Help and Prayers Please: Child freaks out at Confession

[GilChrist77]

I’m seventeen and from the time I was eleven to the time I was fourteen I couldn’t make myself go to confession. It was the same exact thing for me. I still have no idea why this happened. There was two things that made me finally able to go. One was that my parents were praying very hard for me. The other thing was that when I finally did go it was on retreat so it wasn’t just me going to the church for confession, it was okay now it’s time for confession. I would suggest that you pray for her a lot and also let her wait until her class is going, I understand that you don’t want her to be humiliated but maybe that’s what she needs. Maybe she needs to see her peers going and then coming out feeling better. I will keep her and you in my prayers.

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria!

 

[spellinggirl]

Poor thing! That sounds exactly like me when I had my first Confession, and all subsequent Confessions after it. I can’t even explain why it terrifies me so, but I used to stall, cry, beg my dad not to make me do it, everything. Then, during Confession, I sobbed too hard to make myself coherent! It was stressful.

I think it could be the awkwardness of telling a complete stranger your sins. At eight years old, everyone starts wanting a little privacy, and opening up is difficult. Cat said it perfectly. Your daughter may have heard something that scared her, or perhaps she had an unkind priest. Who knows?

PLEASE do not force her to go to Confession. My dad made that mistake and it did more harm than help. I know it’s wrong, I know I should go to Confession, but that fear has been instilled in me, and it kills me every day. I agree with having her wait a few months. She clearly isn’t ready.

Here’s my advice. Maybe you could read it to her:

Hi there! Your mom tells me that you’re scared to go to Confession. Here’s a secret: I am too, and I’m twice your age! I’m not sure what’s scaring you… heck, I don’t even know why it scares me! But here’s what you can do if you feel nervous. Tell the priest that you’re a little frightened, and hopefully he’ll help you out. Make a little list of sins to confess. Remember, you don’t have to confess all your sins… nobody could do that! But try your very best to be sorry for your sins and get through Confession. Once it’s over, you can do Penance, and you’ll feel much better! Then you can get on with school, sports, friends… your whole life! You can do it!

I’m rooting for you! I really hope this helped.

Your friend,
Laura

 

[MarjannaS]

It seems there is an awful lot of rhetoric that misses the whole crux!

Have we missed the most important point here? Mom, please don’t make a big issue of her refusal to go into the confessional. ON ANOTHER TIME, when there is no pressure on either of you, open a conversation. Your child needs more FORMATION about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She may not understand that Reconciliation, LIKE THE OTHER Sacraments too, are, (as the old Baltimore Catechism told us) outward signs, instituted by Christ, to give us grace.

WHEN WE LOVE GOD, we want to make Him happy, as He wants to make us happy – not in worldly terms, but in our souls. He wants us to participate in the Sacraments as often as we are able to do so, because it ‘demonstrates’ to Him, that we wish to get closer to Him. Children who have misbehaved, and recognize how much their misbehavior has hurt their parent, will often climb into their lap to apologize and promise to try harder to be a good child. Doesn’t reconciliation give us the chance to do this same thing with our God? It seems so basic. That’s all He wants from us!

Getting bogged down in whether or not children can sin is foolish! Of course they can. Wise parents know that children can be duplicitous, hateful, malicious, and a whole catalog of other little awfuls. Left to their own devises, children are not automatically good. Left to grow without formation, they simply grow older, and savage. What we need to know and remember, is that we love them anyway, even when they are less than perfect.

Mom, be the Good Catholic Mother you are. Do not let yourself be swayed into thinking that you can ignore the formation of your children, whether 8 or teen-aged. They DO learn from your good example. They learn from your words too. I will pray for you and your daughter and your family. Keep faith, and trust in the assistance of the Blessed Mother. She will help you. And, just fyi, when that opportunity presents, BEFORE you start the conversation, ask the Holy Spirit to reach her soul with His Words for it. He will.

Love,

 

[KEVIN_WILCOX]

Carmelitenovice

I hope what I am about to say you don’t find shameful; that is not my intention.

As a child I was always terrified of going to the dentist. Terrified. I had to be bribed, later on sedated (given traquillizers to lower anxiety).

I don’t know how it happened, I kept going until one day it just happened. I found I enjoyed going. I even held one of the tools during operation. I hated, and still hate. No, I refuse to have injections.

I suppose I just decided to “Get over it”

Going to Confession is a very anxious time for you with your child. Be encouraged, continue to set a good example, but don’t expect anything to change. You have probably planted seed which will grow. In time your child will blossom.

 

[DavidMark]

Hi:
I need some help and prayers please.
My daughter age 8 has made her First Confession and First Holy Communion, apparently without difficulty. However, since then I have gone with her to Confession twice and, although all seems fine until then, the instant the door opens and it’s her turn, she starts whimpering, digging her heels etc.

Please accept this offering from the Ocean of Baha’u’llah’s Writings:

When the sinner findeth himself wholly detached and freed from all save God, he should beg forgiveness and pardon from Him. Confession of sins and transgressions before human beings is not permissible, as it hath never been nor will ever be conducive to divine forgiveness. Moreover such confession before people results in one’s humiliation and abasement, and God – exalted be His glory – wisheth not the humiliation of His servants. Verily He is the Compassionate, the Merciful. The sinner should, between himself and God, implore mercy from the Ocean of mercy, beg forgiveness from the Heaven of generosity and say:

*O God, my God! I implore Thee by the blood of Thy true lovers who were so enraptured by Thy sweet utterance that they hastened unto the Pinnacle of Glory, the site of the most glorious martyrdom, and I beseech Thee by the mysteries which lie enshrined in Thy knowledge and by the pearls that are treasured in the ocean of Thy bounty to grant forgiveness unto me and unto my father and my mother. Of those who show forth mercy, Thou art in truth the Most Merciful. No God is there but Thee, the Ever-Forgiving, the All-Bountiful.

O Lord! Thou seest this essence of sinfulness turning unto the ocean of Thy favour and this feeble one seeking the kingdom of Thy divine power and this poor creature inclining himself towards the day-star of Thy wealth. By Thy mercy and Thy grace, disappoint him not, O Lord, nor debar him from the revelations of Thy bounty in Thy days, nor cast him away from Thy door which Thou hast opened wide to all that dwell in Thy heaven and on Thine earth.

Alas! Alas! My sins have prevented me from approaching the Court of Thy holiness and my trespasses have caused me to stray far from the Tabernacle of Thy majesty. I have committed that which Thou didst forbid me to do and have put away what Thou didst order me to observe.

I pray Thee by Him Who is the sovereign Lord of Names to write down for me with the Pen of Thy bounty that which will enable me to draw nigh unto Thee and will purge me from my trespasses which have intervened between me and Thy forgiveness and Thy pardon.
Verily, Thou art the Potent, the Bountiful. No God is there but Thee, the Mighty, the Gracious. * (Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 24)

Obviously, an 8 year old will not even read this prayer to the end. Not until a persons wisdom and need mature will they turn from natural prodigality to their own Maker, Creator of us all.