Dad Is Great

All the pre-schools in our new town are affiliated with churches.  Sometimes this relationship seems more significant than other times, and though The Boy's upbringing has been deliberately secular to this point, I didn't consider the God issue very much before signing him up for pre-school.

On our tour, the director told me that the teachers lead the students through a prayer before lunch: "God is great, God is good, etc."  I wondered how I would explain the whole idea of God to The Boy, but other than that, I didn't especially mind the prayer.

Now, The Boy has been pretty tight-lipped about his experiences at school.  He is eager to go and disappointed on the days that school doesn't meet, but he doesn't respond very well (if at all) to my questions about what he does while he's there.  And whenever I asked him directly whether he said a prayer at school before lunch, he ignored the question.  Until today.  

Today I asked him if he knew what a prayer was, and he nodded and explained that you fold your hands together, bow your head, and say:

"Dad is great,

Dad is good,

And we thank Dad for our food.

Amen."

Indeed.

Comments

[Amy]

Most excellent! Last year my son sang a "Thank you God" song, that he interpreted as "Thank you gone" which to me, was way better. So I never bothered to correct him. This year they sing some kind of Johnny Appleseed song that has goes "The Lord is good. The Lord is great." And I worried about how I would explain that later, but he hasn't asked so I've decided just to let it go without comment. If he asks one day, I'll let dad explain it to him!

[snickollet]

Awesome. And I'm sure it's true that Dad is Great.

[Toni]

I LOVE it. :) Make sure you write it in his baby book :)

[Carla Hinkle]

That is awesome. :-)

[megan]

That was great!!!So funny. As a side note, I once saw a talk show where a woman asked "I ask my preschooler about his day and he never says anything. How do I get him to talk about his day?" The expert had said "Often, young children feel overwhelmed by such a broad question and you might get more luck if you ask "what was your FAVORITE thing you did at school today." I thought that was interesting and I filed it away in my mind for future reference.

[Tracy]

That is so funny. Our children go to a preschool affiliated with a church and we were worried at first but so far it is mostly the "happy bible stories" they seem to cover and remember. I definitely need to check and see if they are teaching them the "Dad Prayer!"

[Jennifer]

Awesome.

[caramama]

Haha! That is great!

Although, where's the Mom is Great prayer? Hmmmm. ;-)

[Gracie]

Fantastic! I have been worried about how to address this one with our 3 year old boy too. Luckily, his preschool is not at all religious.

We have to take a car ferry over to his school on the days that he attends and the other day he asked me, "Mom, is this the Tooth Fairy?"--priceless