Taking Kids to confession

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KimberlyAnn0218

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I struggle with this…

We have boys ages 13, 11, and 8 ( 9 in a couple weeks). The 8 year old had his first confession just over 1 year ago. Has not gone since. The 11 year old went in June after getting in trouble at school and defacing school property (sounds worse than it was, but still); 13 year old went on a youth retreat and had confession in June.

The boys have been caught in whirl-wind lying sprees lately. Is confession appropriate? I don’t want to force them to do something that is not really the right thing to do. We are practicing Catholics in so much as we have been going to Mass every week for just over a year, kids go to CCD and I routinely go to confession every 4-8 weeks. We are working in it all 🙂

Thoughts?
 
You say you routinely go to confession every 4 - 8 weeks. Well, take your children with you. This should be no different from taking them to Sunday Mass!

It seems that you haven’t been doing this before. Well, start it now. Make it a regular event - on the first Saturday in the month, or the last - whatever suits you. Mark it on your calendar. No one gets out of it. Of course, you can’t force a child into the confessional, but everyone must go to the church together, examine their consciences, etc. If one of your boys refuses to go to confession, he must still go to the church and wait with you all.

Does your husband go to confession? Try to make sure the whole family goes together, no matter how complicated this may be. Seeing their dad go into the confessional will be a great example for them.

Don’t waste time! Go today, if possible. If not, go tomorrow. Remember, it is very unlikely that there will be confessions available on Christmas Eve, because of vigil and midnight Masses.
 
Maybe the first Saturday (or whichever day your confession is on) of every month, that way they know when it is coming up.
 
Joan_M said:
Does your husband go to confession?

Don’t waste time! Go today, if possible. If not, go tomorrow. Remember, it is very unlikely that there will be confessions available on Christmas Eve, because of vigil and midnight Masses.
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No, DH does not go to confession–I bet someday that will change, though.🙂

OK, I can take them tonight to a neighboring Parish, BUT I just went 2 weeks ago…should I go again?
 
I remember taking my children and now I take my grandson.

I like going to confession and have tried to pass that along to my children & now my grandson.

My Mom taught me and I’m teaching mine.
 
KimberlyAnn0218 said:
No, DH does not go to confession–I bet someday that will change, though.🙂

OK, I can take them tonight to a neighboring Parish, BUT I just went 2 weeks ago…should I go again?
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Children learn by example. Your children can learn from you that regular confession is a good thing. You say they have begun lying to you frequently. This is behavior that they need to recognize as dishonest, disrespectful to you and their father, and sinful in God’s eyes. Even if their lying is not particularly serious at their ages, it will only get worse if you don’t acknowledge it as wrong behavior. Ask your husband to please set a strong masculine example for his sons by going to confession as a family. Your boys may resist initially, but they will respect you and their father if you stand firmly together on this. If your husband refuses to go, you need to do it on your own. God bless.
 
I’d suggest explaining to your boys that holiness is a willingness of the heart to walk with Jesus and to talk with God about personal sinful actions and how those difficulties can be overcome for a joyful life. Holiness - like all acquired abilities - takes committment, practice and application.

As a helpful reminder to your children you may want to talk with them about the three requirements for mortal sin and how we each sin both by failing to do good acts and by committing bad actions against God and the people we live with and around.

While it’s true that venial sins don’t necessarily progress into mortal sins, I tend to believe that those of us who don’t get a handle on venial sins are more likely to walk away from Christ’s will with a greater rate and tendency.

The CCC also has a section which explains the Commandments and would certainly help as guidance for young adults entering highschool (drug use, unchastity, pornography, sexual thoughts, sexual acts, abortion, etc.)

Also, the Jesuits have a guide for a daily examination of conscience which may be helpful.

For beginners:

rcdom.org.uk/documents/EXAMEN.pdf

More information is available at:

ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/
 
Take them with you once a month. Ask dh to go also to be an example for your sons (but ask him in private). Go now, before Christmas. Parishes are likely to have extratimes scheduled.

Then start going every month. Find a convenient time and every one goes. You can’t make anyone actually go into the confessional, but they all have to go to church. They all have to look through an examination of conscience --there are tons of good ones on the internet. Find one geared to teens or children.

Make this a regular family occurance. You go to church and spend time preparing, get in line for confession, prayer and saying your penance, maybe light a candle. Then go out to lunch or dinner together. 🙂

If a parish nearby has a First Friday or First Saturday Mass with confession, double bonus!

I would not link this new habit with any specific behaviors of your sons. Explain it as a way you can all gain the graces needed to become better Christians. (which is true!) I have found that regular confession helps everyone begin to behave better and I’m sure you’ll see an improvement also.

Praying for you all!
 
