5yo dd blaming God for everything. 'Why can't God just make it Friday so i can have Golden time today?'

[EweHaveGoatToBeSkiddinInSnow]

It's really irritating me. We're both Catholics (me not a practicing one, though) and dd attends a Catholic school.

These past few weeks, she's been going on about God and bombarding me with questions such as "Who made God?" "What was there before God?" "How can God be everywhere at the same time?"

I've answered as well as i could.

But now she's blaming God for every little thing. And it's these ones I'm struggling with.

"Why can't God just make it my birthday today?"

"Why can't God make me turn into a kitten instead of being a human?"

"Why can't God make me fly?"

"Why can't God make someone else have my cough?"

Etc etc etc. God is being blamed for such things 3-5 times a day in my house.

I've explained to her this morning about the Golden Time/Friday thing that it was humans who invented the idea of days and time etc, so it's nothing to do with God. But then she spun it around that God was the one who made humans and gave them their brains to think about naming the days in the first place.

Any ideas?

[SnakePlissken]

Isn't the stock answer something like 'God works in mysterious ways' ?

[ErrolTheDragon]

She sounds like a very intelligent child with an ability to think for herself which you should encourage!

[MooncupGoddess]

These are all perfectly sensible questions.

Can you remind her that God cares about everyone in the world, not just her, so he's not going to give someone else her cough or make it her birthday today when it should be someone else's?

[revivingshower]

I agree it is great she is learning about the nature of God and to understand him. God isn't a genie who grants wishes she should know that.

[msmiggins]

She sounds a clever girl- you have to admit she has a point.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

I'd be so proud of her.

[curlew]

She's got a point. Wait til she hears about cancer and famine and child abuse and war and the Holocaust and tidal waves........ Then you'll have your work cut out!

[technodad]

They sound like excellent questions to me. She doesn't sound like she is blaming god for anything, just exploring the world and asking sensible questions. Ones that you should be able to answer.

You should be very proud of her!

[niminypiminy]

The questions are all versions of 'why can't I have what I want?' aren't they? As MooncupGoddess says, God is the God of everyone, and everyone can't have exactly what they want -- since getting what we want frequently means that other people don't get what they want. Could we all have what we want all of the time?

These are good questions for a child to ask, and they are hard ones too. They're hard to answer even if you leave God out of it, because the lesson that we cannot have what we want all the time is a hard one for anyone to learn.

[LittleBabyPigsus]

She sounds very intelligent! I would be very proud.

[whereisshe]

She sounds like a smart kid. But as niminy said, I think the correct answer is "I want doesn't get" (ie just because god is omnipotent doesn't automatically imply those powers get rolled out as and when you want).

[springythatlldo]

What a gorgeous little sweetie!

Though I appreciate how trying the questions can be. YOu could go along with it a bit ie explore it with her - 'Zoe could have your cough I suppose, yes...' and see where she goes with it. Sounds like she'll work it out for herself tbh.

[claraschu]

These questions are also versions of "Why does evil exist?", or "Why does God let millions of children die in agony from preventable diseases/ People in Africa starve/ Hitler kill 6 million Jews/ My brother die in a car crash/ etc.".

I have never seen an answer to these questions that made any sense to me.

She is clever and thoughtful.

[EweHaveGoatToBeSkiddinInSnow]

Thanks so much for all your answers. Unfortunately the questions are still going on and she's started getting really annoyed with me.

The latest was this morning: "Why can't God just make my brain already know everything so that i don't have to go to school?"

"Why can't God make you give me toast instead of porridge?"

I agree that these are all her way of saying "Why can't I get what I want?"

And i have started answering her questions with things like "God isn't a magician." "You can't always have everything you want." "God treats everyone the same, and can't make someone else have a cough just because you don't want it."

And she answered to the last one: "But why did he give me the cough in the first place?"

So then i started going into how it was her body that controls her illnesses, not God. God is in charge of big, major things, not things like toast and coughs.

But then she started saying "But i thought God was everywhere? Why is he everywhere if he's only interested in big important stuff?"

My head is aching with it all. I just don't have the answers. I've been trying to find some child friendly books to help with it all, but to no avail. the librarian and the Waterstones guy both gave me and looks when i asked them to help.

So I'll ask you all instead. Does anyone have a website or a book that could explain things a bit better to my dd than I'm able to? It seems like every explanation i give her, she follows it with another question.

[whereisshe]

Since it's just a god-themed version of the "why stage" I'd look for resources on how to deal with that.

[MrsCakesPremonition]

Could you start talking to her about how God expects people to make their own decisions and choices. That he gave her a brain and expects her to use it?

The questions are good - enjoy them while they last. It won't be long before she is telling you rather than asking - and rolling her eyes when you get the answers wrong.

[Thistledew]

Just tell her that god is not about logic, or reason, or common sense but that some people find it helpful to believe that (there is a) god (who) does these things 'just because' he wants to.

[Dutchoma]

I think whyisshe is right and this is just another phase of the 'whys' . In the end the only way to deal with it is to say: "why is why, darling?"
Re-inforce that God is God and that He loves her. That difficult things do happen in life, even though God does love us. Such is life. It is not fair. But then: if we were always happy we wouldn't know it.

[EweHaveGoatToBeSkiddinInSnow]

Thanks again.

That's a good spin on it, Mrs Cakes. The 'free will' angle.

That God doesn't want us all to be robots. he wants us to make our own minds up about things. He wants us to learn patience etc which is why he can't make it Friday right now.

I'll try that and see how i get on.

[NoComet]

There is no good answer that's why I've been an atheist since I was your DD's age.

[Dutchoma]

Also in one of the Anne of Green Gables books Davey asks: "Can God make a stone that is so heavy that He cannot lift it?" And the answer is: "No, He can't". There are things God can do and there are things that He cannot do.
Quite a few of those if you think about it.

[BertieBowtiesAreCool]

Do you go to church? Or any family members. I bet someone in a church would love to sit and explore the concept of God with her and why he can do this but not that or perhaps that he can but doesn't choose to etc.

[BertieBowtiesAreCool]

There was a nice part in Heidi when Heidi is upset because she has been praying and praying for God to send her home to the mountains and it doesn't happen, and when she speaks to Clara' Grandmama, Grandmama explains that although God listens to and hears all of our prayers, he doesn't always give us what we want right away and it's usually because he thinks there's something which is better for us, or he wants to answer our prayers in a different way which might be a good angle.

[HoneyandRum]

Also God is not just a big human in the sky. We are created and we do not have an existence like God, for a start we are finite and mortal. We cannot understand God's ways except as Christians we believe that Jesus is God and by understanding Jesus we can understand who God is and what God's priorities are such as: love, kindness, forgiveness, humbleness, mercy etc. God's attributes help us get a handle on who God is.