to not want my 3 year old pray in nursery

[ChipmunksInAttic]

A little background: we are living in the UK for last 10 months or so. both my husband and I are not believers and actually have a distance to all religions, though we both have muslim background - we were raised in a muslim country.

DS who is 3 years old started pre-school a month ago. When we were having dinner last night, he asked me aren't we going to "put our hands together", which is what they do at preschool before their lunch apparently. Today just to make sure I asked the school what does it mean and they told me they are having a little prayer before lunch just to say thanks for the food.

This is an independent nursery and at the beginning we had stated that we don't want any kind of religious education however I am not sure how to handle this now. We kindly asked them to exclude DS from praying, but I don't think this is doable while all kids are doing the same thing.

Maybe there is no harm just saying thank you for the food, however I cannot really understand why they are doing this with just 3 year old kids. We want to raise our child with no religious doctrines until a certain age but is that even possible? Or is this just a cultural thing and we are overreacting?

As both Christmas and Easter are basically prechristian celebrations with Christian stories stuck in top there is no hypocrisy in anyone who isn't Christian celebrating them.

Being thankful for food is admirable as long as you are thankful to the people who prepared it or grateful for being lucky enough to have enough to eat... But the whole being grateful to a god is not harmless at all imo - it plants all sorts of silly ideas of having because you are favoured over and somehow implicitly better than the have nots apart from anything (this belief permeates our society).

Children do go through all sorts of mental agonies when being fed religion by one set of trusted adults while the other set are trying to be rational and use the "some people believe" line... Like many others one of my kids was very upset for a while, having convinced himself we would go to hell based on something his teacher had presented as a pure fact not as something some people believe...

I really, really wish children instate, non church affiliated, schools were taught about religion, but the C of E establishment still is the Establishment, no matter how much some people try to pretend they can be both Establishment and the persecuted underdogs...

People who say religion is just harmless nonsense on a par with the tooth fairy are the reason nothing will ever change.

I had a religious upbringing too and am strongly against letting this kind of thing slide without comment. My peers who went to the same school are divided between strongly unhappy with religious indoctrination of the young, the ones who tend not to like actually thinking about anything too much who think it's just a pretty backdrop - a few nice songs and Christmas decorations and comfortable mindless ritual - and those who do genuinely and thoughtfully believe.

I suppose as long as my kids don't join the bovine mindless religion as unthinking ritual I won't mind. Getting 3 year olds who don't understand what they are doing to pray is most certainly mindless indoctrination.

If you rely on Christmas parties and Nativity plays to teach your DCs about loving, caring and sharing you are in deep trouble, take it from a moral philosopher who specializes in education.

I don't have a problem with religion if people find it helpful but please stop imposing it on others however anodyne you try and make it sound. I believe we should all behave like decent human beings to one another without the bribe of 'a place in heaven'.
And yes, too right we do Christmas and Easter eggs- the christians pinched these festivals from the pre-Christian world anyway, and we stick to the purely non-religious aspects. Jesus didn't bring chocolate eggs from the resurrection regardless of whatever rebirth symbolism you want to ascribe to them. Peace and goodwill to you all

If religious observation is part of nursery life then this should be made clear in their literature. Some parents want it. Some aren't bothered but some will be and it simply isn't acceptable to put religious observance into the day without providing information on it.

I remember praying in school and doing a nativity (I was excited to be angel Gabriel(le)) but at some point it stopped. Ingested we just sang beetles, bob Dylan , wizard and non religious generic songs and the school shows were winter festivals.
I'm not sure when or why it happened, but is was primary school in 2000-2006

I don't have kids but I wouldn't be happy about it. I think schools should teach about ALL major religions. In RE at secondary we were told we had to do RE so we could better understand other people, we were only really taught Christianity... Something 99% of the school grew up around if not in.

I hate when my brother has stayed at my nans house and comes home parroting prayers (autism is really annoying here). At Xmas dinner when my aunt said "seeing as we are all catholic here we should say grace", I looked up and said "are we?", I kept my head up and mouth shut during the prayer.

