Was we unreasonable to withdraw our child from a school church service?

[Dad0f1]

Hello everyone new member here just looking for some advice/reassurance that I/we've made the right decision regarding withdrawing our child from a church service at school.

So our DS who is our first child started Reception this September at our local CofE primary school and although neither myself or my OH are church goers we felt that this was the best school for him as the other practical nearby choices were a RC school or a two form entry state school which our DS would not have coped with.

And to be fair our DS has settled in nicely making lots of new friends and seems to be enjoying it however, the other week we was informed that the children would be attending a 'School Communion Service' in the nearby church that the school is attached to and not having a clue what this was I enquired with the Head of RE what the service entailed, how involved DS would be in the service and what was expected of him during the service.

As I suspected the service was in their words 'a simplified child friendly version of the Holy Communion Service' which would include bread and wine for those who were confirmed (as apparantly the children are offered the option to be confirmed if they wish in Y6) but the Reverend overseeing ther service likes to get the children involved so will offer all the children confirmed or not a wafer if they want one.
Also 'prompts' would flash up on a big screen at various points during the service to let the children know when to say 'Amen' etc.

Now to the reason why I/we chose to withdraw my DS from this service. Although the Head of RE made a point to explain that worship is voluntary at the school and that the children are free to take part in worship as much or as little as they wish. I very much doubt that children aged 4 or 5 can grasp the concept of this especially as they are at an age where they want to please the adults around them.
This is also made difficult for them not to be involved if they wish when they have 'prompts' flashing up on a big screen to help/nudge them into reciting a paticular phrase and when everyone around them is then repeating it parrot fashion.

Whilst we do want our DS to learn about Christianity we also want him to make up his own mind about whether to accept it or reject it in later life.
So AI/WBU to withdraw him from school church services that are being conducted like this or should I let him experience them bearing in mind his young age?

YABVVVU. What did you expect when you sent him to a Church school?

Of course you did not have to send your child to a church school, that is just rubbish.

My parents sent me to a catholic school, but then didn’t allow us to participate in some of the catholic services, like first holy communion. They made an absolute show of us, it was humiliating to be singled out like that every time there was a school mass.

Don’t make your child the odd one out. I am 53 and have never forgiven my parents for constantly making us the odd ones out and frankly the laughing stock at school, through this and other things, it fuelled bullying too. I am absolutely fuming reading your thread, because you are dressing this up as you doing the right thing “letting him make his mind up” but in fact you are just making his life harder.

You have every right to withdraw your child from a church service, after all your reasons for doing so are more than justified and you are right, in my opinion to let your child make his own decision about his beliefs when he is ready.

OP - I assume you're giving Christmas a miss.

You sent your child to a Church of England school, because he "wouldn't cope" at a "two form entry state school". Not sure I understand the issue there. Is a two-form school too small? Too big? Or just too "state"? Are the local church schools bigger or smaller? Or less publicly funded?

Also, they told you they were taking the children to a "Communion Service", and you "suspected" from this that it might be a communion service? No shit, Sherlock! 🤔

Also, all religious services provide the words of the prayers so that people can join in. That's pretty fundamental. Providing them as on-screen prompts at the appropriate moment just means younger children can follow the service without needing to read along in a booklet. Very few reception-age children will be able to read along with an unfamiliar prayer anyway, but even if your child could do this, and spoke the words of a prayer aloud, this won't make him believe in God. For someone who isn't religious, you seem to believe that prayers are really very powerful!

Not even remotely unreasonable.

Learning about religion is one thing, but the reason they want all children, particularly when they are that young and impressionable, to attend a service like this is pure indoctrination.

They want to give them a happy, included feeling, before they actually understand the full meaning. It's been going on for centuries, and is the only reason why the church is still going.

For all those say "you should have chosen a secular school" - are you really so stupid as to realise that there is no such thing in England?

Is that necessary? I'm an atheist and think it's really disrespectful.

Why exclude your child and make him different to the others? Didn't you research what attendance at a CoE school was going to involve? They're all 4 years old ffs - why is your child any different?

I'm not particularly religious but it was important to us to bring our children up within the framework of the church, as we felt it was a good moral framework at least. Then they had the tools/knowledge to decide for themselves when they grew up. None of them attend church now - it's not religion per se that's the issue, but they dislike organised religion and the cliques etc within the church.

You are being utterly unreasonable here.

oh give over 😂

one for hyperbole aren’t you?

Agree.

Presumably OP is paying for her child to attend, and can pick and choose from among activities on offer.

No way would I allow a child to participate in a church service.

Prove me wrong...

