Debate: Do children’s liturgies encourage rowdy behaviour?

I don't think they encourage rowdy behaviour, but they are part of the problem. First, I worry that they aren't always valid – a priest is allowed, at a children's Mass, leave out large chunks of the Canon and, from what I recall, the Creed.

A 'children's Mass' seems to me to do the opposite of acclimatising children to the 'adult' Mass. It creates the illusion that Mass is a time for fun, rather than a solemn occasion, I think. And as such, children taken to an 'adult' Mass expect something which deliberately holds their attention.

I'm afraid the only way to get children to behave when going to Mass is by taking them early, taking them often, and ensuring that they understand what is going on.

The habit of taking children out for the 'Liturgy of the Faithful', while of ancient provenance, also I believe is bad for a child's behaviour when they are finally allowed to come to the Mass in full. I am deeply dubious about the catechetical value of drawing a picture of the good samaritan, and remember from my own childhood hating being taken out for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

I'm afraid it requires a fairly traditional mixture of good discipline parental watchfulness, parents explaining what the Mass is about, good catechesis, and regular exposure.

I'm sorry, Traditional Rite Mass is the solution? Perhaps, if you also restore the kind of parenting and corporal punishments used back in the day.

I have gone to Byzantine rite masses which are highly reverent and I am sorry to say that not even the adults were quiet and well behaved throughout- because as beautiful as the incense, the smells and the bells are, not even the adults get it.

Children today grow up in front of the TV so they need stimulation and considering that some parishes barely keep their 80yr olds awake there should be no wonder that the kids get bored.

I find that the most important thing is to keep families and children INSIDE the church. Not in a play room, not behind sound proof walls.

We are extremely blessed to have the best children”s liturgy in the world at out Byzantine Catholic parish (the Creed is not left out btw!) Yes there are some parents who bring their kids just for the show- the parents are the show- but the amazing thing is that every single liturgy is packed, you have about 30 children sitting together at the front and about 20 more in the choir and the parents sit with those who are too young or in the pews, on their own, actually participating in the Mass rather than running around and stuffing cheerios in their childrens' mouths.

It is incredible to see how much better behaved children are when they have to sit among strangers (even if it's other children) and they are being watched by others (there are always 2 ladies at the front guiding them into prayers, sitting, standing and kneeling).

I am amazed to see what incredible things can be done in a parish for a family and I am very saddened to think that others do not see the necessity of Children's mass, done properly!

Very seldom do we have the chance here in Finland to attend a traditional Mass, but certainly our VERY lively daughters, 9 and 5, do behave better when the celebration of Mass is respectful of the Mystery, when music, action and prayer are all oriented towards God.

A prayerful, holy celebration interests the children even by the wordless beauty if offers, by the atmosphere of mystery, sacredness, and “totality” it brings about.

On the other hand, attending once a wedding where at one point guitars were played, our daughters, then maybe 6 and 2, started spontaneously dancing in the church. Well, not a good sign.

Anyway, I would just say that our experience is that children do not need to understand everything but rather be immersed into something bigger than their imagination. With little catechesis and patience during Mass that is possible to achieve.

Let the Mass remain (or become again) the last peaceful and meaningful refuge to people tormented by haste and superficiality. Let us teach our children to esteem a Holy Mass worthy of the name Holy. A children's liturgy is not what the children need.

In my church we've tried to involve the children in the mass as much as possible. After the children's liturgy they help take up the offetory gifts to the sanctuary, also we have formed a small children's choir that sometimes sings worship songs during or just after the mass. In my opinion if the children feel part of the worship and liturgy and that they are there to take part instead of just be quiet for an hour or so, they are far more likely to want to come and far less likely to misbehave.

“worship songs”? are you trying to raise little Tabletistas?

re the statement
“I don't think they encourage rowdy behaviour, but they are part of the problem. First, I worry that they aren't always valid – a priest is allowed, at a children's Mass, leave out large chunks of the Canon and, from what I recall, the Creed.”
Since when has the liturgy been like something in a science lab? It saddens me to read statements that suggeast some Catholics see liturgical worship in such a narrow way – so far removed from the directness and “down to earth” approach of Jesus of Nazareth – but then I sometimes wonder whether some groups in the Catholic Church are more interested in the letter of the law than in what He had to say.

Children's liturgy should be abolished – faith and its practice are handed on mimetically (we imitate those we choose as our models). To send children out of mass is to deliberately fail to hand on (to transmit) the fullness of the faith and its practice. Children's liturgy is therefore a stumbling block, and we know what Jesus said about those.

Parents whose children lack the maturity to practice their faith by worshipful prayer are in urgent need of 'churching', a painful and truly self-giving act on the part of the parents to hand on their Faith to their children as though it was a matter of life and death, which in fact it is!

Like learning to overcome distractions in prayer we must as parents make a concerted effort to teach our children to pray. If our home life is drenched in noisy media and distracted-ness then the task is truly onerous, since children only behave in the way that they are taught to behave, so how can they suddenly become prayerful when this aspect is not taken seriously at home.

Parents too must be mindful of others – if their child's behaviour is actively distracting from the prayerfulness of the mass then they must be removed at once as a sign of solidarity with the rest of the Faithful.

This to-ing and fro-ing, together with careful teaching and particular emphasis on imitation of how and why to pray, are a real pilgrimage, which if taken seriously and patiently, yield results. To be laissez-faire or 'not bothered' if your children are destroying what little sense of prayerful and recollected worship there is in your parish is an disgraceful act of selfishness as well as neglect. The pain of a parent having to miss much of mass is a sacrifice seen by God, and you are still participating fully in his praise, and you will be rewarded. The Devil though may use this opportunity to try to tempt you to despair, or give up, but the fact is, that you must keep turning to God and giving your child this example as though nothing else matters (e.g. to take your child out of mass only to start engaging in chat with others is not what its about – your child needs your attempts at catechisis, no matter how unproductive they seem at that moment).

