is all bad, but there are areas which I strongly disagree with, like the thought that you can't be moral and ethical if you don't believe in some higher power.  This radio show, which I heard parts of on This American Life, talks about this as a radical idea, which scared me a little. 

I don't want to confuse the kid by introducing information well before he's ready, and I of course don't want to tell my 6YO nephew what he can or cannot talk about, but I also don't want to worry about my son taking this information as fact.  I'm guessing kindergarten is not going to take care of this for me.

You can also find Nicole at Not Just a Working Mom

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