Raising Witches: Teaching the Wiccan Faith to Children

And i enjoyed it! I am not wiccan, but this book is written in a way that it can be adapted to any faith. I especially liked the chapters that deal with how to teach earth based spirituality age by age. The other reviews mentioned nudity and secrets being portarayed in this book in an unhealthy way. I disaggree completely. I feel the authors here were trying to be inclusive of all faiths and make mention of how to incorporate children if you should choose to practice in the buff. I think the main focus of the book was to emphasize the need that children feel good about themselves and comfortable in their bodies. It provides good information and insight and I gained some good ideas as well as learning a few things about wiccan history.

I am impressed and wanted to give this book five stars, but I had one problem. This is an instructional complete with lesson plans. I give it four stars because it provides a very, very, very good foundation for teaching the Wiccan religion to the little ones. It lost that last star of excellence because I object to the format the lessons are given to children. Any parent who interacts with his or her children should purchase this book, but to teach ones children in a structured system such as presented here just is not my thing. In short, GREAT BOOK... just not my own personal style of Raising Witches.So give it a read because it might be your style and even if it is not, it lends itself greatly towards personal adaptation.

I was more satisfied with "Raising Witches" than with Ashleen O'Gaea's other parenting book, "The Family Wicca Book". It is well written and more specific. "Raising Witches" contains guidlines to help parents understand the development of their children. We purchased this book for help with answering questions our young children had about Wicca and our spirituality. We had our answers already, but they werent compatible with what our 4 year old or 7 year old could understand. Being raised in the Christian church, I knew how to relate that faith to a child from all those years of sunday school, but I had no idea how to relate my Wiccan faith to them, as I only knew it in an adult voice. This book gave us guidelines and examples that we are finding very useful for raising our children in our faith. Another thing I found rather neat about this book is that you could use it for building cirriculum for circle/coven classes for children or even homeschooling if you wanted to include religion as a subject. I recommend this book to first generation Pagans, Pagan parents, and mixed religion households as well as and coven group who participate in family activities.

I was hesitant to buy this book, as I own and am not fully satisfied with her first book on pagan parenting. This one seems to be written with more skill. It is easy to read and understand without being condescending, yet it presents a good deal of information as well. O'Gaea goes into each stage of development and discusses what lessons in lore and magick are appropriate to teach at each level. The science behind her prescriptive view to teaching Wicca is soundly grounded in the modern theory of child development. There are ideas given here for as young as infancy and as old as adolescence. She also has a chapter relating to formal theology instruction for children of Wiccan Parents- Sunday or MoonDay school. This chapter contains a skeleton for an early childhood as well as an older childhood curriculum which could be adapted and used by pagan homeschoolers or other groups seeking to create a circle of learners. My only disappointment was that I waited so long to order it.

This book was informative, yet light and easy to read. It is a great basic parenting book, even without the Pagan references. I will look to this book over and over again, I am sure, as I raise my two girls in the ways of Wicca. Thank you Ashleen, and Blessed be.