Daddy, is God real?

Actually, that is a good point. Questions like that don't come from out of nowhere. Rather than just handing down wisdom, turn it into a discussion. Not only will you learn why he/she is asking that question, but also it will help you determine what level to place the answer on.For example, this old joke. A young boy approaches his parent wanting to know, "Where did I come from?" Flash panic at having The Talk suddenly thrust upon him like that and so early too, he sat down and they went through the whole "birds and the bees" talk. When he was done, his son sat there for a minute looking a bit confused, and then said, "Yeah, but ... . Well, Billy says that he's from San Diego. Where am I from?"I am a parent. When my son (now 28) was about 5 or 6, we were watching a DTV video on the Disney Channel (mimicking MTV, they made a series of "videos" setting cartoon clips to popular songs) that had included scenes from Fantasia of Zeus throwing lightning bolts down on the Bacchanalian revelry. I explained that way back when since people didn't know what caused lots of things in nature like lightning, they created the gods as a way to explain those things. Now, he was a very smart kid (yeah, I am a proud parent, but his psychology-student uncle administered a IQ test as a class assignment and even his prof was surprised at the high score) and he immediately asked me whether the same was true about "God". Yes, people would use God to explain the things in nature that they didn't understand. Then a week or two later at family dinner at my in-laws', my mother-in-law said something like "Thank God" and he sternly corrected her, "God doesn't exist!". Of course, everybody immediately jumped on my case and I don't know whether they believed me that he had reached that conclusion on his own.So, rather than tip-toe through that kind of a minefield, here's a thought. Make it a discussion with her. "We don't really know" is a good answer, but discuss it with her. Point out that a lot of people do believe in "God", but they don't really know what that is and they all have different ideas about "God".

When we have our little talks with our children, we need to remember that they might see things a bit differently.I started elementary school with Kindergarten in 1955. A bit later, my mother had signed me up for "Released Time Religious Education". The public schools could not provide any religious instruction, but parents were given the option for their children to be taken out of class and taken off-campus for religious instruction. Most schools have a trailer parked out on the street for that purpose, but there was a Protestant church across the street from my school, so that was where I went. The only lesson I remember was the one about Abraham walking along the hillside gathering rocks to make an altar. Only the Abraham I envisioned in my mind during that lesson was tall, had a beard, and wore a black suit and a stove-top hat. Abraham Lincoln was the only "Abraham" I knew of.Then there was the small child who was afraid of the Pledge of Alligence because of the witch. "... for witch it stands ..."When I was little, I read comic books. Mainly DC (Superman et al.). A lot of the stories involved aliens. So one day I asked my mother about aliens and she assured me that they did not exist. And I accepted that. Then one day, the Government had a public service commercial that reminded all aliens of their annual requirement to go the post office to register with the government. Mom!!!! You told me that they don't exist!!!!As adults, we have learned to view the world in a certain manner. When we talk with our children, we need to keep in mind that they most likely are viewing those same things in a different manner.