If God made everything, does that include Neville the Devil?

By Emma McCormick, manager, Little Luvs nursery

Last updated 16:14, Monday, 26 May 2008

My five-year-old son has been asking me difficult questions about God. Often I haven’t been sure how to answer him.

As I was feeding our baby, my son came to sit beside me.

“Did God make the milk?” he asked.

I explained how milk was produced and was then bombarded by questions such as “Did God make the wardrobe?” and “Did He make my clothes, cos God made everything didn’t He?”

At this point I could vaguely remember singing a song at school “God made everything” during assembly and realised this was probably where he had come up with this philosophy.

When I asked, he told me that yes, he did sing that song at school.

Can you believe I was at primary school over 20 years ago and they still sing the same songs? Surely times have changed enough for some new versions to have been developed somewhere?

It made me think about how religion is taught to young children.

My son is christened and we attend church for occasions such as weddings and christenings, but I am not sure about the ways in which we teach children about religion in today’s society.

I question how Christmas, Easter and other occasions and celebrations are taught. I certainly believe we should celebrate them, but not in a tokenistic way.

Childcare practitioners, teachers and even parents should know and understand themselves the stories and history of religious events in order to tell them to children in a way they can understand.

I have come across many practitioners who have no idea for example how to tell the Easter story to children, or what Pancake Day and Valentines Day mean.

Often a few activities are carried out with little explanation to the children of the meaning behind it.

Back to my son; I tried talking to him about God and what different people believe in, but then he asked if God made people and animals and he threw in a few questions about dinosaurs and whales which got me thinking about evolution. Where was I to start?

Fortunately he allowed me some grace whilst I pondered his questions and thought about how to answer him in order to give different perspectives and facts (and find some good books!)

All this thanks to the songs “God made everything” and “Jesus – who is the king of the jungle?”

I decided he was too young to go into great detail about different theorists and perspectives on the meaning of life and how we all came to be here.

I gave him a few thoughts and for now that has satisfied his enquiring mind, though he did ask last week if there was a Hell and did Neville the Devil live there?

All I can do is to explain the best way I can using age appropriate materials and teach about different religions and perspectives.

Hopefully that way, children can be aware about faith claims of different religions and be sympathetic to how each group believes in their ideas.

An emphasis on respect is important, we don’t have to agree or accept other religious beliefs but children should grow up to treat others with respect.

Eventually children reach an age where they are accountable for their own beliefs. They will go into the world and think about what they have been taught and measure it against what they see to be real and the truth to them.

Some believe teaching religion is necessary to encourage children to be responsible and spiritually sound adults; others argue that if a particular religion is taught in a school then children who do not belong to that religion may feel excluded.

You may not follow any religion and would be happier if your children didn’t but we can’t, and shouldn’t, ignore the fact that religion plays a huge part in culture, art, politics and people’s lives.