Fear of pushing son further away from God

  • Thread starter Thread starter love4mary
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

love4mary

Guest
I am looking for advice. My 14 year old son absolutley Hates going to Mass. He has quit CDD and the youth ministry all together. He is bored and really does not care in the least to practice any sort of faith.

I realize that this is in a why typical of some teens, but in his case, talking about God or the faith angers him. He even told me he is not really sure if God even exists:eek: This is the same son who helped turn me around from Atheism to Catholicism due to me attending his baptism at his former Southern Baptist church.

So far, he is still attending Mass with us as a family, but it gets harder and harder making him go. I have a 10 year old who was just trained to be an Altar Server who is excited, but when he notices the attitude of big brother, he himself starts to pull away a bit.

Do I continue to force him to attend Mass with us all the while knowing he hates it and watching what it is doing to my 10 year old? We no longer enjoy Mass as a family anymore and it hurts watching him stray away.

St. Monica, pray for me:gopray2:
 
love4mary said:
Do I continue to force him to attend Mass with us all the while knowing he hates it and watching what it is doing to my 10 year old? We no longer enjoy Mass as a family anymore and it hurts watching him stray away.

St. Monica, pray for me:gopray2:
Click to expand...
YES MAKE HIM GO!!! If you are concerned about other DS then maybe take them to seperate masses. It may give you a chance to then talk with older DS after/before mass about what is going on. You are responsible to give your child the faith. Obviously once he leaves your home, he can choose his own way but for now it’s your house, your rules!

I’m sory that you are having ot go thru this! It has to be sooooo frustrating. But keep at, remain strong and KEEP PRAYING! Our family will pray for your family.
 
Thank you for your prayers SilenceISgolden, I will keep taking him to Mass, but separate Masses is an incredible hardship for us at this time due to distance traveled and fuel. Right now the best I can do is place myself and my fiancée between my boys. When I had my conversion (Atheist to Catholic) my son was already a Southern Baptist, even though he was very young at that time, he truly enjoyed attending church there. When I was received in 2004, I wanted my entire family to attend the SAME Church so I pulled my children out of that church and they started attending with me. I have posted my weird converstion story here in these forums which will give you a better idea of our faith history.

My converstion to the Catholic faith was not, as I have come to accept, not my son’s. All I can do is continue to pray for him.

kage_ar,my late husband was a fallen away Catholic who never returned to the Sacraments. Infact, just the mention of anything Catholic would set him off in a fit of anger, that plus me being an Atheist, my son didn’t stand much of a chance finding God. It was only after his daddy’s death that he found God and started attending church (which he really loved and misses even to this day)

My fiancée is a strong practicing Catholic and the boys love him, but because he IS such a strong Catholic, he and my oldest son are butting heads all the time over the faith, on all other issues they see eye-to-eye on.
 
Have you tried family counseling? I get the idea that this could be associated with something other than Church. There’s alot going on in your family and this may be what he feels best about rebelling against.

Prayers and Peace to you.
 
love4mary said:
But in his case, talking about God or the faith angers him. He even told me he is not really sure if God even exists:eek:
Click to expand...
I don’t have kids, but I did teach, so here’s my best shot at practical advice. Even in tough situations where students really didn’t like the way things had to go, they responded really well when they felt heard, even when “being heard” wasn’t going to change anything. Building on that, is there some kind of middle road where you can still execute your parental duties, keep him from falling away completely, but defuse the power struggle? He probably really hates faking it. Unfortunately, you can’t impose faith by parental authority–all you can do is create the climate.

It sounds like you and your fiance might have to just take a step back and realize that he’s got to get there on his own. To the extent you can, you might think of treating him you would a struggling Catholic adult by not expecting him to agree with you. Acknowledge that you can’t make him believe anything, and that sometimes you might just have to agree to disagree–except about attending Mass. If attending Mass is an issue, say:

“Look. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve never had big doubts. Now that I am practicing my faith, I can’t ignore it, and parenting is an important part of living my faith. I would be selling out my obligations if I let you fall away. I can’t do that, no matter what I believed or did before. You do have to go with us to Mass. I understand that you don’t want to. However, I’m not going to make you go against your beliefs while you’re there. In other words, you can at least adhere to the same behavior standards that nonbelieving adults do when attending Mass.”

