When Molly was 2, we left our local parish in disgust and began traveling an hour away to attend Tridentine Masses. Solemn High Masses. Masses that lasted not just one hour, but longer. If you were to arrive there one Sunday morning, in the middle of Mass, you would enter the vestibule and see a line of chairs across the back wall. You would see some mothers walking their babies and feeding them. And in all probability, you would notice that in many of the chairs were sitting preschoolers. If you stood there for a little while, you would watch one or two of the preschoolers get up and try to walk around, only to be guided back to the chair by his mother. You might watch that over and over again. Then you'd watch as a child who had sat quietly for five minutes or so was given a great big hug from his mother and led back into Mass.

At that parish, it was inconceivable that children would be put in a nursery or some such place. Children belong in Mass. But disruptive, loud, noisy children do not. It was understood that it was a parent's responsibility to teach their children how to behave in the sacred and holy place we call church. If one didn't understand how to do that when he first arrived at that parish, he learned very quickly by the examples of the many many many very large families who made up that parish. Inside Mass, children had missals to look at, holy cards to look at, prayer books and rosaries and Bibles. Inside Mass, there were the most beautiful and magnificent stained glass windows to look at, statues and incense and bells (bells and smells!). There was the most glorious music to listen to. If one sat quietly, all those things were there to feast upon. But if he acted up, he was immediately removed and taken to the vestibule and allowed to sit on a plain chair in a boring humdrum foyer and have nothing to look at or examine. It was a technique that worked on all sorts of children of all sorts of ages and temperaments. I don't know very many children who would prefer sitting in one of those chairs (a kind of timeout) to sitting in Mass.

(It never surprises me how much children act up at English Masses. The usual parental reaction, if there is one, is to take them out and let them run all over. "Get their energy out," they say. What child wouldn't prefer that?! It's like offering an incentive to act up.)

Children learn most and best the same way adults do: by repetition, by consistency, and by positive rewards.

Children for whom Mass is not culture shock because mom and dad make sure there are consistently quiet times at home, prayer times at home, times set aside for God at home - and children who are given positive incentives for acting properly in Mass - I don't think those children have it so hard in Mass.

As Molly grew older, she earned many positive rewards for her good behavior. When she learned to say the Hail Mary, she received a beautiful little statue of Mary for her dresser. When she learned to say a decade of the Rosary, her plastic rosary was replaced with one that had a metal crucifix and blue glass Our Father beads. When she learns the Fifteen Mysteries, she will receive a "real" rosary. When she behaves well in Mass, she is allowed to light candles after Mass for Granma and Granpa. (She loves lighting the candles!) When she learned to kneel and stand and say the right responses in all the right places, she received her first missal. She loves earning Treasure Box books and holy cards and other such things! And not only does she love earning such things, she has come to see them as great gifts and special treasures, not things forced and imposed upon her.

I wouldn't propose to argue that such methods would work with all children and all families. I don't have a large family and can't speak to the dynamics of having multiple children.

Barbara