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DannieB 03:19 PM 07-23-2015
I'm putting together my parent handbook and am wondering how some of you deal with religion in general. I do not want to emphasis any religious holidays or religious observances (prayer or other events that will distract from other children or require one-on-one attention). I feel all religious/spiritual needs are personal and should be between parent and child. Thank you
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Thriftylady 03:29 PM 07-23-2015
Originally Posted by DannieB:
I'm putting together my parent handbook and am wondering how some of you deal with religion in general. I do not want to emphasis any religious holidays or religious observances (prayer or other events that will distract from other children or require one-on-one attention). I feel all religious/spiritual needs are personal and should be between parent and child. Thank you
You don't have to address them at all if you don't want. But IF you will have any activities for Thanksgiving, Christmas etc you might put that in there and if it will not be religious based you can say that also. You can just say something like "we will have holiday parties, if you have questions feel free to ask". I am a Christian home, and my parents sign a waiver for "religious" activities, if they choose to. I don't do a lot of religion but at Christmas time we may read the Christmas story, or read stories from a Children's Bible, but ONLY if all kids in care that day have the waiver signed. It is something I offer, but don't force.
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Laurel 07:04 PM 07-23-2015
Originally Posted by DannieB:
I'm putting together my parent handbook and am wondering how some of you deal with religion in general. I do not want to emphasis any religious holidays or religious observances (prayer or other events that will distract from other children or require one-on-one attention). I feel all religious/spiritual needs are personal and should be between parent and child. Thank you
I am an atheist and didn't bring it up at all. My parents didn't know my beliefs and I didn't know theirs unless they just happened to mention it.

I do celebrate the holidays mostly because I have grandchildren and I just like the holidays although I don't do anything religious obviously.

I did have one parent who was a Christian but did not celebrate Halloween. She told me and so I didn't do much for Halloween. We just did fall activities and they made paper pumpkins and spiders but we didn't get into witches or ghosts or things like that. I just did it as a courtesy. It was pretty easy to avoid.

I had a parent or two invite me to their church over the years but I just said "Thanks, but I'm not really religious." Then no more was said about it. I figured I would just deal with each individual case if and when it came up. Nothing in my rules.

Laurel
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DannieB 08:49 AM 07-30-2015
Thanks Laurel. I'm an atheist too, and I appreciate your honesty. I think I'm overthinking the situation. My original thoughts were to say something about celebrating the changing of the seasons in hopes of avoiding specific holidays. I have a little fellow who has brought up god a few times and it's obvious someone has put in his head it's god above all things. I usually bring him back to what we're working on with a question related to our theme and it's worked so far.
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Laurel 02:26 PM 07-30-2015
Originally Posted by DannieB:
Thanks Laurel. I'm an atheist too, and I appreciate your honesty. I think I'm overthinking the situation. My original thoughts were to say something about celebrating the changing of the seasons in hopes of avoiding specific holidays. I have a little fellow who has brought up god a few times and it's obvious someone has put in his head it's god above all things. I usually bring him back to what we're working on with a question related to our theme and it's worked so far.
I am retired now but did childcare and/or worked in schools for 20 years. I think I can count on one hand how many times religion even came up. Unless you are in a deeply religious area like the Bible belt, it probably won't be much of an issue at all.

Laurel
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