Tell your kids the truth about what you believe

Our eight-year-old daughter is asking us about God. My husband and I don’t belong to a church or subscribe to a formal religion. What should we say?

Tell her the truth as you see it. Don’t pretend to believe in something you don’t believe in. If you don’t know what you believe, share that with your daughter; make questioning rather than answering the center of your family’s religious life. Study the teachings of the world’s religions to see what speaks to you, and find ways to honor those teachings with family rituals. As she grows older she may well outgrow the answers of her childhood, but you will have taught her how to grow into her questions, and that is far more valuable.