Oh, you can't...

Up to you but seems odd

he doesn’t have to go up during communion- if he did it’s be a hand on the head and a ‘May the lord bless you and keep you’ not bread and wine

i was raised church going, every Sunday - sang in choir, helped at Sunday school and I turned into an atheist by 15!

my totally non church going eldest has become a Christian in her 20s

going to the odd service won’t contaminate him with God stuff

This seems like a ‘you’ problem. The child is not getting tattooed Christian, just sitting at a service. Why send them to a religious school if you are so adverse to it. Indeed, why are you so adverse to it? You child can make up their mind at a later time.

This reminds me of my really narcissistic sister who (in Ireland), sent her child to a catholic school (as we both were). She then proceeded to not allow her to be involved in any RE classes so niece had to sit at the back and read a book.

That is the biggest load of nonsense.

Your child wouldn't have much about them if they became indoctrinated through a handful of religion-based events.

C of E doesn't have wafers and doesn't teach transubstantiation. That is Roman Catholicism.

Exactly. It's the brainwashing.

Few people not exposed to religion in childhood will pick it up in adulthood. The church promoters know that.

I think you were unreasonable to send your child to this school when you object strongly to your child participating in a church service. If you feel like this about a church school taking children to church you should have sent your child to the two-form entry school. You decided to choose the church school so you now can't object to your child participating in worship.
It won't make any difference to him anyway, he won't suddenly become religious if he's not interested. You claim you want him to make his own mind up. In which case he should go along with his friends and over the years in the school he'll either decide that it is something he is interested in or not.

However, I think this is not on really:
As I suspected the service was in their words 'a simplified child friendly version of the Holy Communion Service' which would include bread and wine for those who were confirmed (as apparantly the children are offered the option to be confirmed if they wish in Y6) but the Reverend overseeing ther service likes to get the children involved so will offer all the children confirmed or not a wafer if they want one

I don't think the reverend should be giving out communion wafers to children who are not confirmed. That's the whole point of confirmation. You get confirmed and can then take part in Communion and it's meant to be for people who have chosen to make a commitment to God through confirmation.

I think you should send the child to the church service but say that you do not want him to receive Communion. And that's fair enough.

Considering you have made a number of highly derogatory comments about the Christian faith, I'd say you are not sorry at all.

didn't the OP mention wafers? I think so?

You are not being unreasonable.

State funded religious schools should simply not exist - they are entirely wrong in principle and are banned in many more advanced European countries. If churches want to set up their own schools, that is fine, but they should be funded privately.

To those saying that if you send your child to a church school, you have to suck it up with the religion I say this - some people have no choice about it - that it is their catchment school, or the one nearest/most convenient. This situation is entirely wrong - that non-religious people should finish up with no choice but to send their child to a church school.

As to the confirmation service, I think you were entirely correct not to let him take part - this is not a jolly harvest service, being thankful for earth's bounty - this is the full death cult aspect of Christianity - the eating of body and drinking of blood. Children do not get symbolism - they are faced with something utterly bizarre.

If the children are presented with all this on the basis "This is what Christians believe" then that is fine, but this is absolutely not what happens in church schools - it is presented as fact.

I must admit to being curious about how you have, up until now, navigated Christmas and Easter?

Do you refuse to take DS to the shops after mid-August, only allow him to watch select DVD’s or streaming services, not allow him to go shopping with you beyond January?

I should think that your life is quite difficult at those times of the year when carols are being played in shopping centres and in shops and Easter bunnies peek out from every supermarket aisle.

How do you explain this to him? After all, isn't Christmas generally recognised as being a celebration of the birth of Jesus? And isn’t the wonder of Easter generally considered to be wondrous because of the Resurrection?

My children attended CofE primary schools and we aren’t Christian. They also went to Church services but understood that they couldn’t participate in such activities as Holy Communion. We (sort of) celebrated Christmas, mostly by having family for luncheon, and a few presents, and Easter (more food related stuff especially chocolate!). My kids knew where and how Jesus fit into our religion and also into Christianity. We also celebrated our own religious “holidays”.

Honestly? I do think you’re being a bit intolerant and inflexible, as well as “othering” your DS to some extent. Let him go and see what it’s all about. He’s been at the school for 3 months. You’ve had him for 4 years!

If brainwashing was so easy, don’t you think all children would go to bed, keep their bedrooms clean and brush their teeth properly?

Were you unreasonable?
Yes, as it's a Church school.

Why on earth send your child to a Church school if you don't hold that faith?
Just use a non~ religious school.

I was thinking that too. They never did any wafer stuff and my kids C of E school.