A couple weeks ago, Patriot had a play date with a girl from his class. Matt went with to chat with her dad. Through their conversation, Matt came to learn this family is Hindu. They began talking about the differences in their faiths and the kids mentioned that their teacher said they aren't allowed to talk about God at school. That caught all the grown-up's attention.
We certainly don't want to start teaching these kindergarteners that their teacher is wrong ... but in this case, she is. We also want to empower our kids to talk openly about their faith and their loving God, even as young as kindergarten. So how do we strike a balance?
In this conversation, we started with creating context. We talked about certain times when it might not be appropriate to talk about God in class. For example, if the teacher is in the middle of a spelling lesson, it may not be the best time to bring up God. I figure as long as the kids aren't disruptive with their comments, their teacher cannot be upset when they mention their personal faith.
Next, we talked about times when he can respectfully to show his faith. An obvious time is praying before lunch. Patriot loves the idea of silently praying -- and God can hear his prayer in his head! (How cool is God!?!) Another time would be at recess. We role played a few situations like "I'm practicing basketball because God gave me the ability to play ball and I want to do the best I can. This was a little awkward to work out, but I think he understood that he can talk about God in regular conversation at school.
Since that talk, Patriot has reported a couple of times he mentioned God at school and didn't get in trouble -- I think he was a little surprised by that! I haven't talked with his teacher about this yet. I'd really like to see Patriot learn to navigate his witness himself. And I'm thrilled he's in a position to start learning that process at such a young age. If he can practice this basic skill now, imagine how powerful he can be as a teenager!
