My oldest child is six. She has always been taught to distinguish ‘real’ from ‘pretend’, and encouraged to decide which is which herself.
She seems to have no problem discovering that something she previously believed is false—at this age there is still so much to learn, and her world view is updating pretty constantly.
What does seem to be distressing for her is finding out that some adults believe things which she has placed solidly in the ‘pretend’ category. Her teacher’s belief in god is particularly perplexing for her.
In case you’re still active, I’m curious what your child’s reasoning was for placing God in the pretend category. Like, did she know about Occam’s Razor, or was she pattern matching God with other fantasies she’s heard? I’m mostly curious because I don’t think I’ve ever heard a perspective as undiluted as an Untheist’s.
Since scotherns says that they explicitly taught her to distinguish real from pretend, there is little doubt that she gathered it from scotherns’ own opinion, manifested by behavior and attittude, even if not explicitly stated. Especially since apparently she did not know that anyone believed in God, which means that she knew that scotherns did not.
My oldest child is six. She has always been taught to distinguish ‘real’ from ‘pretend’, and encouraged to decide which is which herself.
She seems to have no problem discovering that something she previously believed is false—at this age there is still so much to learn, and her world view is updating pretty constantly.
What does seem to be distressing for her is finding out that some adults believe things which she has placed solidly in the ‘pretend’ category. Her teacher’s belief in god is particularly perplexing for her.
In case you’re still active, I’m curious what your child’s reasoning was for placing God in the pretend category. Like, did she know about Occam’s Razor, or was she pattern matching God with other fantasies she’s heard? I’m mostly curious because I don’t think I’ve ever heard a perspective as undiluted as an Untheist’s.
Since scotherns says that they explicitly taught her to distinguish real from pretend, there is little doubt that she gathered it from scotherns’ own opinion, manifested by behavior and attittude, even if not explicitly stated. Especially since apparently she did not know that anyone believed in God, which means that she knew that scotherns did not.