Customer Reviews

When Children ask about God: A Guide for Parents Who Don't Always Have All the Answers

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This is a wonderful book. It gives very useful advise to parents who are asked questions about God. The book addresses the easy questions. If you want to be able to answer the hard questions I would suggest you get a copy of An Encounter With A Prophet

I was taken by surprise when my 3 1/2 year old asked me what God looked like. I thought I'd have another year or two before encountering these tough questions. I quickly went to the library and got all the books on explaining God to young children. Most books assumed I wanted traditional explainations from mainline religions. This book actually got me thinking about my own concept of God and where I got it from. I'd recommend this even to people without children. (Oh, it did help me in a continuing dialoge about God with my 3 1/2 year old

This is a supurb discussion of the questions that confront not only chidren, but adults bearing the burden of orthodox creeds. Don't be fooled by the title-this discussion is helpful to all of us who are young, either in chronological age or theological perspective

I purchased this to help me answer my grandson's questions on a level that I thought he could understand. I discovered I had to answer some of my own questions first.
In chapter two, Kushner quotes Mordecai Kaplan who wrote, " To answer any difficult question raised by a child, two requirements are necessary: (1) the ability to answer the question to the satisfaction of an adult, and (2) the ability to adapt that answer to a child's mind in accordance with his age. The main difficulty in answering this question ... is that we have not yet arrived at an answer that is fully satisfying to the modern adult mind". This was the problem I had. I needed some answers too. This book has helped me in my search for answers.
This is a book for adults, not children. It is not a book you just hand to your child or teenager to read, but rather a book to help you codify your own thoughts and beliefs so you can discuss them with your child, and these discussions will be more valuable than any conclusions at which you may arrive as to the true nature of God.

This is a wonderful book. I used it to give a presentation at my church on Answering Tough Questions that Children Ask About God.. and Harold Kushner writes such accessible material. It was also useful to me in speaking to my own children about these difficult issues.