Threes and fours are more likely to invent monsters in the closet. Momma
got sick because I was naughty. Fairies live at the bottom of the garden.
That thing happened because I thought about it. My toys are alive.
Something I do makes magical things happen.
Without being a complete buzz kill, how do we instill critical thinking into the
young minds of our beloved children so that they are able to, when the time
comes, separate religion from the rest of the pack of ideas, while still
encourage imagination and pretend and fun?
Well, Momma and Daddy, begin by educating yourself on normal childhood
cognitive development. When you begin to understand the role that
imagination a ctually plays in a development of understanding reality, you
will feel confident in encouraging it! You will understand that later years
come (ages 7-11) when a child's thinking becomes very concrete and far
more unwilling to accept pretend explanations. These are the years when
rules are rules, things are black and white, and your child will be more likely
to want to understand how the magic trick was possible. These are the years
when your child will be very interested in pursuing and understanding
principles of science and math.
During those toddler and preschool years you will be reading many, many,
many books to your child. Read some nonfiction. Read tons of myth stories
from other cultures as well as myth stories from the local majority religion.
Taken all together as pretend, the religion stories of the world will be
inseparable from mythology from other traditions. An ark in a flood will be
just as improbable as a baby getting a new elephant head or ants coming up
from underground and becoming humans.
Explore the carbon cycle, the rock cycle, and the water cycle together. Look
at clouds. Look through telescopes to see out beyond the clouds, far beyond
what our own eyes are able to see on their own. Learn about how our
feelings and our fears can overwhelm us and make us want to have a
parent-like protector. Learn how the human body works: illness, healing,
sleep, dreams, growth, death, life. Delight in new technology, appreciating
that human knowledge is discovering new things every day. Be in true awe
at the world around you. Care for the needs of the people in your
community.
P a g e | 244