--- In atheismuk2@y..., Tim Sellers <tim@t...> wrote:
> My 5 year old daughter is "homeschooled" (partly to
> avoid religious education and things).
> Does anyone know of any non-religious groups for
> children? We sent her to Rainbows once (part of the
> scout group) but the enforced prayer at the end put us
> off (not that any of the kids knew what they were
> talking about of course, they just did what they were
> told, apart from my daughter who looked around with a
> "what the hell is this all about" expression on her
> face).
>
Hi Tim-

I very much appreciate your concerns about the religious content of
state education- I have posted about this previously. My wife and I
have however decided to persevere with it for our 2 daughters (5&8)
as we strongly feel that ostracising them from their peers would be
more damaging to them than being exposed to the odd prayer or hymn at
assembly. We also do not feel that keeping them out of Assemblies is
very healthy as children need to be part of the group to feel
confident and not picked out as different by being excluded from
things. We had a minor conflict with one teacher when the older one
was told off for refusing to lead a prayer but we won that one with
the Head's support plus our daughter's own forthrightness (we were
very proud of her!) She seems to cope with other people's belief
systems very well and has not shown any signs of influence. Our
younger daughter also does the 'what the hell is that all about'
thing.
If you are going to continue with 'homeschooling' then I think it
would be essential to introduce your child to some form of group type
thing. I was in the Scouts and although I remember being irritated by
the prayers what I most objected to was swearing allegiance to the
Queen! Over all I think the experience was beneficial/ character
building . I remember hearing about the Woodcraft Folk from friends
in CND back in the 80s- it sounded like it was based around concepts
of non-violence, responsbility towards the environment, etc., but I
could be wrong.

Nigel