If there were a great book to teach my preschooler about comparative linguistics, I would totally read it to her. Just for the record.
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Surely the only way to introduce a child to evolution is to warn that it is not how God says He did things. God Created. That is very hard to do, even for Him. But that is what He did and Adam came about instantly not over eons of time. The Bible clearly warns us not to go along with evolution as it is an error to do so. Therefore in answer to the question āWhen should you introduce your child to evolutionā the answer must be AFTER YOU HAVE INTRODUCED YOUR CHILD TO GOD.
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For crying out loud, why donāt we just draw devil horns on poor grandmother fish? Children love animal stories and can learn rudimentary information about most subjects. At one museum family event I went to there was a very young boy who asked Neil Shubin, the guest speaker, if he used chemistry in his research.
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14 posts were split to a new topic: Does Romans show that Christians cannot accept evolution?
Are you suggesting that āGrandma Fishā should come with warning labels?
5 posts were split to a new topic: Does the Bible teach a flat Earth?
Fwiw, I would imagine most people responding on such boards have read Romans in its entirety several times, including the atheists 
(which I am not).
Well, all of you have managed to completely disintegrate into the typical āEddie wishes BioLogos used different wordsā and āPatrick thinks Christianity is uselessā and āGeorge wants us to be EGGsā thread that I think we have already had at least seventeen times. Could we reign it in please and return to the actual topic of this post?
Actually, I agree with Eddie here. A three year old doesnāt usually know squat about reproduction, ancestry, or genetics, and probably has a limited and still developing concept of ārelative.ā This Grandmother Fish book is just going to be a book about animals with the kind of repetitive refrains that preschoolers enjoy. The idea that it is really paving the way for important future scientific knowledge seems kind of silly to me. I donāt buy it.
As far as I can tell, the main reason someone would own this book would be so the parents could show off how progressive they are to their progressive friends, or make a statement to their Christian relatives who would be annoyed by the book. If thatās what floats your boat, fine. But, I can think of a bunch of other learning activities that would be equally or more developmentally appropriate than reading this book.
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It depends on the child.
But itās very sad that people would see this book as inappropriate! Oh well, I remember seeing the film āJesus Camp,ā a genuine but kooky religious camp where indulging in Harry Potter books or films was strictly forbidden.
But unless the kid is some kind of genius, preschoolers are in the preoperational stage. There are lots of things you can do to help them be good at science other than trying to pave the way for Darwin by introducing complex abstract concepts. You could have them learn how to sort things, you could practice noticing similarities differences, you could practice making observations with all five senses, you can count the legs on bugs and spiders and note that birds live in nests and frogs live in ponds, and worms live in dirt, you could watch tadpoles grown into frogs, and goldfish breathe underwater and leaves change color in fall. These are the kinds of activities that are meaningful to kids that age. I just donāt think the book is worth the hype or the controversy.
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I appreciate the pushback here.
It does pave the way, in my family, for important future scientific knowledge. Because when Iām reading it to my two-year-old, my eight-year-old wants to listen, too, and I add a little more information when I read it for the both of them. And this leads to a discussion about the big mega-unit on Genesis 1 that they just had in her school.
I have an extremely small circle of people who are safe enough to know that I lean progressive in certain areas of my life. Most of my social circle would be horrified to learn of this, which is why I use only initials here (and already in this thread have divulged too much identifiable personal information). I only own the PDF, so itās not on my coffee table. And I donāt have (that kind of) conservative Christian relatives. So Iām not doing it for show, unless you make the argument that Iām āsticking it to the manā inside my head every time I read it to them, and there might be a sliver of truth in that.
For the most part I honestly just love modification by descent and common ancestry and I think itās a really neat concept to teach my kids. In fact, with my older kids, I told it to them as story time before bed, long before I had this book, completely with lungfish and amphibians. I donāt know how much they understood, but I donāt particularly care. I love that God is so awesome that He creates in this way, and Iām excited to share that truth with my kids. I think itās super that now I can do it much better than I did before.
Other people may not believe that, or may disagree, and thatās okay.
All the activities you mention are super, of course, and I need to be doing more of them with all my kids. Just a quick comment, though:
Itās a manufactured controversy. Otherwise thereās no real reason to shy away from these concepts from an early age.
True. Itās not that kids need to be sheltered from the idea that evolutionary theory exists.
But it seems this case is similar to when the NPR crowd (ha, ha, thatās where I get news, so I guess Iām part of it) acts like to be a good parent, you obviously need to be reading your preschooler books about gay princes and transgendered children and same sex penguin partners adopting a baby or you will inevitably raise children who are intolerant homophobes. I just want to roll my eyes.
But I guess I can see that if evolutionary biology was your passion or livelihood you might want to share that passion with kids even most of it went over their heads. Iām sure Iāve read civil rights type books to my kids before they were at all old enough to really grasp what was going on.
2 posts were split to a new topic: Is the story of Noah inappropriate for young children (violent genocide)?
I often say that if I had a do-over, Iād have gone into biology instead of what I did study. Itās not my livelihood but I do get pretty excited about it. So yes, I enjoy sharing that with my kids. Honestly, I hadnāt read too much to my two-year-old (sad, but true) before this book came along, so for that reason alone itās worth the price of admission.
I hear you about LGBT+ issues. I had actually made the same parallel myself but shied away from including it in my previous response lest I veer too far off topic. But yes, Iām not as in sync with modern American culture on such issues (though Iām not as far right as I used to be), so I tend to have the same attitude that you voiced earlier towards evolution, on those issues. I.e., āWhy does a kid that young need to hear about gay princes?ā Yet I have Christian and non-Christian friends and acquaintances that are significantly more progressive than I am, who will say that that is a manufactured controversy and that thereās no reason I shouldnāt be teaching my kids about the full range of gender / orientation possibilities so that they donāt feel locked into restrictive traditional binaries. So ā¦ I get it.
Yeah. I donāt think there is anything wrong with little kids learning about evolution, or that gay adoptive parents are part of our community for that matter. Itās just the whole āwe need to fight the prevailing metanarrative with our own metanarrativeā thing that I donāt get. (Well, I mean I get it, I just donāt find it personally compelling in these cases.) I donāt feel the need to proactively combat the creationist metanarrative from a young age.
@Stump, a@JohnZ
My doctor when I was a child was Dr. Clarence Ward. My parents asked him when should they tell me about reproduction? He said let your child ask you. He is highly intelligent and will ask when he is ready to know. Therefore, let the children ask the questions when they are ready to know and explain it to them then. They will let you now when they are ready. The theistic evolution of the human brain makes that possible. Also, Merry Christmas friend John!
@Eddie @Mervin_Bitikofer @Patrick
Reply as a related topic if you want to continue your discussion of whether or not Christians are as Christian as atheists. Itās not the topic of this thread.
You should NEVER teach your child evolution it claims it to be science but it is NOT! Creation ONLY is what we taught our son!