parentingbeyondbelief. the author writes this interaction
Connor (12) came across the word “dogma” in his social studies homework the other day and asked me what it means.
“Hmm, dogma,” I said. “Well, a dogma is a religious belief that a church says must be accepted without question.”
“WHAT?!?!!!”
If I tagged the html correctly on the word above, it’s an inch high and bright red, which is how it came out of his mouth. It made me jump.
“What…what do you mean, What?”
“If you can’t question it,” he said, incredulously, “how can you find out if it’s really true?!”
I was completely taken by surprise. He was literally standing there in slack-jawed disbelief.
My regular readers might be surprised by my surprise. There’s a line I include in all of my talks and many of my articles — something about my children never having heard of unaskable questions. It also occurs in the intro to the “I’m *so* glad you asked” page of the blog, phrased like so:
My hope in creating this page is to capture just a little of the electric thrill I get from being the father of three bighearted and curious kids who’ve never heard of such a thing as an unaskable question.
But when I’ve said my kids have “never heard of such a thing as an unaskable question,” I’ve always meant it a tad…you know…hyperbolically. I meant that they wouldn’t recognize the validity of such an idea. It never occurred to me that my kids — least of all my twelve-year-old — had literally never heard of such a thing as an unaskable question. I mean, come on.
But when I asked him, he assured me that he had never, ever heard someone say a certain question could not even be asked. Ever. My definition of dogma had shattered the best kind of ignorance for my boy. The unaskable question was quite literally a new (and completely asinine) concept to him.
My work is done here
Comments
Be that as it may... ...or may not -- sounds to me like you are doing a damn GOOD job!
Divergent thinking/pondering/questioning is the greatest thing we can encourage in our kids. Sure, a compliant child may be easier to raise, (and usually to "brag" about), for adults in the short term - it's the divergent "different" kid who is more likely to grow up and make a DIFFERENCE.
You've prbably come across it before - but, I thought I'd post one of my favorite all time poems all the same:
Here's to the kids who are different,
The kids who don't always get A's,
The kids who have ears twice the size of their peers,
And noses that go on for days...
Here's to the kids who are different,
The kids they call crazy or dumb,
The kids who don't fit, with the guts and the grit,
Who dance to a different drum...
Here's to the kids who are different,
The kids with the mischievous streak,
For when they have grown, as history's shown,
It's their difference that makes them unique!
Digby Wolfe