What Do Toddlers Learn in Church?

I asked my 3-year-old niece, Ember, what she learned in church. She said she learned about Jesus. “Who is Jesus,” I asked. “Where does he live?” She looked at me like I was an idiot, and then said, “Jesus is in our heart. Jesus helps us not be scared and not be afraid.” It was the kind of simple, childlike answer I expected, but when I relayed it to Amittia Parker, a researcher and children’s mental health expert at Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development, she said that it points to something important: the experience of theology. Just because young children are not cognitively able to absorb abstract concepts, or even many of the details of a Bible story, they can still be shaped by a church environment, she said. More than a specific curriculum, Parker explained that young children learn about God through the way people at church talk to each other, treat each other, and the various rituals and social behaviors they observe.