KimberlyAnn0218 said:
…]The 8 year old had his first confession just over 1 year ago. Has not gone since…]
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Consider CCC 1457
According to the Church’s command, “after having attained the age of discretion, each of the faithful is bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins at least once a year.” …]
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Age of discretion and serious sin may not be in the equation right now, but taking them to confession and making it a habit** now**, having them become comfortable with the idea of confessing will prove to be a great gift for them to fight off the eventual doubts the world will cause them in the future, i.e., “Why should I confess my sins to a priest? I can just confess straight to God.”
 
Done 🙂 We’re back 🙂 I said the priest ( all my boys went first) Wow, that was easy 😉 ONly the 8 year old gave me grief and well, he never wants to go anywhere so…

Cool. Very cool.

Thanks everyone!

Kim:thumbsup:
 
Technically you’re supposed to go once a year if you commit a mortal sin, right? Is lying a moral sin? I didn’t think so, but it can’t hurt to go anyway even if it’s venial.
 
Angela77 said:
Technically you’re supposed to go once a year if you commit a mortal sin, right? Is lying a moral sin? I didn’t think so, but it can’t hurt to go anyway even if it’s venial.
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Yes, technically, you are supposed to go once a year if you commit a mortal sin. But, that is the bare minimum! Anyone who only goes once per year is really missing out on the grace of the sacrament.

Is lying a mortal sin? It can be. Just think about it. Some lies are just to get out of trouble, whether it is denying that you were the one who burned the food 😊, or not wanting to start an argument or to offend when asked if that dress, pants, etc., makes your friend look fat 🤷. But you could have lied to deliberately get someone else into trouble. That could be a mortal sin. It all depends on what the lie is and the consequences of that lie. So, it is not enough to acknowledge that you told a lie, but you need to determine why you lied, and what the consequences of the lie were. Remember, also, that the sin of perjury is the sin of lying under oath. So, yes, lying can, indeed, be a mortal sin, but most lying is not.

And, it is always good to go to confession regularly (minimum once per month) and confess venial sins, if we do not have mortal ones to confess. Our aim should be, first to eliminate all mortal sins from our lives, and then to, one by one, get rid of all deliberate venial sins. We can then concentrate on trying to get control of our venial sins of weakness - the ones that “slip out” and that we immediately think “oh, shucks, I did that again”. This is the path to sainthood.
 
Joan_M said:
Yes, technically, you are supposed to go once a year if you commit a mortal sin. But, that is the bare minimum! Anyone who only goes once per year is really missing out on the grace of the sacrament.

Is lying a mortal sin? It can be. Just think about it. Some lies are just to get out of trouble, whether it is denying that you were the one who burned the food 😊, or not wanting to start an argument or to offend when asked if that dress, pants, etc., makes your friend look fat 🤷. But you could have lied to deliberately get someone else into trouble. That could be a mortal sin. It all depends on what the lie is and the consequences of that lie. So, it is not enough to acknowledge that you told a lie, but you need to determine why you lied, and what the consequences of the lie were. Remember, also, that the sin of perjury is the sin of lying under oath. So, yes, lying can, indeed, be a mortal sin, but most lying is not.

And, it is always good to go to confession regularly (minimum once per month) and confess venial sins, if we do not have mortal ones to confess. Our aim should be, first to eliminate all mortal sins from our lives, and then to, one by one, get rid of all deliberate venial sins. We can then concentrate on trying to get control of our venial sins of weakness - the ones that “slip out” and that we immediately think “oh, shucks, I did that again”. This is the path to sainthood.
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And if you’re conscious of mortal sin you cannot receive communion! So why wait a whole year for the Easter season for confession? Go to confession frequently, and more frequently if you know you need it! We all need the strength of the Eucharist to live life the way Christ wants us to, and if we’re only going to confession once a year we are NOT receiving the graces of the Eucharist like we should!
 
KimberlyAnn0218 said:
I struggle with this…

We have boys ages 13, 11, and 8 ( 9 in a couple weeks). The 8 year old had his first confession just over 1 year ago. Has not gone since. The 11 year old went in June after getting in trouble at school and defacing school property (sounds worse than it was, but still); 13 year old went on a youth retreat and had confession in June.

The boys have been caught in whirl-wind lying sprees lately. Is confession appropriate? I don’t want to force them to do something that is not really the right thing to do. We are practicing Catholics in so much as we have been going to Mass every week for just over a year, kids go to CCD and I routinely go to confession every 4-8 weeks. We are working in it all 🙂

Thoughts?
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When I was a kid I was threaten that they would tell Father if I did something bad. It was scary back then.
But every Catholic should go once a month.
 
We try to go to confession with our kids once each month. Infact, it is on my calendar to do so each 1st saturday of the month. Often we take our youngest, who does not go yet so she can see us going. She wants to participate so badly!!!
 