Maybe even work out a list of what this means, for example:

Dress appropriately, listen politely, give a friendly sign of peace, stand and sit at the right times. Support others in practicing their faith by not criticizing or undermining it, or by making you late. He prays, sings or kneels when he feels like it, and is respectful when he doesn’t feel like it.

Good luck! I’ll keep praying that his heart will change and that this won’t be necessary for very long, if at all.
 
I am probably going to get slammed for this…but…

You are trying to force conversion on your son. He had found faith and was happy there. He had found his place. You could, as a loving Catholic mother, have tried to guide him into the Catholic Church, but the way you have done this is, IMO, wrong.

You chose not to give your children any faith in the beginning. Then your son found his faith, and was happy and fulfilled with it. Then you made, to him, an arbitrary decision to take it away from him and force him into your newfound faith.

I think you need to talk to both of your sons about following their own consciences and doing what they know inside themselves is right. If your older son wishes to continue as a Southern Baptist, I think you should allow that. At least he is in a Christian church! And your younger son should be taught that no matter what older brother thinks, he needs to be strong in what he knows is right for himself. The cost of gas and convenience really are non-issues here. I think you are actually teaching your older son to hate the Catholic Church. He will see it as arbitrary, authoritarian, and intolerant, because that is what you are making it for him.

I think the solution here is to allow your older son to attend the church he wants to go to. He is close enough to adulthood, and again, you made the choice not to give him a faith from the beginning. He found a comfortable place and built his faith on his own. The yearning of his soul for God reached out, and that church fed him. Then you, all of a sudden, to him, swooped in and told him his faith was wrong and that you were now going to dictate to him which one was right.

BTW, your fiance fighting with him and disrespecting his faith is a recipe for huge problems. You could be literally destroying your whole family over this. I urge you to think about delaying marriage until this issue is resolved.

My answer would be completely different if this was a child raised in the Catholic Church from the very beginning. But your son was not, and his situation is completely different. You have to look at this the way he does. You started out his life denying that there was a God, denying that the yearning his soul felt was even there. Then he answered that yearning anyway, in spite of that. He found a place where he felt God’s love. I am sure that it became part of his emerging identity and his separation process from you as he grows up. So now all that is mixed up in this too. The fact that you found your faith at last does not give you the right to take away his. I know how hard it is for a child to find, admit, and express faith with an atheist parent in the house. It may have been a painful process for him to differentiate from you in such a radical way. But he did it because he felt that strongly about it. And now you have told him that not only was he wrong, but he must accept the forcibly proffered faith you would have him practice.

That just is not fair.
 
duskyjewel said:
I am probably going to get slammed for this…but…

You are trying to force conversion on your son. He had found faith and was happy there. He had found his place. You could, as a loving Catholic mother, have tried to guide him into the Catholic Church, but the way you have done this is, IMO, wrong.

You chose not to give your children any faith in the beginning. Then your son found his faith, and was happy and fulfilled with it. Then you made, to him, an arbitrary decision to take it away from him and force him into your newfound faith.

I think you need to talk to both of your sons about following their own consciences and doing what they know inside themselves is right. If your older son wishes to continue as a Southern Baptist, I think you should allow that. At least he is in a Christian church! And your younger son should be taught that no matter what older brother thinks, he needs to be strong in what he knows is right for himself. The cost of gas and convenience really are non-issues here. I think you are actually teaching your older son to hate the Catholic Church. He will see it as arbitrary, authoritarian, and intolerant, because that is what you are making it for him.

I think the solution here is to allow your older son to attend the church he wants to go to. He is close enough to adulthood, and again, you made the choice not to give him a faith from the beginning. He found a comfortable place and built his faith on his own. The yearning of his soul for God reached out, and that church fed him. Then you, all of a sudden, to him, swooped in and told him his faith was wrong and that you were now going to dictate to him which one was right.