I work in a catholic school and despite a daily prayer I would not say children were immersed in religion at all. I think some people who aren't religious have incorrect assumptions about what goes on at a faith school. I teach a normal subject and I don't think I've mentioned God or Jesus once in
My ten years of working there

The nativity play/celebrating Christmas argument is daft. Unless your nativity play is an act of worship, why should we withdraw from it? It's just a story. As long as it's not presented as ... " and this is the true story of Christmas let us pray" it's fine by me. DS' next Christmas play was about talking snowmen, I don't believe in them either but have no objection to DS being in a play about them.
DS school celebrated Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Chinese new year, all sorts. That's just fine. It's learning about different cultures and religions. It's asking them to worship that we object to, and teaching religion as fact.

This really annoys me!

We specifically chose non religious schools and yet they still pray!

My church would punish me and my children if I allowed my children to take part in Christmas parties and Nativity plays.
We don't learn about loving, caring and sharing in our church. We learn about hell and sin.

What is your church Goldenwondering ?

Yuck yuck yuck I hate the idea of religious education so young - at nursery?? Actually I kind of think that there should be no religious stuff at school at all. YANBU.

"
We specifically chose non religious schools and yet they still pray!"

Didn't you know that state schools in England and Wales aren't really secular?

My children both went to a C of E school, though we aren't a religious family ( our village school). They had a link with the village church and there was some religious teaching but it wasn't overbearing.

Neither of them are religious, in fact, I remember my eldest asking questions about creation v evolution (something about trees and creatures being created on different days but how come dinosaurs and trees were about together) so it doesn't mean they'll just believe it all.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

My family are all atheists and all went to school where we had to pray.

We all followed the same pattern - believed in it at first as teachers were telling us it was true but by 7 or 8 had stopped and were following the family line of it all being fairy stories.

We never made a big deal of anything just explained that we did not believe in a God and did not ever pray.

Kids can easily cope with this situation and may be confused for a bit but get over it.

Orangeyellowgreen, learning about loving, caring and sharing doesn't need to involve religion at all! In fact without the intolerance, homophobia and misogyny that forms so much of religious belief it's actually a lot easier to teach children to care without god.

I think it's sad that so many posters don't think this kind of religious indoctrination matters - it's this sort of apathy that allows the church to continue to interfere in so much of our society even though most of us no longer believe in any sort of god.

My DS has started in a catholic nursery my DH wanted him to go to. I'm athiest. So it's very tempting to tell DS when he starts the 'God' songs and stories that God is just a nice idea like fairies and dragons (we had a discussion about dragons being not real and dinosaurs being real a few weeks ago, he started asking them about monsters and fairies. I'm a bit unsure whether I should have kept up the fairies are real thing for the tooth fairy but then he seemed scared of monsters so I thought honesty was the best policy long term. He's smart and can understand and enjoy the idea of magic and fairies without focusing on them not being real from what I can see. Will lie flat out about Santa for everyone's sake though).

But then I just know he will tell the nursery teacher my mummy said God is just make believe like fairies and he'll not get let into the primary so I'm holding my tongue till now.

Even non-denomonational schools in the UK are obliged to have a 'daily act of worship
My son's school has one assembly per week (one year group a day) and they never do any "act of worship" at all and they are really strict on adhering to rules.

Could someone please tell me where it says that even non-denomonational schools in the UK are obliged to have a 'daily act of worship'.?

Persian This government doc sets out the requirements. www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worship-in-schools All schools have to have "daily collective worships... to promote spiritual, moral and cultural development" and they must be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character"

Persian This government doc sets out the requirements
Thank you, I am going to have a read of that later.

The reason I was wondering is because not very long ago I went to a funeral and when I came home I told my DS about the hymns and saying the Lord's Prayer and his reaction was that he didn't know any hymns and he had no idea what the Lord's Prayer was.

The reason he gave for this was that they never mention any God stuff in school which surprised me.

Thanks for your link.

I went to a C of E school, and i'm a complete none beleiver in any religion. It was annoying having to sing the songs in asembly, but for me it was more being self concious of my singing so i'd just mime. I didn't feel like any religion was thrust on me as it was the only religious thing we did, and we learnt about all religions in RE anyway.

I am curious about the logic that says "worshipping" something that may does not exist promotes moral development...