Angela77 said:
Technically you’re supposed to go once a year if you commit a mortal sin, right? Is lying a moral sin? I didn’t think so, but it can’t hurt to go anyway even if it’s venial.
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Yes, that is true, but it is a bare minimum requirement. When I was a kid, my parents made sure all of us went to Confession at least monthly. Now, I don’t quite meet my parents standards as a parent myself, but it is something I need to work on to be sure my own family gets to Confession as needed.

Following is an “Ask an Apologist” Q&A that is great food for thought.

What if you don’t have anything to confess?​

I converted to the Catholic faith last April. I had my confession then and haven’t been to a confession since. I am aware I should go a lot more. My priest said even if I aim to go every six months. The thing is, I don’t really think I do much to confess about. I feel like I’m wasting the priest’s time confessing something that isn’t necessary. What things do you confess about?

Re: What if you don’t have anything to confess?​

Newly-beatified Blessed John Paul II was reported to have gone to confession once a week (some said he went every day). If a saintly pope could find faults to confess, so can you (cf. Prov. 24:16).

I think the problem might be that you might have a lax conscience. This is the polar opposite of scrupulosity, which is the problem of a hyper-sensitive conscience that sees sin where there is no sin. And just as one of the treatments for scrupulosity is going to confession less often, so should those with lax consciences take the polar opposite treatment of going to confession more often. You don’t need to go as often as John Paul II did (and I don’t recommend that you do so), but I’d also recommend going more often than every six months. Perhaps you could start with once a month.

As for rooting out sins for confession, get an examination of conscience (example) and use it. Do a brief examination of conscience before bed each night; do a more rigorous examination at least once a week (perhaps before Sunday Mass). Take the examen with you when you go to confession and read through it while waiting. If you start to find yourself getting scrupulous, you can scale back a bit at that point, but right now you need to get in the habit of accepting that you do sin and that you do need to go to confession on a regular basis.

Source link: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=558657
 
SwizzleStick said:
Yes, that is true, but it is a bare minimum requirement. When I was a kid, my parents made sure all of us went to Confession at least monthly. Now, I don’t quite meet my parents standards as a parent myself, but it is something I need to work on to be sure my own family gets to Confession as needed.

Following is an “Ask an Apologist” Q&A that is great food for thought.

What if you don’t have anything to confess?​

I converted to the Catholic faith last April. I had my confession then and haven’t been to a confession since. I am aware I should go a lot more. My priest said even if I aim to go every six months. The thing is, I don’t really think I do much to confess about. I feel like I’m wasting the priest’s time confessing something that isn’t necessary. What things do you confess about?

Re: What if you don’t have anything to confess?​

Newly-beatified Blessed John Paul II was reported to have gone to confession once a week (some said he went every day). If a saintly pope could find faults to confess, so can you (cf. Prov. 24:16).

I think the problem might be that you might have a lax conscience. This is the polar opposite of scrupulosity, which is the problem of a hyper-sensitive conscience that sees sin where there is no sin. And just as one of the treatments for scrupulosity is going to confession less often, so should those with lax consciences take the polar opposite treatment of going to confession more often. You don’t need to go as often as John Paul II did (and I don’t recommend that you do so), but I’d also recommend going more often than every six months. Perhaps you could start with once a month.

As for rooting out sins for confession, get an examination of conscience (example) and use it. Do a brief examination of conscience before bed each night; do a more rigorous examination at least once a week (perhaps before Sunday Mass). Take the examen with you when you go to confession and read through it while waiting. If you start to find yourself getting scrupulous, you can scale back a bit at that point, but right now you need to get in the habit of accepting that you do sin and that you do need to go to confession on a regular basis.

Source link: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=558657
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Wow- I really appreciate your time and help…everyone 🙂 I did tell the priest last night when he commented on how great it was we were all together that it was our first attempt and this and was much easier than I thought it would be 👍

His advice for the “how often” for the kiddos was something like, Well, they are boys and when I was a boy I probably could have gone often but let the Holy Spirit be your guide…and then talked about how mom’s seem to have great intuition for this sort of thing and he thought I could trust my gut on it.

I have to say that it really went well. I bet the people behind us had no clue this was the first “family” confession night. The boys were pretty good in line, our 8 year old literally strutted out of the make-shift confessional ( there were 4 priests there), put down the kneeler, did the sign of the cross, folded his hands to pray, did the sign of the cross again, put the kneeler up and sat in the pew looking quite angelic:p The older boys followed suit as did I ( minus the angelic part for me I am sure). It hit me that we ARE a Catholic family, and through all of the “Mom, can’t we skip Mass?,” etc. that elements ARE sinking in and now the boys have a memory of the 4 of us, in line, together, at Christmas, in a beautiful church, waiting for forgiveness. It is a “beautiful” that I never felt before.
 
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