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Problems with my boys and Ancient Greece studies…
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Hello!
Okay, here is the situation. We are in module 2. Ancient Greece this year. My boys are 9 (just turned) and almost 8. They have enjoyed the Bible studies and the map drills so far. We watched Drive thru History (which they loved). But when it comes to reading the stories from Famous Men of Greece I’m encountering problems.
For example yesterday I was reading to them about Hercules. While I’m reading aloud these were the various comments from the “peanut gallery”. ” no more! can you believe these people, what was wrong with them? They were so stupid to believe this stuff! Why didn’t they know the Truth?” ” Take this book and rip it up, throw it in the trash!! I don’t want to hear anymore!” This went on and on and on.
My boys have no desire to hear anything regarding the gods or goddesses of ancient greece. None at all. To them it’s ridiculous that those people chose to believe that way. That they put their trust in things that were not true. That they allowed Satan to lead them, instead of Jesus. (their words).
So, what should I do? Just skip reading anymore of the gods/goddesses to them? What would you do?
Blessings,
Carrie
I would skip it, but not without further explanation.
Do they understand that they may have friends or neighbors that allow “Satan to lead them, instead of Jesus” and at times even Christians allow this? Many people in the world today serve false gods and idols.
It sounds more like they need an explanation that not all people know Jesus or have heard of him and even those that have heard may not choose to follow. That God gives us free will to come or not come to him. That while he wants us all to come to him he does not force us. I would not allow them to go on thinking they are “stupid”. I would show them scripture to explain this.
“Why didn’t they know the Truth?” is an invitation to further explanation in my opinion.
I do not mean to sound rude I am just short for time.
Oh no you did come across as rude! They are aware of this and do know it. They do understand that we have free will. They also understand that many people serve false gods and idols today. Thankfully they do not call people “stupid” to their faces! lol
I think for them it’s more that they just do not want to study these gods/goddesses. They are not interested in the stories at all. They understand what the Truth is and they have no desire to learn or hear about anything else. So at their young ages to I go ahead and say okay, we’ll wait until we come around to this period in history again. Or plow through and continue with the stories?
We are going to be starting Module 2 next week with our almost 12 year old son and I’m struggling with how much we should get into the mythology. Like your boys, he knows the truth, but I know firsthand how very strongly error can entice and pull for people of any age, not just for little ones. Yesterday I sort of wanted to feel out our son on the subject so I read him the flap of the book I had gotten from the library about Hercules. When I read that he was the son of Zeus (a god) and a mortal woman I stopped and explained that the Bible does say that that sort of thing happened in Genesis 6 when the fallen angels took women for wives and had children that were considered to be the heroes of old. So there is that connection, but I don’t think it’s necessary to delve into it. I would say that if your boys don’t want to study the false gods and godesses then don’t do it. It’s enough for them to know that they were part of that culture.
Linda
I am sorry I really did not mean that rude at all…not like ohh how could you not teach that or something. I just thought perhaps you had not taught that yet as we have friends who chose to wait until their childre are older and more grounded in their faith or until they ask questions.
I will not reply in the future if I don’t have time to make a complete thought and better re-read and understand the conversation. So sorry!!
You can just skip it this year, of course. That’s what’s so great about homeschooling..you can tailor it for your own kids. But another thought I had was that maybe this is just something they have to learn, regardless if they want to or not. They will not always like school, and everyone has to learn that some times we have to do things we don’t want to do. However…only you can make the decision if this topic is something you want to use to teach that principle.
Hope you can come to a good decison for your family!I think if you skip to the chapter on Lycurgus you will be out of the legends section and more into the historical men section. I don’t have my book right here in front of me, so you might want to flip to that chapter and double check. But it should be close to the right place. It seems to me that once we got into that section, the references to the gods were few and far between — only mentioning them if the Greeks’ beliefs influenced a certain historical action or something like that.
oh my gosh I just realized that I left out the “NOT” in my statement!!! I’m so so so sorry!!! I meant ” you did NOT come across as rude at all!” Please forgive me!! I had eye surgeries within the last month and I wasn’t wearing my reading glasses when typing earlier. My mistake! May we both laugh about this now?? I’m so sorry!!
alice, while I agree that there are going to be some things that our kids will have to learn whether they like it or not, I don’t believe that studying false gods/religions in-depth is something that must be taught. It should be enough to say that these things exist without getting into all of the details. To make an extreme example, I wouldn’t teach witchcraft to our son nor would I have him read stories about it, but I would tell him the nuts and bolts of it and that there are some who practice witchcraft and that it is something that is very displeasing to God. When we plant seeds in our children’s minds – good seeds or bad seeds – those seeds will bring in some sort of harvest at some point.
