Jesus held on the cross with nails in his hands

[TaFox]

DD5 is in year 1 and has been learning about Jesus at school. Great stuff in the spirit of Easter.

The RE teacher told the class how Jesus was NAILED to the cross.

This is quite graphic for a little girl who believes that the Easter bunny will leave eggs in our garden.

Should I tell school that this is too much info for little ears?

Floralnomad · Yesterday 21:45

Im an atheist but even I know that Easter was originally about Jesus not bunnies and eggs .

Oestre (Easter) was the Teutonic goddess of fertility, the bunnies were hares and the eggs the symbol of new life in the spring. As with virtually every Christian festival, it was appropriated and adapted by the early Christian Church.

Every saint and their miracles plagiarised local deities and spirits.

I hope you don’t let your child listen to the news - children being shot in schools in the USA, children being killed in knife attacks here in the uk, people being blown up and shot in the numerous wars that are going on in the world, women in Iran being beaten, tortured, raped and killed for not wearing a headscarf, children dying of starvation the world over.
Humans are a violent and cruel species.

I've always known the story as I was taken to church from tiny. In the Catholic church the story is acted out every Easter over several services, the most solemn part being on Good Friday.

The early exposure didn't bother me in the slightest. As a child I was most concerned with how much longer I'd have to sit still!
Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, walk of witness, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday services...

Anyway on the point of crucifixion, it is rare to find actual evidence of people being nailed to a cross, but a case was found in Fenstanton, Cambs in 2017.

A nail had been driven through the poor man's heel bone. Fascinating, horrific and gruesome.

It’s not as gory as it could be, if they were accurate. I’ve read before that it’s more likely that he was nailed through the wrists. Nails in the palms wouldn’t support a person’s body weight - they’d rip through the flesh and he’d have fallen forward.

🤣 my child was chosen to be in the Easter story assembly acted out by local church volunteers, their part was to do the nailing!! They were just thrilled to be chosen

Oh, please.

I wish they had laughing emojis on mumsnet.

I’m with you do they need to know at 5 the graphic details. But it’s the curriculum and the schools follow it. One of my children came home slightly horrified after hearing the same story. I’ve always gone along the it’s a story we weren’t there so we don’t truly know what happened. Speaking to the school will not make a difference. They still have to do it.

Yabu. He was nailed. Any picture shows it and it's show in the church. I'm not religious. I think I've known since younger than your dc. It is the Easter story. I have something I made at 5 at school with hot cross bun picture and what it all means etc and there's also a picture of Jesus in the booklet I made with nails on the cross. Look up the symbol behind the hot cross bun. Bunnies etc arent easter. They spring as are eggs.

I think you are overreacting here. Does your daughter watch Disney films?

They are all about murder and kidnapping the fight between good and evil.

some being nailed to a cross is no more graphic then someone being poisoned by their step mother or locked in a tower.

I'm concerned that she's never been to a church. Even if you don't believe, it's an important aspect of our cultural heritage and I think a child should at least go a few times so they know what to expect if ever they go to a church wedding, funeral or christening in the future.

We take our DD1 every week and they do a short kids sermon on different bible stories... From Elijah, to the parables of Jesus, to Paul's letters. The children love it and are always hooked (they make them very visual and immediate).

YABU using the word bunny/ bunnies. It's rabbit. If you must use the word then refer to it as bunny rabbit.

DT’s hadn’t been to church in primary. They’re now in their early 20’s but have rarely been to a church for a wedding as those they have been to haven’t been held in a church. They’ve never been to a christening.

If you think she will be traumatised by Jesus being nailed to the cross what is it going to do to her when she find out people eat rabbits?

What's wrong with the word bunny?

@RemarkablyBrightCreature Yes, I can appreciate that would be an incredibly difficult conversation to have. I'm sorry you had to go through that. Certainly a hard (and likely impossible) thing to explain, particularly with a five year old.

It’s all a load of bollocks

Dammit, I wanted to be the first to point this out.

Please PLEASE complain to the school about their mixing up the pagan festival with this newfound nonsense OP. Easter IS supposed to be fun, and about bunnies and eggs.

She'll survive.

No.

This is definitely a reverse! You are the teacher aren't you OP?

That's a gross oversimplification.

The origins of Christian Easter are completely separate to the Teutonic goddess of fertility. The date of Easter is loosely based on Passover, and it's coincidental that this happens to be around the same time of year Northern European pagan spring festivals were happening.

Anglo Saxon England shifted culturally from Pagan to Christian over the centuries, and of course there was a blurring together of traditions. Easter is not called Easter in many countries, but has names derived from Passover. Ostra/Eostra was not a Celtic goddess, and arguably the germanic invaders/settlers who became the Anglo Saxons appropriated and adapted the festival from Celtic pagan religions.

The early church didn't just rock up in northern Europe and say "Oh look, a pagan festival. Let's appropriate it for our biggest festival which is absolutely pivotal to our beliefs".

Yes, Christmas was appropriated by the church, but it's much more complex with Easter.

Or a graphic description of hell.

We were very quick to explain to DT’s that heaven and hell don’t exist. End of story.

Should I tell school that this is too much info for little ears?

You are funny OP - little kids have been taught this for centuries - I don’t think the school is changing it for you.

Your daughter will absorb it and move on swiftly. Give her credit - she is able to handle more than Easter eggs on the garden.

It’s the cornerstone of Western civilisation as well as being what Easter is actually about so it’s fairly key to an education.