Teaching Toddlers
Posted by Arwen Mosher in FaithFamily on Wednesday, August 06, 2008 9:00 AM
Our daughter Camilla will be two in October, and she won’t be old enough for our parish’s catechism until she’s three, so for at least another year that ball is entirely in our court. I have a degree in theology and a pretty extensive knowledge of the basics of the Catholic faith, so I had always imagined that teaching our children about the faith as part of our daily lives would be very easy.
It is easy, in some ways. We talk about Jesus a lot, and Milla can recognize him on crucifixes and in paintings. She likes to read her books about Mass and the Blessed Mother and she gets excited when it’s time to go to Mass, even if she doesn’t behave perfectly when we’re there. She knows what the prayer book is, and she joins us in saying prayers every night. She’s assimilated these things fairly easily.
I struggle, though, with how much more we should be trying to teach her right now. I often whisper to her during the consecration about what is happening, but she’s clearly too young to understand what transubstantiation is, so I sometimes feel silly doing it. (A lot of the time I’m just doing it to distract her, anyway - how do kids instinctively know the worst times to act up during Mass?) A discourse on Trinitarian theology or soteriology would obviously be wasted on Milla’s 22-month-old mind, but should I be reading her the lives of the saints? Should we have more books about the Mass and other aspects of our faith? Or should we just be helping her learn to genuflect in the proper time and place, instead of randomly in the vestibule?
I’m interested in your experiences with catechizing the under-three set. How much is it reasonable to expect them to be able to learn at this age? What techniques and materials have you found useful? I’d love more information on this topic.
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