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?

YANBU, OP. No schools or nurseries are really secular in this country, the only choice is home education to be free from religious influence. The more parents challenge things like prayers and uncritical reference to the existence of God in assemblies the more that schools and the government will take action so that these assumptions are not made.

I couldn't believe how little had changed in 30 years tbh between my so-called non-denominational school and the one DDs go to. I haven't taken them out of assemblies and so on but have used religion as a theme to teach them to question what adults say to them, especially when it is an unqualified statement about the existence of God.

*Supermoon" how does reciting a prayer give children "a chance to stop and think" any more than reciting a nursery rhyme or the lyrics to a Beetles song?

An "Act of Worship" carries the heavily underlined message "this is true" - otherwise why "worship"?

It is the opposite of learning about religions in a thoughtful, analytical ways.

Worship has no place in education IMO, though learning about religion very much does.

The "big fuss about nothing" line of thinking is a product of this system which immerses us in Christianity-light from such a young age we cannot see that it is worth stopping and thinking about quite why we accept our children "worshipping" and assume it must for some reason be good to "worship" even if we think there is nothing there to worship...

ChipmunksintheAttic have a look at

humanism.org.uk/education/parents/collective-worship-and-school-assemblies-your-rights/

My understanding is at Independent Schools are exempt from a collective act of worship.

Also, is it a pre school to a school, or a stand alone nursery? If its part of a school, I can see that they might get involved with assemblies and therefore prayers with the rest of the school, but a nursery on its own has no business doing any of this, surely?

Personally, i think there should be no collective acts of worship in school at all (learning about religions in RE is different). However, I've found that now my DD is 5 I can have a proper discussion with her about how the stories she hears about god at school are just stories that Christians believe in. There is no way she would have grasped that at 2 or 3 if she'd been told this at nursery, she would have believed exactly what she was told.

Sorry but yabu. Most of the institutions in this country have Christian undertones from royal occasssions to remembering our fallen soldiers to many school assemblies you will not stop exposure to Christianity, just as you can't stop a Christian child being exposed to secularism. Live with it or move your child. Please don't ask your child to be individually excluded as this would be horrific for them. If you don't believe in a God then surely the prayer in just words????

Yanbu, I would be very unhappy about this. I'm not sure how I would handle it though, so unfortunately I have no good advice.

You will not stop exposure to Christianity, sure. But why should it be a default settimg in non-denominational schools?

Worship has no place in education IMO, though learning about religion very much does.

The "big fuss about nothing" line of thinking is a product of this system which immerses us in Christianity-light from such a young age we cannot see that it is worth stopping and thinking about quite why we accept our children "worshipping" and assume it must for some reason be good to "worship" even if we think there is nothing there to worship...

Agreed. There's something deeply perverse about watching my son's primary school class (where nearly half the children are from Hindu, Sikh or Muslim backgrounds) being subjected to this kind of default Christianity-lite. No, I don't think my reception-age son is at risk of being brainwashed, but I simply don't want school, the place that teaches him that C A T spells Cat, myth-peddling a particular myth as true to him, or to have to counteract that at home.

Sorry but yabu. Most of the institutions in this country have Christian undertones from royal occasssions to remembering our fallen soldiers to many school assemblies you will not stop exposure to Christianity, just as you can't stop a Christian child being exposed to secularism. Live with it or move your child. Please don't ask your child to be individually excluded as this would be horrific for them. If you don't believe in a God then surely the prayer in just words????

Missing the point in several quite spectacular ways. The monarchy is as much of an embarrassing anachronism as the remnants of Christianity in public life. No one is suggesting their child shouldn't learn about religion, what they are objecting to is one religion being promulgated as factually true by school. And where should the OP move her child to? Does she need to choose private education to avoid the 'collective worship' requirement?

Frankly, more parents should be withdrawing their child from the 'daily worship' requirements. The children who are removed in DS's school seem unconcerned.

Frankly, more parents should be withdrawing their child from the 'daily worship' requirements. The children who are removed in DS's school seem unconcerned.
Hear hear. Vote with our feet.
Perhaps with a few more withdrawn children, schools might realise it's actually a bit of a nuisance, stop and think and discover it's easier and more inclusive to have a thinking time instead of a prayer. There's plenty of time for them to pray and worship at home if families want to do that.

If we had a choice of a school that doesn't do religion we would choose it; we don't. Christians get priority at RC or CofE schools, but there's no way to prioritise atheists at the least religious schools. (Yes I know compulsory act of worship, but there are schools which interpret that liberally enough that they just talk about values like charity and peace that we can all agree with). Even for those that can afford it, private schools tend to be more religious not less. No choice, but luckily what we do have is the right to withdraw from worship. And luckily any half decent teacher will find a way to do that that isn't "horrific" for the kids?!

When I was small we had to sing "thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the birds that sing, thank you god for everything" before lunch.

My dad thought this was hilarious and made up his own that went "thank you for the birds that cluck, now they're dead we'll eat them up," which went down really badly when repeated at school.

I don't recommend this as a means of telling the nursery you're not happy. But YANBU not to want your child to do prayers when your family doesn't pray.