Atheists - how do you explain church/religion to a 3 year old?

[melpomene]

DD1 is 3. We often walk or drive past churches (her preschool is next door to one) and she is curious about what happens inside. When she asked what happens in church I said something along the lines of "People go there to sing songs and talk about how to be good." She then announced that she wanted to go there to sing, and that she wants to live in a church!

I'm struggling with how to explain the concept of God/religion to her, since dh and I do not believe in it. Is 3 old enough to understand that different people can have different beliefs about matters like this?

I find this hard too. My chum who is a pagan gave me a fab line.. "some people believe" put that in front of whatever religion you are talking about, then you are not enforcing or trying to put her off. hth

I'm a Christian married to a humanist. DS is only 16 months but we are always going to be very straightforward about this when he starts asking, along the lines of 'Mummy believes xxxx and daddy doesn't.'

melpomene, if you don't explain the concept to your daughter someone else will. Get in first. Allie's line is a good one.

DS1 went to playgroup with a little girl with a very religious (and nutty) mother. She brought either a bible or a tambourine to every show and tell session. Every time we passed a church he would ask "Does xxxx go to that church" to which I would reply "Very probably".

We say "some people believe" ...

It's getting more tricky now, as DS1 is at a CofE school (whoops!), so does talk about believing in God.

We have told ours that some people go to church to talk to god and ask him for help in being good.
When asked could we go, we said "no, we don't need to"

PMSL Sorkycake!

Thanks. Part of the problem I'm wrestling with is how to explain the whole concept of God in the first place, though. If I say "some people believe that God made us and tells us how to be good." She'll then say "Who's God?" or "What's God" and how does one reply to that in terms a 3 year old can understand?

Probably helps if you have reasonably religious family or friend. I'd go for "Some people, like Grandma, believe that everything was made by someone they call God. And they go to churches to talk and sing songs about it."

Depending on child/context, I might also add "But other people, like me and Daddy, don't believe that, so we don't go to church."

If feeling really, really mean I might additionally add ".. and go to the park / go out for ice cream instead."

I gave ds the Usborne book of World religions when he was 3 because we had so many obviously religeous friends meaning that they had a turban or a headscarf on or some other symbol of their religion which he started to ask about and notice so we got a few books but the Usborne was a good one for that age group.

DS1 often asks why some of his cousins are baptised and some aren't (he is) and I say "Because they don't go to church" and he says "Why not?" and I say "Because people like doing all sorts of different things" - sesm to work for him at the moment!