BTW, your fiance fighting with him and disrespecting his faith is a recipe for huge problems. You could be literally destroying your whole family over this. I urge you to think about delaying marriage until this issue is resolved.

My answer would be completely different if this was a child raised in the Catholic Church from the very beginning. But your son was not, and his situation is completely different. You have to look at this the way he does. You started out his life denying that there was a God, denying that the yearning his soul felt was even there. Then he answered that yearning anyway, in spite of that. He found a place where he felt God’s love. I am sure that it became part of his emerging identity and his separation process from you as he grows up. So now all that is mixed up in this too. The fact that you found your faith at last does not give you the right to take away his. I know how hard it is for a child to find, admit, and express faith with an atheist parent in the house. It may have been a painful process for him to differentiate from you in such a radical way. But he did it because he felt that strongly about it. And now you have told him that not only was he wrong, but he must accept the forcibly proffered faith you would have him practice.

That just is not fair.
Click to expand...
I have to say that I agree with much of this… I understand you want everyone to be together but letting him attend church there could do a number of things.

First it will show him that you respect him and his decisions, even at this age. You admit that in come ways your conversion game through his initial journey so for now let hin continue that. It’s not like he is not wanting to be a Christian, just a lesser fullness of the Truth at this point.

Secondly, don’t fight about it, discuss it. As he attends the Baptist Church he will encounter some anti-catholics. Discuss what those people say and why it’s not true. At the same time show him HOW CLOSE the Baptist and the Catholics really are in many areas. (Read Born Fundamentalist Born Again Catholic by Curre). Dose he understanding the different parts of the Mass and what is going on? If not I could see where it would be very boring for a teenager. Baptist are usually big on dispensationalism and eschatological stuff (end-times). Show him how parts of the Mass are taken directly from Revelation. That while there we are singing with those Saints and Angels as praise God.

Yes some things are drastically different but I, as I have said before, believe that God has people where he wants them for a reason. It COULD be that attending this church will enable him to eventually recognize our Faith to the fullest. Obviously He is working in your lives is He not? 🙂 Pray about it, and trust in Him. While teaching the older, explain the Catholicsm to your youngest as well because eventually they will discuss it. Teach them both how all encompassing our 2000 year history is etc…

That would be my first choice if I were in your situation, God is working in your life 🙂 stay strong, He will bring you guys thorugh this.

Joe
 
Agree with Dusky, my advice would be to permit your son to go to his Southern Baptist congregation. You cannot force a conversion, you could ask him to attend both. This is very different than a child who was raised in the Faith.

Pray and let him see love from you. Sounds like he may feel you are trying to replace his father and that he may feel your fiancee is more important to you than he is.

Many prayers, and do try to find some family counceling.
 
“I don’t get anything out of it” is what I hear.

Try to impress upon them that it is not entertainment but worship.

Educate, educate, educate.

Dad also has to take it seriously. Teens look at Dads for example. What does a teen think when dad dresses in shorts and sandals for Sunday Mass, but dressses up to go out ot dinner? Teens conclude that dinner is more important to dad. What does he think when dad says go to Mass but skips to watch a football game? What does a teen conclude when dad drives him to a sports game on Sunday morning? You get the picture.
 
buffalo said:
“I don’t get anything out of it” is what I hear.

Try to impress upon them that it is not entertainment but worship.

Educate, educate, educate.

Dad also has to take it seriously. Teens look at Dads for example. What does a teen think when dad dresses in shorts and sandals for Sunday Mass, but dressses up to go out ot dinner? Teens conclude that dinner is more important to dad. What does he think when dad says go to Mass but skips to watch a football game? What does a teen conclude when dad drives him to a sports game on Sunday morning? You get the picture.
Click to expand...
Uh, buffalo, read the whole thread. This kid’s Dad is dead. 😦
 
Sometimes one has to see what else is going on in your son’s life, and I see two that might be influencing this:
  1. You said you had a fiancee. Perhaps your son is having trouble accepting him?
  2. Since you said your son is 14, perhaps this is a puberty issue? I have heard it said that teens often lose their faith once they become sexually active, so I would see if there are chastity issues.
Also, if he just started high school, he may have a new group of friends; check to see if they are “bad companions”, as the old Baltimore Catechism would term it.
 
since you ask for advice, my first suggestion would be really listen to your son, find out if this is normal chain-yanking “if my parents are for it I’m against it”; or part of real rebellion againt parental and family values on all fronts; or just plain boredom “the Mass doesn’t zing me” which plenty of adults experience (I am not being fed is a brand of this); or is it a particular real problem with belief itself.