There have been petitions about removing the compulsory nature of the "act if worship" but I guess the fact they've never brought about any change despite high numbers of signatures shows petitions only achieve anything if politicians see a way to use whatever issue they raise to advance their own careers.

Lots of people in the UK are unhappy with the "act if worship" OP, nurseries do not have to do it and not all schools interpret it as narrowly as making children pray - broadly Christian can be covered by a story with generally Judeo-Christian values (any story with a moral) so there are ways to tick the boxes other than hymns and prayers, though it is the word worship that sticks in the throat if you don't believe there is/are a god or gods and think religion has been the excuse for all sorts of very immoral acts and decisions throughout the ages and continues to be today IMO.

My husband and I aren't religious but I'm not anti-religion. I'll let my kids chose what they want to believe in, it doesn't bother me that they learn about religion or sing songs in church. I go to watch them, not because of the church but because I like to watch them sing. When my daughter talks about how the world was made (Adam and Eve) I don't shut her down, I give her an alternative view. It's not the end of the world if a 3 year old says thanks for food, they are hardly running off to join the church. You making a fuss is just going to confuse him.

I can accept why families can be upset by this, however, I don't believe the schools are forcing religion by including preying.
If you want your kids to not follow a religion until they're older, that's fine, but they will need a biphasic understanding of religion and how it works so they can question why you prey etc, ask about different religions and even question the fact that it all might even be nonsense.
My point is, a little involvement can encourage curiosity which will then encourage them to enquire and then make an informed decision as to wether to push it further when their older or not as the case may be. If they dint have any input at all and are ignorant to all of it it could affect their ability to follow religion as an adult as it may lack the confidence an basic knowledge to be able to know which direction to go for further information should they then choose regligion.
A little info now can allow them the stepping stones for later life if they wAnt it.

Themoreitsnowstiddlypom it would be wonderful if a little involvement did encourage questioning, but this thread suggests it encourages a rather asinine assumption that as religion is all pervasive it must therefore be just harmless and anyone who engages their brain about it is guilty of the crime of thinking "overthinking"

If schools taught more about religion and actively encouraged critical thinking on the topic it would be a wonderful thing. Instead it seems the requirement is to immerse the very young in "worship" without any encouragement to think about what they are doing and whether it is a good idea/ right, meaningful, necessary etc. from such a young age they accept it as background to such a degree they never question the whys and wherefores or think actively about the place of religion in their world at all - its as if the intention is to create an absence of critical thinking on the subject...

A little involvement can encourage curiosity can you imagine what would happen if the Christian prayer in this scenario was replaced by a Muslim prayer?

Children are curious and of course their questions should be answered. My DD who is 5yo asks about what happens when we die. I have mentioned various alternatives, e.g. afterlife, reincarnation, nothing, and told her which one I believe. She also asks about the 'nice man on the X' whom she sees on church courtyards and I tell her about the gentler, kinder and inclusive aspects of Christianity (no way am I telling her about Leviticus just because there are bonkers people out there who believe this stuff or about the Catholic church's views on contraception and abortion - I will present these ideas through an evaluative prism that shows them up for the silliness they are. And no way am I presenting creationism on an equal footing with evolution).

So much for information. When it comes to her moral development I try to get her to develop good habits like sharing, I try to get her to understand moral concepts like being kind and I aid her in engaging with complex moral virtues like what is required of us by justice. I try to lead by example and accept the reality of moral failure as an opportunity for improvement. I hope she becomes self-reflective and self-aware, able to internalize moral values and commitments.

None of this has anything to do with practicing religion which is what prayer is. Prayer is an expression of faith and it can only be up to the individual to chose to display it because they have the faith. Going through the motions of devotion without faith is disrespectful to the religion, and if anyone thinks prayer practice can be dismissed as meaningless, harmless, etc then they haven't really accorded it its rightful significance. Should my DD choose to pray at some point in her life I hope it will be with full appreciation of the significance of the act. I don't particularly care which religion she takes up, if she chooses to believe in one, as long as it centers around kindness, fairness, loyalty, understanding of others, tolerance, etc.

A different prayer from a different religion each day would be great! I'm not religious but praying is about the only good thing about any religion. It's give people including children a chance to stop and think in this crazy busy world. I woukd be happy if there were prayers at my dc's school. There isn't. Big fuss over nothing