Can I make my teen go to confession?

[mzamora55]

Is it wrong to make your teen go to confession when she says she doesn’t like it? She feels unconfortable telling her sins to a priest and just wants to go straight to God to confess them. I took my teen to a parish reconciliation and she didn’t want to go. I explained to her that she could go to another priest and to my surprise she still went to our parish priest. Afterwards, I asked how she felt, and she said she still did not like confessing her sins.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

You really have two problems here. The first problem is that your daughter apparently does not understand why Catholics confess to a priest and not merely “straight to God.” I recommend assigning her an essay explaining why Catholics confess to a priest. You can offer her a start on resources by clicking here, but I also recommend requiring her to find at least two Catholic resources on confession herself. You can check to make sure she’s done so by requiring footnotes in the essay and requiring her to turn in a bibliography of her sources with her essay. The second problem is the problem of how to give her proper parental guidance on meeting her responsibility to confess without unnecessarily infringing on her freedom of conscience. See the Q&As linked below for help with that.

Recommended reading:

Can I tell my teenager to go to confession?
How should I encourage my child to go to confession?