When he says I don’t believe is he saying I deny the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient Creator God, is he saying, I don’t know much about God because I haven’t been listening or just don’t care, or I have examined everything they have told me and I just don’t get it.

the difficulty with teens is trying to uncover the deeper reasons and issues that present as school problems, church problems or whatever, and very often the real issue is not about what he says it is. It is quite common in a young man that the issue is anger, and the key is finding the source of his anger and helping him deal with it.
 
love4Mary

I’m no shrink but I find it interesting that your son found faith after the death of his “daddy”. You described his natural father as a anger-filled fallen away Catholic and you an Atheist.

Might you son’s acceptance of religion/faith after such an event (his dad’s death), in light of your atheism, be his way of beginning to establish his own identity, an identity that you said was a happy thing for him.

Then you embrace Catholicism, find a new man in your life (and his) who is observant in a different faith than his, and remove his from a religious setting that was a happy one. Do you think that in his mind, you forced him into something that was not his choosing? He’s at that time in his life where he is increasingly making his own decisions, breaking away from the nest, choosing his own values and directions. He is trying to become a man who makes his own decisions and to be forced into something that is not his choosing might be understood by him as your not respecting the maturity that he believes he has come to discover. His rebellion against things Catholic might be his “nice” was of his expressing anger at you for disrespecting his choice.
Again, I’m not a shrink, but I was a teenage boy once.

Someone suggested counseling. That’s a good idea, probably a great one. You might try a priest or religious first, but maybe someone more objective could be better.

And duskyjewel is right, it might be a hardship, but your son is certainly worth a tank of gas and some time. Ask him if he would like to go back to his Baptist church where he was happy. Maybe you could share some of his worship service with him in an effort to understand what he finds appealing about his choice. It might not be fulfilling for you, but it would show him that you respect his choice. And if he is happy there, give him a hug and apologize for making him do something he didn’t want to do. Just say to him that your zeal for everyone to be a family and worship together prevented you from seeing that maybe it wasn’t a good idea for him.

One other thing, sons hate to disappoint their moms. To a loving son, disappointing mom is a big no-no, and making mom cry is worse than anything. (Again, I was a teenage boy once) If he knows how much you love him, and if he loves you too, in time he might decide that going to the Catholic Church with his mom, stepdad, and brother is a ‘cool’ idea. You might find that by “losing”, you end up winning. And it will be his choice.

My two cents.
Shalom
 
love4mary

Oh, and one other thing. I just noticed in one of your replies you said that your fiancee’ is a strong Catholic and he and your son are butting heads.

Uh, might there be something else there? Aftter all, your son chose a faith in which he was happy. You chose to remove him from that, put him in the presence of another man, (again, someone he didn’t chose), and made to attend a form of worship in a faith, again, he didn’t chose.

At fourteen, after choosing his own path, it seems that he is dealing with a lot of things not of his choosing.

If there is one thing a fourteen year old boy doesn’t like, it is being treated like a little kid, or being seen as a moma’s boy.

Parents have to give their children roots and wings. I don’t mean to be critical or harsh, but although you acted out of love, did you inadvertently tear up his roots, and clip his wings?
 
I disagree with simply letting him go back to the SB church. His mother has found the one true church and now wants to share that with her son so that she can raise him to one day reach heaven. She was once an atheist, now she’s not, she’s learned the truth. She has the responsibility to teach it to her son. He is 14, not 17 or 18.

I do agree with PP that the fiance could be part of the problem. Not sure how long he’s been in the picture but DS may feel displaced now that he is in the picture and this is his way of rebelling.

