How young is too young to talk to your kids about religion?

[rug]

Editor’s note: On tonight’s NewsHour, author Wendy Thomas Russell will talk to the NewsHour’s Jeff Brown about her book, “Relax, It’s Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You’re Not Religious.” Read an excerpt of the book below.

BY Wendy Thomas Russell
August 10, 2015 at 3:10 PM EDT

Lots of secular parents think religion is too complicated for young children to comprehend, and some worry that early exposure to religious ideas will bias children in one way or another. But waiting is a gamble. Kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. And when we wait too long, we risk losing their interest altogether; religious literacy becomes a chore—for them and for us.

Precisely when and how you broach the subject with your child, though, will depend a lot on your child’s personality, not to mention your own worldview, the community in which you live, and the sorts of beliefs your child is most likely to encounter in talks with her peers. But, for purposes of planning, count on kicking things off around kindergarten. If you wait a little longer, that’s fine. But do keep in mind that the longer you wait, the harder the transition is likely to be. By eight, your child will probably have picked up a lot of things from peers; he might even be worried about what he’s hearing, or feel an inexplicable lack of belonging.

Here are some general guidelines.

Ages Four to Six. At this age, most kids are ready to start exploring ideas of spirituality. This is when blossoming imaginations begin welcoming supernatural ideas and when concepts like “good” and “evil” come into focus. It’s around this time, too, when inquisition replaces demand as the rhetorical tool of choice: “Why did this happen?” “What happens if someone does that?” “Why?” Around five, most children are being exposed to the reality that Mom and Dad don’t have exclusive control of the thought process: Kids at school also have ideas to share.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/young-young-talk-kids-religion/

[AtheistCrusader]

1. It's very easy to innoculate a child against religion. Kids are problem-solving machines.

They LOVE problems. Just expose them to two dominant religion's mutually exclusive claims, and they'll work it out on their own.

Another tack is to expose them to primitive religions that most people call 'myth' today, and then let them work forward as religions evolved, so they can see how they are just man-made myths as well.

Children are geniuses. This is easy stuff for them to chew through. Building a proper cyclotron in Minecraft that gets from the nadir of the map to the zenith, that's hard.

"I hear babies cry, and watch them grow,
They'll learn much more than we'll know.
And I think to myself; What a Wonderful World"

[rug]

2. The article is about discussing religion, not innoculation against it.

I thought we were opposed to indoctrinating our values into children.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. I am opposed.

I don't insist my child be an atheist. Statistically, he is unlikely to be one, long-term.

He is one, by default, now. That could change.

Showing him religion is a man-made house of cards and bullshit is hardly indoctrinating him into anything.

[cleanhippie]

3. Having a discussion about early religions, including the what and why early humans believed...

puts modern religions in the same context. Young children are very inquisitive and capable, and given the right tools such as reason, skepticism, and logic, they will see religion for what it is.

It's amazing what happens when we don't tell our kids whats real and what make-believe, and instead give them the ability to find out for themselves.

[DBoon]

4. a similar topic was covered by The Onion

"Are Your Cats Old Enough To Learn About Jesus?"

http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/are-your-cats-old-enough-to-learn-about-jesus-11206