As to his teacher, you may want to ask that she respect your desire to teach your child science along with the exposure to religious tradition. Or let it slide. It’s true that in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal.

first I understand why you have chosen that Pre-school. Unfortunately most of the Pre-Schools are affiliated with churches I see this seems to be true around the country. That is a whole sepperate issue.

I do disagree with the idea of letting your son know that anyone who isn’t a skeptic is wrong. The fact of the matter is your neighbors and even your own families can and will have different beliefs than yours. I feel it’s more important to teach tolerance of others. This will not only help him get along with others, but it can help the world.

However it is important to give him the tools to make decisions for himself. And it seems you are committed to doing so.

Let’s not raise our children believing it’s “You” VS. Us

It looks to me that you son is doing pretty well, why are you so concerned about this?

Said that… something doesn’t seem too well to me, why right and wrong?, I should say I’m no parent yet though, won’t it be better for your son if you use this experience to let him know that people out there will believe different things than him, and he will need to deal with that, judge, and accept or reject them as he see fit.

I know you hope him to be skeptic at heart and see to the world with the eyes of since, but if you close his eyes(of apart his sight form this for that matter) won’t you be doing exactly the same thing that you dislike from religious believers?

I hope your problem get solve in the best way.

Ken.

I was once a Little Skeptic myself, and at age 6 I vigorously debated evolution vs. creationism with my best friend’s Southern Baptist mom. It drove her nuts, and it still gives me satisfaction thinking about it more than 40 years later.

For my own part, I ended up finding my own spiritual path, liberally dosed with skepticism, and before I transitioned over to IT in a radical career change spent several years doing molecular bio research. My brother who came up through the same system has a PhD in physics and plays with supercomputers for a living.

Its all about the attitude. I’m no Christian, but I’m comfortable in churches – I can respect their beliefs/superstitions without taking them upon myself or needing to impose my worldview on them. Heck, I was no Christian all the time the local vicar wanted me in the church choir because he needed a boy treble soloist. He knew it and didnt care.

When I still had a scientific career, many of my colleagues were religious, and saw the scientific truths that they were observing as religiously inspiring, illuminating the deeper levels of their religion rather than contradicting it. There is a level of fanaticism and literalism over here that just doesnt exist in any part of the English mainstream.

Kids are quite mentally adaptable – the exposure to a religious context and worldview at school coupled with the practical and skeptical at home will teach them more than either parent or teacher could alone – A mind that can context-switch and respond appropriately to the situation that they are in – neither being antireligion in somebody elses place of worship nor a scriptural literalist in a facts and observation based scientific context – is better suited to todays world than anyone who cannot do this.

I’m a skeptic from a long time ago and I’ve raised my two children to be skeptical and pretty much agnostic when it comes to religion.

However both of my children, (my son is now 18, my daughter is 16) went to a Catholic pre-school I chose the probbaly for the same reasons you chose yours. From a religious point of view, I knew what I was getting into and I didn’t fight it. My kids participated in Christmas pageants and Easter celebrations and so on.

The truth is, I learned a lot through my kids’ daycare experience.

The first lesson wasn’t religious at all. It came one day – not his first day – when I dropped of f my son and with a terrified look on his face he screamed “Daddy please don’t leave me!!” The nuns reassured me and I could watch through a window as he calmed down and began to play with the other children. Still my heart was crushed. The next day was the same thing. It lasted a week or so. What a way to start my day.

But this came and went. The next stage was when he cried when I came to pick him. And I watched him cling to one of the young nuns he had come to bond with. Daycare was killing me.

But over time I realized I’m the Dad. I mean, hey, I’m the Dad! Nobody can compete with me. Adopted kids will travel around the globe looking for their birth parents. As parents, the things we do and say have immeasurable influence on our children. If we said the moon is made of Styrofoam our kids would grow up believing that. We’ve all met the people who have grown up in households with unusual beliefs and customs. Some they can’t shake even though they know better as adults. Some even pass them along to their own kids knowing they’re wrong!

As teenagers my kids are die-hard skeptics. Their Catholic pre-school, complete with pageants and plays, did not indoctrinate them with religious beliefs. Only I could do that.

So I would tell you, only you can do that. And your son did hold his point of view and came and talked to you. What a great opportunity to teach tolerance. And our children will meet many people with many beliefs and they may even investigate some to see if any meet their unique needs. But I will tell you they will always measure them against what you teach them.

So relax, ‘cause we’re the Moms and Dads and nobody can compete with us.

I wouldn’t worry about pulling you son out of the school, though. That’s an age where many children still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, and most of us manage to put that indoctrination behind us. Besides, his reaction shows you got him off on a good foot anyway. (I suppose it would be too much to ask for a preschooler to grill the teacher on what kind of scientific support she has for her position, but wouldn’t it be funny if he had?)

I went to a Christian run preschool, and attended Lutheran schools from Kindergarten trough my senior year of high school, and I still managed to end up an atheist, so there’s always hope.

From my own personal experience, I was brought up neutral to religion. My parents wanted me to make my own choices and did not interfere with the religious education I received – although I did get asked to leave Sunday school for making the teacher cry because I sent her into a circular reasoning argument that was very “disruptive” to the rest of the class. I was always encouraged to simply “think logically” by my parents, and despite the many establishment attempts to empty my mind of knowledge, I enjoyed having the ability to question with my own mind too much.

My father was just as curious about the universe as me, and the very fact that I could tell him the answer sometimes was enough to drive my inquisitive nature forward. Accepting Jesus as my lord and master was all very well, but it just couldn’t compete with being able to proudly say “No Dad, you are ‘always’ in between the sun and the center of a rainbow circle.”

Little did I know that by feigning ignorance, I was being coaxed by my father to tell him things he already knew. It made no difference, because he was witnessing me discover these things myself, with my own curiosity. He was learning them all over again, through me.

So, i guess my advice would be not to discourage a religious influence. Encourage its critical examination and give your child the opportunity to teach you about it. You may have the answers already, but your child may have better ones and will delight in imparting knowledge to you. They will not only know that something is right or wrong, but will have reasoned that conclusion for themselves. A true skeptic.

Maybe then the experiences they are having now will become the founding of a great teacher.

If you are a progressive, rational, and healthy supporter of children’s rights, it is important to find a preschool that is also a progressive, rational, and healthy supporter of children’s rights.