When is the time right?

The question of when to give our children any spiritual guidance is another of those hot topics. How do you know when the time is right?

The answer, I suspect, is as tangled as any other regarding parenting. Each person has their own views on this, but it is never black and white. How much is a child ever ready for?

Each child, each parent and each circumstance is always going to be different. How I do things may not be how Belinda the good witch from down the street does things, nor how Grot-bag from round the corner does it. I do however think there are probably signs of when a child is ready for some spiritual guidance though, much as there are signs that a child is ready for potty-training!

All I can offer is my own experience and I hope you'll all add your voices of your own experiences to make a sort of patchwork quilt effect of all the extremes of 'normal'.

The first indication that I got from my son that he was ready for some sort of spiritual sign post was when, in his natural childish curiosity, he became interested in my altar. As my altar changes he points things out to me and asks me about them. Without asking him to believe anything himself he is very keen to hear about the things that his mummy believes in. He is keen to understand why I am putting certain things on my altar. I hadn't thought that I would try to guide him at all, nor open him up to my spiritual path until he opened my eyes and made me think that actually he might want some spiritual grounding on which to build his own foundations. I hadn't considered before this interest in my altar started, that by avoiding the subject of spirituality (because I hadn't wanted to push my own set of beliefs upon him) that I would possibly be leaving a great gaping hole in his understanding of the world that he wouldn't know how to fill by himself. My son challenged all my ideas of what was right and what was wrong as a spiritual parent and left me far less sure of myself than I had been!

In these last few weeks my youngest (just turned 2) has reminded me of how very much a child learns purely from observation. Whether I choose to guide my children's spiritual development or not, there are moments during which my spiritual path floats so naturally into my mundane life that I hardly notice what I am doing. My little son however does notice everything I am doing!
After watching me drop a feather into the river that runs through our town, as a gift to its spirit my little son loves nothing more than to give the river gifts! Whenever we pass by now he wants to give the river a pretty leaf that he has picked up, or a shiny conker. Without me explaining what I was doing my little son just seems to 'get' it. He is particularly in love with the river, getting excited if we pass by. He even asked to give his bike to the river... Nice thought but I had to try to tell him that the river probably wouldn't want his bike. I don't know how to explain to a 2 year old the difference between a gift and littering!
This little habit is something that he seems to just resonate with. He doesn't need words or concepts to explain it, I truly do think he just feels a sense of connection. His love of the river is his own, but just seeing me that one time giving a feather to the river, was keenly observed and gave him a whole new way to express his love for the river. This is something that I feel is at the heart of paganism. And yet it is something that he has done quite naturally and it leaves me in awe of the human spirit and that urge we all have to make connections.

The point I am trying to make here in a rather long and rambling way, is that I didn't decide when my little boy was ready to understand these things - rather he guided me as to when he was ready and how much he was ready to understand. My children never fail to surprise me, and in this, as with many other things, I will let them be my guide.