History is fun with little children. Ha! That's funny! Let's face it, kids don't like to learn unless it's fun for them. This presents a challenge when attempting to teach your young child about Craft History. So, I got a great idea from Ashleen O'Gaea's book Raising Witches. Stick to the basics. If you try to instruct your child on the history of Witchcraft, you could end up confusing them, or worse, boring them. So what I decided to try was to just stick with the basics.
Gerald Gardner. I found a picture of him online and printed it out for my
son to see and then I wrote a simple history of the man and his affect on the
modern Wiccan movement. I think it's important for adults to remember that
children don't have the same capacity to understand time that we do. If we
try to instruct them on ancient history, we'll bore them, or more likely just
confuse them. Small children have an easier time handling more recent
events.
I showed Aiden the picture on the left here, and told him who he was. I explained to him that Mr. Gardner was kind of like a Grandpa to Wiccans. That he was the one who made it possible for us to live in peace and harmony with other religions. Now I didn't say it exactly like that, but you get my drift. If we teach our children to view Mr. Gardner as a kind of father of Wicca, I don't think it would adversely affect them at all. Instead it will teach them to appreciate him for the good works that he did for Witches and Wiccans all over the world.
