All New Territory

While Max ventured briefly into the religion thing a year or two ago, I think we're about to get hit full on with the questions. You see, Ian and Sam are attending a preschool at a United Methodist Church, where they do get to attend chapel, and they do say a prayer before they eat snacks, and some of the kids do go to Sunday school. Last week one day the boys were sitting down to have their mid-afternoon snack. Ian mumbled something and said Amen at the end. I stopped and asked him to repeat what he said. A bit louder he said " Thank God for great food. Amen" Huh. My kid saying a prayer before a meal. Never thought I'd hear that one. For those who don't know, Tom and I are not religious in the least. We support freedom of religion and agree that people have the right to worship whomever or whatever they choose, but we ourselves are not religious. We each have our own belief systems (which are very different from each other) but we've never even discussed this with the kids. So I took this opportunity to introduce the idea that different people believe in different things, and gave them a very very brief overview of religion. Ian and Sam tuned me out long before I finished, but Max seemed to be satisfied with my response.

Well, a few days ago Sam asked why he doesn't get to go to school on Sunday. Not sure if they mentioned it at pre-school, but apparently one of the kids in his class said that they get to go to school on Sunday, and Sam shared with me that he wanted to go to. I told him that only people who go to the church get to go to Sunday School, but he wasn't satisfied and asked again today. Not sure where this is coming from - I guess it's a good sign that he wants to go to school more days, so I just told him that his days are Tuesday through Friday, and that other kids have different schedules. I wasn't ready to have the whole religion conversation with my four year old. He is pretty bright, but man, how do you even start that conversation.

I guess I'll leave this one up to the school. I got a note today that the kids are going to start attending Chapel next week. They'll go once a month, and it looks like a neat program. It's Kids Chapel, with someone who already works with kids, teaching them some neat stuff. I'm asking about it tomorrow as there was an opt out form in their totes today, but I can't see the harm in learning how to be good to each other, how to be responsible, and how to be respectful. I'll make sure that's what they will be teaching the kiddos and maybe Sam can get his Sunday School fix this way. Then again my kids might come home preaching the Gospel, at which point my husband's head will explode. Now that would be a funny sight. I'll keep you posted.