Our parish has a lifeteen mass on Sunday evening where they have a full band w/drums, bass ect. The lectors, music, servers are all part of the lifeteen group that meets afterwards. Maybe if yours or a neighboring parish offers that you could try attending one of those.

Don’t give up!!!
 
OK, I somehow glossed over the whole part about the Southern Baptist involvement - I had thought that since he was attending Mass, he started out as SB, but became Catholic. My bad.

That being said, it is also possible that he was fed anti-Catholic lies at the SB church. I therefore would ask this: you said your fiancee is a strong Catholic; how knowledgeable is he at apologetics? Can he effectively deal with people who say the Catholic faith goes against the bible, and then turn it around to say that the Catholic faith is the one that is most faithful to the bible and show from the bible that the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ Himself established? The reason I ask is this: when dealing with SBs, you need to be able to quote chapter and verse with them to defend your points. If your fiancee can do that, perhaps what you AND YOUR FIANCEE can attend the SB service IN ADDITION TO Sunday Mass and AS OBSERVERS. That way, you can gauge whether there is anti-Catholicism being fed to him and, if your fiancee judges that the situation warrants it and he able to do so effectively, he can “correct the misunderstands from a biblical perspective”. This will establish two things:
  1. Whether or not the source of your son’s hostility is anti-Catholicism fed to him at the SB church
  2. It can start a dialog with your son to hopefully show him from a biblical perspective that the Catholic Church is the place to be, and then he can start seeing why the Mass is so important. Besides, maybe if he sees his future stepdad is biblically literate, it may increase his respect for him.
 
I was basically forced (against my will) by my parents to go to Catholic events as a teenager. They pretty much led to my having a huge “conversion” of sorts and thus deciding to pray the rosary daily and then go to daily mass. While I can’t say this is how it is for everyone, it didn’t hurt me. 😃
 
franciscanyouth.com/

After skimming through the posts this is what stands out.

Father’s death
Baptism
Southern Baptist
Conversion from Atheism
fiance
rejecting Catholicism

Could he be angry at his father, you and your fiance? I would recommend stepping away from your relationship first with the fiance…sad isn’t it. But as a parent, I would never get involved with another woman without my children growing up first. That is the recommended practice.

He’s baptist and suddenly he’s expected to be Catholic? Huh… I understand your enthusiasm, but this is very dangerous if he’s not receiving it positively. You could force him away from God altogether. Parent of no parent that is just plain fact. You should consider getting him to do both for a while at least…no matter what the burden if you want to keep him with God…most important. Then slowly expose him to Catholic teachings over time…not this overnight bashing him over the head with apologetics. He’s a kid and he actuall converted you.

If you fiance really cared about you and the children he’d step back voluntarily without your approval. Now that was probably not fair. Sorry, but as a father looking in I want my wife to approach a post death relationship carefully. There is more than her in the family to consider. If you push too hard it won’t work. You need to gently teach him. He’s been proselytized already most likely with anti-Catholic rhetoric. I went to both Southern Baptist church and Catholic Mass on Sundays. Mom started me in protestant churches in spite of dad getting me baptized Catholic. I’m a revert. All that pushing and shoving will only do more harm. I came home. Give him a chance, by doing it gently.

May I suggest sending him on a very inspiring summer retreat that changed my life.

franciscanyouth.com/

I’ve been to 4 Franciscan Univesity located retreats. Amazing. Very charismatic in my days. But that’s good. They are very orthodox in teaching. We have Franciscan Friars at our Texas parish. The best thing is to take one thing after another over time. It will most likely be a sort of agreement to study each others beliefs now. Parent or not parent. Forcing him could push him away. But that’s your call. Actually, you should talk to the local parish priest where you attend mass. Best recommendation. He may agree with me…but who knows. I don’t know everything. I was overwhelmed at how my 13 year old took to Catholic teaching like a fish to water. But our Church of Christ beliefs overlap much better than Southern Baptist’s [faith only, once saved always saved, bible only]. We were a little differnt but very anti-Catholic. Wierd. Praying for you

Peace of Christ be with you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top