Adultery. How would you make succinct the 'Adultery' commandment to a 3 year old?

Question

Our 3year old son would like to understand this commandment. How would you explain it to him for him to understand?

Answer 1

.....to a three year old? I doubt if your 3 year son wants to understand the commandment. I think that you want him to understand this commandment. Await until he can fully comprehend this Commandment. He is in no immediate risk of breaking it.

Answer 2

First tell him about cheating. Say, if he were in school and his teacher gave him a test, and he looked at someone elses answers and didnt do it himself, etc. elaborate on that, and other examples of cheating, say in a game, whatever, once you think he understands what cheating is, explain that when two people are married, they made a very important promise to God and to each other that they wouldnt have any other boyfriends or girlfriends, the love kind, the kind you kiss, however you think your child would grasp a more than just friends relationship, then tell them that if a person decides to have another boyfriend/girlfriend anyway, that this is also cheating and it is a frobidden thing to do and makes God very unhappy. The same way that lying, or stealing would make God unhappy. Children can understand more than you think, even at three.

Answer 3

You do realise that adultery is more than extra-marital sex right?
Adultery is basically anything you do, which isn't what God wants you to do. He creates sex as a means of procreation, so it is adultery when we use it as a means of entertainment.
He created different races so we would have diversity, so it is adultery when we start racial conflict.
Richard Cheese commits adultery whenever he records an album.

I should be able to think of better examples, but I'm tired. Fortunately for me, God has created sleep so people don't have to be tired all the time, so I can do that without committing any sins.

Answer 4

Have you explained the meaning of sex to your 3 year old? You can't really explain adultery to a child without them understanding the meaning of sex. That may be something you explain as the child is old enough to understand. A child at that age certainly isn't going to commit adultery, so why teach him that command?

Answer 5

Why does a 3 yr old need to know about adultery? By that time you've not even explained the birds and the bees to them yet so how can you expect them to grasp such a concept. That is something they will learn about when they are older.

Answer 6

My initial reaction would be, is my child planning on committing adultery? After that, I'd wonder where my child heard the word adultery, and I'd ask my child where he heard that word.

Then, I'd explain, in the simplest terms possible, what adultery is, and that it's wrong to do, and that God doesn't like it, and what happens to people who do it.

Hope this helps, good luck.

Answer 7

You can explain to him that ancient Christians regarded the wife as a property of the man, and so adultery amounted to stealing, which was considered to be a universally agreed sin.

Answer 8

Don't talk about the underside of the commandment. That's all we think about. Talk about the upside. Not what you can't do, but what you should. Tell him: God commanded Mommies and Daddies to love each other, and be a family who is true to each other.

Answer 9

I would wait to explain adultery. If he really wants to know you could say when there's a mom and dad and someone tries to have a second mom or dad with the one they have.

Answer 10

Special love.... Mommy and Daddy are not supposed to share that special love with anyone else.

Something along those lines. Right now it doesn't have to be detailed or in depth.