Advice needed about RC children's service..

[LoveAngelGabriel]

I was wondering if anyone could advise on would be the right thing to do in this situation.

My (RC) church has a children's service on Sunday mornings. After the beginning of the service, parents are invited to take their children next door to the church hall for a children's liturgy. The liturgy is run by church volunteers and involves the children sitting on the floor and listening to a story from the bible, then some of the children are chosen to come up 'on stage' and act the story out (this all lasts for about 30 mins), then there is an activity, which is usually drawing or making something. The group is big (about 40 kids) and the age range of children is wide - from babies up to about 12.

Now, my son (3 in Feb) does NOT enjoy this at all. He finds it impossible to sit still and is noisy and whiny throughout the whole thing. The main volunteer who runs the children's liturgy (who is the headmistress from the school across the road), doesn't have any patience for rowdy toddlers and will say quite loudly in front of everyone things like 'If he can't be quiet he will have to leave' etc. On two occasions we have had to go, and never has my son attended when he hasn't disrupted the morning and ended up running around or crying - he just doesn't seem capable of taking part in this type of activity at his age.

My dilemma is this. We are new to the area and to this church and we're trying to 'fit in', make friends and get on to the priest's radar (the situation with getting into RC schools in the area is terrible, and the priest's reference is very important..). I cannot bear these stressful Sunday mornings anymore, but is it acceptable not to attend church as a family on Sundays? I don't know if it would be acceptable for me and my husband to attend different masses individually while the other one looked after our son at home , rather than go through this rigmarole every week? Some of my friends say 'he will get used to it, it's good for him, just keep ploughing on etc', but his nursery teacher (he is settling into new a nursery and having a tough time of it) thinks he is 'just too young and boisterous and not ready yet' and that by forcing him into situations where he is supposed to be quiet and 'good' I am just creating heartache for both us (I'm inclined to agree with this). What's your experience? What would you do? I'm sorry of this all sounds silly!

If your son's not enjoying it, I wouldn't force it. The age range is crazy. It's clearly not aimed at his age group.

I would start by speaking to the priest, see what he suggests, but for the moment, I think attending different masses is your best bet. Give your son a chance to settle at nursery before you put him in a similar environment.

I'm having similar problems with DS, who is 6 (but has Asperger's). He at least is starting to settle now IN Sunday school, but plays up in church up to the point they go out (after the absolution) and when they come back (at communion).

You could try keeping him with you throughout mass with heaps of bribes / distractions or go seperately.

We all reach this stage but it does pass!

In my church the children don't go into liturgy until they are about 5. I keep my dcs with me in mass (not easy) or leave them at home with dh (heathen). Do any of the other parents stay in mass with dcs? At mine lots of babies/toddlers seem to end up in the foyer where they can play.

personally i would just go without him. I've never been keen on seeing unwilling children at mass. saw a video once (church thing) where they said a child was only capable of sitting still for one minute for every year of their life!

i am RC too, dd's (3.5 and 2) won't go to the children's liturgy which to me just seems like a little prayer and some colouring in, coming back into the mass at the Offertory.

We just stay in the main mass - they generally sit still for long enough if we have enough colouring books, a drink etc to distract them.

age 3 is way too young to expect him to join that kind of liturgy from the sounds of it (and the headmistress sounds terrible btw, are you sure you want to go to that school?)

Not Catholic, but at our church we have a lot of children on Sundays - up to about 150 in any given week. We are organised into various age-groups, with breakouts into individual yeargroups.

Perhaps your church is struggling to get enough volunteers to satisfy their child protection policy? Our diocesan policy is to have at least 2 CRB-checked adults, male and female, in each room. It is very hard to fulfil this even in a large church.

The solution is to volunteer to help

I'm ex-RC and I think separate arrangements for children in Catholic services are quite recent. We just all played under my father's feet! I remember being very envious of other children whose parents let them bring Star Wars action figures (we had Bible stories only!). I'm not sure how my father managed at all, as there were four of us and he was on his own with very little experience of otherwise spending much time with us as children (my mother is Anglican, but had to agree to us being brought up as Catholics in order to marry my father). One of the things I've always liked about RC services is the children running all over the place and screaming without people tutting about it, but maybe things have changed. Why don't you try keeping him with you for a service and seeing how it goes, and if that doesn't work coming to different services for a while. 3 is very little to expect a child to be quiet.

Is there another room that you could use for the littlies??? Maybe set up more like a playgroup with action songs, painting, dancing with ribbons/streamers/homemade instruments, also some simple fun circle games!

IMO Church should be fun for tinies otherwise they will never learn to associate it with being a happy place.

I would go and see the Priest and volunteer to help something up.

Good luck!

My 6 year old goes to the children's liturgy group, my 3 year old stays with me in the 'family' section (ie the bit where nobody tuts if you make a bit of a noise).