When Your Child Starts Asking Questions About God

4 min read | Faith

The question comes from the back seat. You are watching traffic, and your child wants to know how anyone knows God is listening.

You might have an answer ready. You might still be working through the question yourself.

Talking to children about God does not require a polished explanation of everything you believe. Begin by finding out what prompted the question. A conversation at school may be behind it. So might something your child heard during prayer.

“What made you think about that?” gives you somewhere to start.

Find Out What They Mean

A question that sounds enormous may have a specific concern underneath it.

“Where is God?” could mean your child wants to understand a teaching. It could also mean they are wondering why they cannot see someone the family talks about.

Listen before deciding which explanation to give.

Ask a brief follow-up, then let them finish. Avoid supplying a long answer to a question they were not asking.

Explain Your Belief in Words They Understand

Use familiar language and explain religious terms as they arise.

“In our faith, we believe…” identifies the perspective you are sharing. It also gives you a way to acknowledge that other families may understand the subject differently.

You can explain your convictions without pretending differences do not exist.

Keep the first answer short enough for a conversation. If your child wants more detail, they can ask. You can also check: “Does that answer what you were wondering?”

Say When You Do Not Know

Some questions will exceed your knowledge. Others may concern matters your tradition discusses in more than one way.

“I don’t know” can be followed by an action: “Let’s look for an explanation from someone who has studied this.”

Choose a source appropriate to your faith and the child’s age. Read or watch it together rather than handing over unfamiliar material without checking it.

Distinguish between not knowing a teaching and having uncertainty about a belief. You can be honest about either without asking your child to resolve it for you.

Welcome Questions Without Treating Them as Defiance

A child asking how something works is not necessarily rejecting it.

Make room for follow-up questions, including ones you find uncomfortable. If you need time, say when you can return to the discussion.

Avoid making affection or belonging depend on giving an expected answer.

And do not assume one conversation settles the subject. Your child may revisit the same question later with a different concern behind it.

Speak Respectfully About Other Beliefs

Children may notice that a friend prays differently or does not pray at all.

Explain the difference as accurately as you can. Avoid assigning motives to another family or reducing an unfamiliar religion to a single practice.

You can say, “Our family believes this, and their family believes something different.” That leaves room to explain your own position without insulting theirs.

If you do not know what the friend’s tradition teaches, look it up through a reliable source instead of guessing.