Indoctrination

I never understood this approach to parenting. Why would you assume your child can't understand something, and therefore decide not to even attempt to teach them? Isn't it possible that your child could understand it at an age lower then you think normal? If so, wouldn't you then be delaying their education by witholding your teaching until you decide they're "ready"?I don't see the downside in teaching them anyway. Sure, if your child decides it's simply way over their head, and runs off to play dinky cars or whatever, then yeah, then feel free to put it off 'till later. But why simply assume your child is not ready for something when you do not know until you try? Especially when this could lead to slowing down their progress.To tie this back to your topic, I would suggest that in deciding your child is not ready to learn something without giving them the chance to prove you wrong is in itself a form of indoctrination. Kind of like how neglect is a form of abuse. In effect, you're hiding information from them. That is, if they do indeed happen to be ready to learn the information. As you (or others?) suggest, I think it's very difficult not to do this to some degree. And I agree that we should all be on our guard to constantly reduce the amount of indoctrination we produce onto children (or anyone, really). I'd say education is showing how you get to your answer. And indoctrination is refusing to allow any other possible pathway to the answer. This refusal can be direct (saying other options are wrong) or indirect (not mentioning competitive alternatives).

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as so brash. I didn't mean to imply a strict, full-blown lesson was somehow mandatory.All I intended was to let the child's curiosity lead their lesson's rather then our own opinion of "when they're ready". If raising kids doesn't do this to you, you're probably doing it wrong Yes, it could be considered as such. But that's why I qualified 'alternatives' with the word competitive alternatives.Personally, I just don't really feel like getting into why ID isn't a competitive alternative to evolution right now. I'm feeling lazy But if you do want to raise it as a viable point of contention, I'm sure plenty of others would love to talk it over with you. After all, that's what most of this site is about