Linda
I guess in our family, my reaction would be to:
1. Explain that these people lived a long time before Jesus’ time and didn’t know about Him, but it didn’t make them stupid or bad people.
2. Explain that our modern society draws a lot of its knowledge from the ancient Greeks and Romans and that a knowledge of their culture is considered part of cultural literacy today.
3. Explain that they needed to listen respectfully to the material that their parents had chosen for them, and that they also needed to treat others — even those not present or long-dead — respectfully. Would you allow them to make fun of a Hindu or Muslim neighbor? I imagine not.
4. We would finish the rest of the material, but wrap it up quickly and move on.
I personally have a great love for the ancient myths, but I’ve never felt tempted to start worshipping Zeus, nor has anyone else I know! These stories are very widely known, and I have yet to meet or even hear of anyone worshipping ancient Greek gods, so . There are many danges to our children’s faith, but I don’t believe that mythology is one of them.
There is actually a new “goddess movement” that is very popular today with feminists and wiccans. People do still worship gods of ancient myth.
Here are some disturbing links for proof:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianic_Wicca
http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/insp/goddess.html
Yes, Amanda, there is nothing new under the sun and there are indeed people who worship “ancient” gods. There is a resurgence from time to time, but they have always been there. In fact I heard recently that Druids in England have been granted the same status as Christian churches for tax purposes or something like that.
Yes, I’ve heard of the goddess movements, but those tend to be (though are not always) more monotheistic pagan-type beliefs. My own mother actually considers herself a pagan and refers to “The Goddess” frequently. (I just roll my eyes and tell her to please not confuse my kids!) I was talking more about adopting the Greek pantheon wholesale. 🙂
I believe that people who are drawn to those pagan systems may incorporate some of what they’ve heard from other religions (such as Hinduism) and from ancient myths. These are people who clearly already had major faith issues. However, I would be really shocked if your average, well-catechized Christian child started randomly worshipping Diana or Ares. As the original poster said, she’s in fact having the exact opposite happen!
Thank you everyone for your thoughts and suggestions. They are appreciated.
I think I’ll do as Sonya suggested and skip ahead. We were talking with the boys at bedtime last night again and my youngest again starting on about not wanting to study the “ancient greece stuff”. He said “really mom, a two headed dog? A thing that had many heads coming off of it and you would cut one off and another would grow right back? I don’t think so.” Neither one of them want to hear these stories at all. So we’ll just move on for now. Since we are on the history rotation we’ll hit it again in a few years.
I would worry that some young children could get caught up in the fantasy of ancient greece. I wouldn’t want that to happen with my boys, which obviously from their reactions isn’t going to happen!
Thank you again everyone for being so helpful!
Carrie,
I’m not sure if you understood my post. In no way was I saying that everyone must teach indepth on mythology. After reading the original posting, I understood that the issue was that her boys were complaining about having to listen to the readings. They knew it was false, and therefore wanted no part of it. If Carrie had said she was very concerned because her sons LOVED the material and thought they might start believing it as truth, well then, I’d absolutely agree to skip it. I wasn’t pushing for her to keep teaching it to her kids. I just thought that the issue was that her boys were complaining and not accepting the school work as something that they, as the students, must do willingly. I cannot say that teaching one thing or another (as facts in history) would be absolutely wrong for all families. I believe each family can prayerfully make that decision. I have not yet come across it much (although we are reading Our Island Story and it certainly touches on it) so I have not had to make that decision yet, and cannot speak from experience.
Because we all have different backgrounds, and beliefs, the answers to these questions will be individual. If mythology was being taught as truth, that would obviously be wrong. I am a Christian, and there is only one true God, as I am sure most, if not all, of you would agree. 🙂 Again, I am speaking of this as a teaching of historical fact. Everyone can come to their own conclusion as how to deal with this subject.
Communication through writing can be so tricky…we don’t see each other’s facial expression, tone of voice, or body lanugage. If my post come across as harsh, please know I did not intend that! I’m only trying to clarify what I meant in my first post.
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