Disruptive children in church
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
This. Paper and crayons are fine and kids need to be taught to sit quietly. Parents need to parent. |
Anonymous
OP again. I love how eloquently you stated this. I promise that I don't get annoyed every time a child makes a sound...it is frustrating when the parents don't appear to try to teach their children to behave in church. I think it is a two-way street...we adults need to be tolerant of bored children, and children need to be taught to not disrupt people who are trying to listen. I will look into earlier services. I am a bit limited by when churches offer services in English. Otherwise I am completely lost because I'm still learning Dutch. |
Anonymous
|
Also, I might be disproportionately frustrated because finding a church home is really important to me whenever I move somewhere new. And now in a new place where I don't speak the language well yet, it is even harder to fit in and make new friends. So I think I have been putting extra pressure on myself to find a good fit, where I look forward to going to service on Sundays and becoming involved. Perhaps I've been blowing all this out of proportion in my head a bit.
Thank you to all for helping me think through this. I truly appreciate it! |
Anonymous
|
I'm afraid I can't relate. Our church, when they had enough priests, actually had a dedicated Family Mass in the chapel on Sundays. Kids were included in the service (doing readings, bringing up gifts), homilies were at a level that kids might understand, and it was over all less formal.
Even after that faded out because there was no longer enough priests to cover it and the regular Masses simultaneously, the priests were always very welcoming of even boisterious young families in regular Mass (Jesus said Let the little children come to me, etc). Also, the church was built in the late 1800s, so a cry room simply wasn't a thing at that time. I don't know where you are overseas, but if it's somewhere in Europe, the churches might be pretty old. Anyways, I think some of the suggestions here make sense. Maybe try out Vespers, or a the early services on a weekday that mostly retirees go to. |
Anonymous
|
Luke 9:48
“Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.” |
Anonymous
Jesus would kick the kids out for being too loud of course! /s This post is awful. Jesus literally said let the children come to me. No qualifiers on whether they need to be quiet in church to do so. Sheesh. |
Anonymous
+1 If the church wants you to have 'em, they had better welcome 'em! |
Anonymous
Thank you. So many parents are indulgent and entitled now. |
Anonymous
Agreed. I remember when an older man told me that my 4 year old was disruptive for quietly asking me what was going on in the church service - he told me kids were not welcome . I told him that I was pretty sure that God wanted me to bring my children to church, and he actually said - no, that's not true. Sure turned me off of the church, that's for sure. |
Anonymous
| This is very typical for Muslims! I find it frustrating but it's just the way it is. It's actually really cute seeing the children pray with their parents. Maybe this is why Muslims are so close knit! |
Anonymous
There is a young man with special needs at our church who is largely nonverbal, but who does sometimes holler out during services. No one seems disturbed by this, and we are happy to have him and his mom present and taking part. To me, there is a big difference between a special needs person who is doing their best but may sometimes make noise, and children whose parents are inattentive and/or allow them to disrupt because they are not actively parenting them. We have VERY few kids disrupt during services, and there is no crying room. Parents will often step out to the vestibule or outside with a persistently crying baby or a child who is unable to behave properly. I spent many services sitting on the steps outside when my child was small "having a moment" and could not settle down - we went back in once we were able to do so without disturbing others. Children should feel welcome at church, and parents should do what they can to ensure that it is an environment where everyone can participate with minimal disruption. |
Anonymous
There is more to this story. Perhaps your family contributes financially a lot. If you were a single parent or an unmarried mother getting by on little, then you would likely be counseled out |
Anonymous
|
OP, almost all of the Catholic parishes have cry rooms within the sanctuary.
But even with the cry rooms, children, and all that comes with them, are always welcome in the sanctuary itself. I think you need to separate normal, expected noises that happen with young children, and things like kids running and wrestling through the communion lines while their parents ignore the behavior. That kind of thing might very well be parish specific. I am asian, and from my experience, first generation and recent immigrant asian families are often much .ore permissive as to what they see as acceptable behavior from young, pre school aged kids. Many let them behave in a more "natural" way (ie wild) and don't start imposing rules and structure until school age. Are you at a church with a large asian immigrant community? If so, a different church might yield a quieter sanctuary.for you. |
Anonymous
We attend a church with tons of kids, who mostly behave. The exceptions are Easter and Christmas when a lot of people come home for the holidays. One year, I sat behind a regular older couple whose children and grandkids filled a pew. On the end was one of their millennial aged daughters with a preschool aged son. The kid kept slipping out of the pew to play with a sign, including swinging on it. Mom just smiled, laughed and encouraged him. When someone sent him back to the pew, mom whipped out her phone, sent him back out again and started filming 8t while she laughed and smiled at him. Finally, grandpa stepped out of the middle of the pew, picked up the kid, and carried him back to hold him on his lap the rest of the service. Surprisingly, the child behaved like most kids his age for the remaining 30 minutes (some movement and noise, but not anything like mom was allowing). There is a difference between normal, toddler or preschool behavior (crying, asking perpetual questions, crying, etc) and things like kids wrestling in the Communion line or this kid whose mom was encouraging the bad behavior so she could post it to facebook. One is children being children, and we should be welcoming to that happening because it means families are at church with us and the church is growing. The other is poor parenting and is frustrating and disruptive. |
Anonymous
No one is ever "counseled out" of church. Where do you get these things? Church is not a 30K per year private school, which is the only time that term is ever used. |