Representing the Lived Parents’ Experience of How to Answer the Religious Questions of Their Primary School Children

This study aimed to identify how parents can answer to their children’s religious questions.

To achieve this objective, the phenomenological method was used. The statistical population included all parents with primary school children in Bandar Lengeh. The sample size was 35 people, and they were selected by purposive method according to the theoretical saturation limit. Data collection tools were also semi-organized and in-depth interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through the seven-step Colaizzi method.

The findings showed that there were 3 main themes along with some sub-themes. Children’s questions revolved around the questions about Allah, death, the Hereafter, the Prophet, Islam, the creation of the world, acts of worship, and natural disasters. Many parents used some incorrect methods such as inappropriate responses to cognitive development, language development, and comprehension. Furthermore, suppressing of children’s questions, presenting stereotyped answers, not answering their questions, postponing answers were used by parents, but some parents used the correct methods for answering religious questions, such as using allegory, answering, using the child’s tangible knowledge to answer, using games, providing correct answers in accordance with religious sources, and searching for better answers.

According to these findings that parents lack the necessary knowledge about cognitive development and educational methods, the institutions involved in education need to plan to teach the parents about answering children’s questions in accordance with principles such as cognitive scaffolding.