How to Answer Your Kids’ Existential Questions | Geekdad from Wired.com

[jason]

How to Answer Your Kids’ Existential Questions | Geekdad from Wired.com

“Mommy, Daddy…Are we real?” my daughter asked from the back seat of the car, as we made our way home.  She’s nearly six, and she asked this as if it were a perfectly ordinary question.
“Um…” My wife and I glanced at each other and shrugged. “What do you mean, sweetheart?” I asked.
She clarified: “Could we just be characters in a story?”  My son, seven-and-a-half, piped up and reiterated the original question: “Yeah, are we real?”
And so began a deep philosophical discussion, the first I’ve ever been in with participants under the age of eight.  My wife and I patiently explained that yes, as far as we could tell, we were real, but that it was possible that the world as we perceived it was all an illusion.  Since there was no way of knowing whether the world was real, we said, we might as well accept that it is, because we really don’t have a lot of choice.  As for whether we could be characters in a story, we said, that’s impossible because we have free will.  It took some explaining that yes, kids have free will too, even though their parents make a lot of choices for them.  But they really seemed to get it, to internalize the reasoning we discussed to the point where I could tell they were processing it over and over in their minds.

Ok. I’ll try this with my class this fall. How would you answer the question if posed to you by a 6 yr. old, in an age appropriate manner.

Comments

[ashenseraph.livejournal.com]

Alas, we only assume we have free will. I try to ensure that my characters behave "in character," and that includes mulling over difficult choices before making them. Presumably, they'd assume they have free will, were one to ask them ... unless I did a poor writing job. :-)