Really, handing the Faith on to your children is a matter of life and death – if you take it seriously you will do it through love and patience. To hand this important parental responsibility to busy bodies who mean well but are usually part of the problem, in a totally unrelated and even contradictory parallel 'service', is a massive problem for the Church, a church rapidly forgetting how to hand on anything to the Faithful. Children's liturgy divides us from our parental responsibilities, which is to hand on the Faith, not to 'play school'.

And if your children are 'bored', and are need endless 'distraction', then I'm afraid you too are part of the problem and you are failing to bring your children up in the Faith properly. Its not rocket science.

How is it made easier? Three things to hand on a Faith as though it was the only thing that mattered:

1. Sell your TV and buy good books to read to your children, including the Bible
2. Prayer together as a family every day
3. (most radical and I'm afraid most important) Take your children out of school and teach them yourself everything you know, and learn together everything you don't know – the system of schooling (which pretends to be 'education' but is no such thing) is a true stumbling block to truth, knowledge, understanding, beauty and goodness.

Some children need to be 'churched' for longer than others but it is a pilgrimage of Faith, and if you are lucky enough to have a large family, once you've set the pattern for the first one or two, it becomes perfectly natural for any others who come along to know what it means to be recollected in prayerful worship with their Maker.

We have truly forgotten what it means to 'hand on', we are too scared to stop 'distracting ourselves to death', and we are too intent on (for want of a better word) the 'schoolification' of everything – religion can't be handed on in that dumbed down patronising sort of way. God is real, so is your life – handing on your faith is the only thing that matters.

P.S. Oh yes and if the standard of mass is poor because of dumbed down 'priests and people' going through the motions, with hideous hymns and weak ritual, then you have a right to plead that it gets better. If you are rejected then you have at least tried to bear witness to the truth, and you have refused to become a stumbling block to others. If you have mass in the Extraordinary Form then your task is easy. If its the new form of mass, unless you are extremely lucky to have a prayerful priest and humble prayerful liturgy, then 'churching' your child is a lot harder.

Mac, the point of Mass is the Liturgy of The Eucharist, at the centre of which is the (what should be) reverential and deeply felt sacrifice that is its heart. Everything before (introductory rites, penitential rites, Gloria, Liturgy of the Word, homily, Profession of Faith, prayers of the faithful) is preparing for this. If one does not witness and experience these rites, then the cumulative spiritual significance of the rituals of the Eucharistic Prayer, Consecration and Holy Communion (all of which, in the Catholic faith, are more than merely performances of “Lord's Supper” re-enactments) is diminished. Sadly, it is at such a reduced level that many of today's parents themselves understand the Mass, so it is hardly surprising that they see no harm in the disruptions and disturbances that so-called “children's liturgy” brings to the religious experience of Mass for their children, let alone for the rest of the faithful. Unfortunately, the influence of our recent era's consumerist-norm of preoccupation with child-centered (self-) indulgence has not helped, further enabling misguided ignorance of the meaning of ritual to displace the reverential, communal, Christ-centered practice which nurtured the faithful for two thousand years. It is easier to be dismissive of good practice (and to abandon faith) when one is ignorant of what it is for.

Sorry for coming late to the party (this article is 18 months old now) but we recently moved to a diocese where the children’s liturgy seems to be at every parish. It’s always at the “main” Mass – middle of the morning, most convenient and most attended. We attend either the earlier or later Mass to avoid the disruption.

We’re not insensitive to the needs of parents – we have six children of our own, from age 11 down to six months old! We don’t bring toys or books to Mass.  My wife usually holds the youngest baby, and I usually handle the next-youngest toddler.  The closest thing they get to a toy is occasionally exploring with the miraculous medal I wear around my neck.

Ironically, I’ve noticed it isn’t the larger families that have trouble keeping their children reverent at Mass.  And certainly there are a lot of smaller families that do just as well.  Heck, *we* were a smaller family once! But in my experience, it’s not the “frazzled parents of four” struggling to quiet their unruly crew.  It’s the indifferent parents of one or two children who sit them in the pew with books and toys, then more or less ignore them for the next hour.

I think children benefit from being in a larger family naturally – they have to learn to share and compromise with TV, video games, and toys. And there are often less of these things because there’s less disposable income.  But families of any size can make it clear that Mass is sacred, and there are consequences for misbehaving.  We have our bad days, but only once or twice a year do I have to actually take a child out of the sanctuary to avoid disruption.

All this to say, in my experience almost all children are perfectly capable of participating fully in the Mass, and learning the significance of the various parts as they grow. I think anything less is condescending, and a great disservice to their spiritual life.

It saddens me that i am reading very negative comments about children’s liturgy and its place within worship. I am a mum of two young girls ages 3 and 6 and I am involved in providing liturgy. Has any of you been to a childrens liturgy within your church? In ours yes the children often have a time to talk, maybe do an activity but they also have time were they are quite and learn about God with reverance, at their level of understanding! They are able to talk about Jesus’ life and his teaches within their own peer groups and learn to follow Gods path. The catholic schools do not undertake the teachings like they used to within school when I was young, so where are our youngsters and our parishes futures going to really learn and understand the word of God if their is no liturgy. Also as a mum i am able to have my own time to listen properly to the Gospels and readings as well as listen to the Homily without interuption or concern that my children may be making too much noise or doing something they shouldnt be when they go to children’s liturgy. I know that they are having a time of great learning themselves in a way that subtly enhances and strengthens their faith and mine.